Pretty Polly- Mrs. J. Church (NC) 1939 Brown 4E1
[From The Brown Collection of NC Folklore IV, 1956, music of the ballads. This is a short opening stanza with music, score is upcoming.
R. Matteson 2016]
64. The Gosport Tragedy
Of the many ballads sung in America about the man who murders his sweetheart, sometimes from jealousy but more often because, having got her with child, he wants to be rid of her — 'Florella,' 'Oma Wise,' 'Pearl Bryan,' 'Leo Frank and Mary Fagan,' etc. — two go back definitely to English broadsides : 'The Gosport Tragedy' ('Pretty Polly,' 'The Cruel Ship's Carpenter') and 'The Wexford Girl' ('The Oxford Girl,' 'The Lexington Girl,' 'The Wittam Miller,' 'The Berkshire Tragedy'). Much alike in plot and sometimes fading into one another, they may conveniently be distinguished by certain items in the story. In 'The Gosport Tragedy' the killer tells his victim that he has been digging her grave all the night before; in 'The Wexford Girl' he explains the blood on his clothes by saying that it was 'bleeding at the nose.' These items mark the respective original broadsides and can be traced through most if not all the later traditional versions.
The earliest known form of 'The Gosport Tragedy' is a "garland" in the Roxburghe collection (Roxb. Ballads viii 143-4, 173-4), dated by Ebsworth "circa 1750." In modern times it has been reported from tradition in Sussex (JFSS i 172-3), Nova Scotia (BSSNS 96-8), Virginia (SharpK i 326-7, SCSM 131-4), West Virginia (FSS 308-10), Kentucky (JAFL xx 261-4, where Kittredge points out in a note that the Harvard Library has copies of both the original garland and later English broadsides, JAFL xiii 276-8, LT 79-81, BKH 69-70, SharpK i 319-20, 321-5, FSSH 229-30, 222; it is listed also in Shearin's syllabus), Tennessee (ETWVMB 74-5. SharpK i 318-19, BTFLS iii 85), North Carolina (SharpK I 317, 320-1. 327, SCSM 128-31, SSSA 53-4, JAFL xiv 134-5). Georgia (JAFL xiiv 107-8, FSSH 231-2), Florida (FSF 341-2), Missouri (OFS 11 112-14), and Indiana (BSI 298-9). It is perhaps worth remarking that with the exception of Mackenzie's Nova Scotia text it does not appear in the Northeast.
There is an excellent recording of a Virginia version of 'The Gosport Tragedy,' under the title 'Pretty Polly,' in the Library of Congress. Music Division, Archive of American Folk Song (Folk Music of the United States, Album I), which, according to Alan Lomax, illustrates unconscious editing of the English broadside by the American folk. "The product of this process of folk editing — Pretty Polly — is The American Tragedy in six brilliant stanzas (the same subject that occupies a ponderous volume in Theodore Dreiser's work of that name)."
E(1) 'Pretty Polly.' Sung by Mrs. J. Church. Recorded at Heaton, Avery county, August 10, 1939. This text is very closely related to that of SharpK I 321 and 325, No. 49 F and N; cf. also MSHF 3, No. 1.
[music upcoming]
For melodic relationship cf. **SCSM 397, version E, melodic line; SharpK I 324, No. 49L, measures 1-4, melodic progression only. Since the tune of this version is in % and that of the former in %, the rhythmic shift produces an entirely different melody despite the tonal material.
Scale: Mode III, plagal. Tonal Center: g. Structure: aba1b1ab (2,2,2.2,2,2) = aa1a (4,4,4)
1. "Oh Polly, pretty Polly, come go with me,
Pretty Polly, pretty Polly, come go with me,
And efore we get married, some pleasure to see.