Rambling Rowdy Boy- Rena Hicks (NC) 1933 Henry F
[Abbreviated title. From: Songs Sung in the Southern Appalachians, by Mellinger Henry, London c.1934. Taken from Rena Hicks, the wife of dulcimer maker Nathan Hicks and the niece of Buna Hicks, who also had a family version, "Rude and Rambling Boy" which Buna learned from her husband's (Roby Monroe Hicks) mother (Rebecca Harmon). It's easy to see how the ballad could come down through different relatives from Council Harmon to his daughter Rebecca and from there to her extended family- her son Ben was Nathan's father and Roby's brother.
This is a version the "Cruel Father" broadside (my B version) which has the 'rambling boy' opening. After the cruel father discovers his daughter is in love with the "wild and roving lad" the father presses him to sea, where the lad is killed by a cannonball. His ghost haunts the father that night and later his daughter hangs herself leaving a note that blames her father. It ends with the "Died for Love" stanza.
This is an archaic version and is worn through time. The second half of the first stanza is a distortion of "Nelly's Constancy" a broadside of 1686 which has several stanzas similar to those found in "Butcher Boy" and other Died For Love songs.
This is a different ballad with a different plot than the fundamental Died for Love songs and is included- so noted.
R. Matteson 2017]
I Am a Rambling Rowdy Boy- sung by Rena Hicks of Beech Mountain, NC collected in December, 1933 by Mellinger Henry.
I am a rambling rowdy boy,
A rambling still I be;
I give this world, [I am but sure][1]
If that she knowed I loved her so.
Her old father caused this to know,
That he loved his daughter so,
He carried her away.
He[2] swore against them all
That he[2] would use his cannonball,
He[2] came home so late at night
A-grieving for his heart's delight.
Upstairs he run, the door he broke,
And he found her hung there by her own bed rope—
Out with his knife, he cut her down,
And in her bosom a letter he found:
Go dig my grave, both deep and wide;
Bury Sweet William by my side,
While friends and relative a-weeping around.
While there she lay beneath the ground,
There came a turtle dove,
To show the world
That she died for love.
1. Added from her sister-in-law's version
2. Originally "she", corrected from her sister-in-law's version