Pretty Maid- Knapp (OH) pre1939 Eddy E
[My title. From Ballads and Songs from Ohio, 1939 Eddy, version E. This version was sung by the informant grandmother and may be much older- but no earlier date ca nsafely be guessed.
Stanza 5 relates to Child F which is the oldest known ballad dating back to the mid to early 1700s. There is a stanza missing before and after stanza 5. The ending is incomplete.
R. Matteson 2014]
E. [Pretty Maid] From Mrs. G. M. Knapp, Ashland, Ohio, contributed by her grandson, Rex McDowell.
1. He courted her many a long winter night
And many a summer day;
He courted her both early and late
To take her sweet life away.
2. "Get some of your father's gold,
Get some of your mother's fees,
And away to some foreign country we'll go,
And married we will be."
3. She got some of her father's gold,
Some of her mother's fees,
And away to the stable she did go
Where the horses were forty and three.
4. She mounted on a milk-white steed,
He led an iron gray,
. . .
. . .
5. "Take away that thistle that tangles with the nettle
That grows by the river stream,
That it may not entangle with my curly, curly locks,
Or with my milk-white steed."
6. "Swim, oh, swim, you false young man,
Since you-have earned your doom.
I think your clothing none too good
To lie in a watery tomb."
7. "Where have you been, my fair and pretty maid,
This long and dreary night?
The old tom cat has been up at my cage
To steal away my sweet life."
8. "Hush, oh, hush, my pretty polly,
And tell not tales of me;
Your cage shall be made of silver and gold
And gates of ivory.