Pretty Polly Anne- Hart (VA) 1921 Davis I
[My title, replacing the generic title supplied by Stone; from Davis, Traditional Ballads of Virginia; 1929. His notes follow. Measures six and twelve are irregular and should probably be split into an incomplete measure and another complete measure.
R. Matteson 2014]
LADY ISABEL AND THE ELF-KNIGHT
(CHILD, NO.4)
THIS ballad is one of the few most frequently found in Virginia, where variously known as "Pretty Polly," "The Seven King's Daughters," "King's Daughter," "The Pretty Gold Leaf," "The Salt Water Sea," "Miss Mary's Parrot," and under several other titles. Its polyonymity is almost equal to its ubiquity - twenty-eight variants under sixteen different titles. In Virginia it does not, however, when compared with" Barbara Allen," "The House Carpenter" and several others quite live up to its reputation of having obtained the widest circulation of all ballads. Child's remarkable introduction to this ballad discusses at some length its extraordinary currency in the southern as well as the northern nations of Europe. Space is also given to a consideration of the hypothesis that the ballad is a wild shoot from the story of Judith and Holofernes, with Holofernes the original of the Elf-Knight. Child concludes; "It is a supposition attended with less difficulty that an independent European tradition existed of a half-human, half-demonic being, who possessed an irresistible power of decoying away young maids, and was wont to kill them after he got them into his hands, but who at last found one who was more than his match, and lost his own life through her craft and courage. A modification of this story is afforded by the large class of Bluebeard tales."
All the Virginia texts correspond much more closely with the Child series C-G (and Sargent and Kittredge H) than to A and B. Warning might perhaps be given of the confusion of Pollies in most of the Virginia texts. The girl and the parrot have the same name and are not always immediately distinguishable.
For American findings of this ballad see Barry, No. 4; Belden, No. 1 (fragment); Brown, p. 9 (North Carolina); Bulletin, Nos. 2-4, 6-12; Campbell and Sharp, No. 2 (Massachusetts, North Carolina, Kentucky, Georgia); Child, III, 496 (Virginia, from The Folk-Lore Journal, VII, p. 28); Cox, No. I and p. 521 (fragment and melody); Hudson, No. I (Mississippi); Jones, p. 301 (fragment); Journal, XVIII, 132 (Barry, Massachusetts, text and melody); XIX, 232 (Belden, Missouri); XXII, 65 (Beatty, Wisconsin), 76 (Barry, New Jersey, melody only), 374 (Barry, Massachusetts, text and melody, Missouri), 344 (Barry, Massachusetts); XXVII, 90 (Gardner, Michigan); XXVIII, 148 (Perrow, North Carolina); XXXV, 338 (Tolman and Eddy, Ohio); Mackenzie, Ballads, No. I, and p. 391 (melody); Sandburg, P: 60 (R. W. Gordon Collection); Scarborough, p. 43 (Texas, text and melody); Shearin, p. 3; Shearin and Combs, p. 7; Reed Smith, No. I; Reed Smith, Ballads, No. I; Wyman and Brockway, p. 82. For additional references, see Cox, p. 3; Journal, XXIX.
I. ["Pretty Polly Anne."] "Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight" Collected by Mr. John Stone. Sung by Mr. George Hart, of Konnarock, Va. Washington County. November 8, 1921.
1 " Go bring to me your father's gold,
And a Part of Your mother's fee,
And we'll travel on to the new course of land,
And marry before it is day.''
2 She brought to him her father's-gold,
And a part of her mother's fee;
And they traveled the length of a long summer day
Down to the solemn sea.
3 "Light you down, light you down, my pretty Polly Anne,
Light you down, light you-down," said he,
"I drowned six of the king's daughters here,
And the seventh one you shall be.
4 "Pull off, pull off the finest of your clothes,
And fold them on my knee;
F or it cost too much of your father's gold
For to rot in th€e sand of the sea."
S "Never have I stripped before my parents;
No, never will I strip before thee;
But turn yourself around and about,
And. your eyes upon the leaves of the tree."
6 She spanned him around by the small of the waist,
And she tossed him into the sea.
"Lie there, lie there, you false young man,
Lie there in the place of me;
You drowned six of-the king's daughters here
Now the seventh one You shall be.''
7 "Lend me your hand," Pretty Polly Anne,
"Lend me Your hand," said he,
"And all of those tales that I've ever told you,
I'll double them thirty times three."
8. "Lie there, lie there, you hard-hearted whelp,
Lie there in the place of me.
You drowned six of the king's daughters here;
Go keep them company."
9. "Lend me your hand, my pretty Polly Anne,
Lend me your hand," said he,
"And all of those tales that I've ever told you,
I'll double them thirty times three."
10 "Lie there, lie there, you false young man,
Lie there in the place of me.
For it's a scandal and a shame for a man like you
To drown a lady like me."
11 She mounted on the milk-white steed,
And her hand on an iron gray,
And she rode home to her father's hall
Three long hours before it was day.
12 "O where have you been, my pretty Polly Anne,
O where have you been?" says he.
"Hush up, hush up, my pretty parrot,
And tell no tales on me,
And I'll build you a castle out of yellow gold bead,
And I'll swing it to the willow tree."