Recordings & Info 14. Babylon- The Bonnie Banks o Fordie
CONTENTS
1) Alternative Titles
2) Traditional Ballad Index
3) Folk Index
4) Child Collection Index
5) Excerpt from The British Traditional Ballad in North America by Tristram Coffin 1950, from the section A Critical Biographical Study of the Traditional Ballads of North America
8) Wiki
9) Mainly Norfolk (lyrics and info)
10) FolkTrax
ATTACHED PAGES: (see left hand column)
1) Roud Number 27: Babylon, or, The Bonnie Banks o Fordie (67 Listings)
Alternative Titles
Bonny Farday
The Rocky Banks of the Buffalo
Baby Lon
Hecky-Hi Si-Bernio
The Bonny Banks of Fordie
The Banished Man
The Duke of Perth's Three Daughters
The Bonny Banks of Virgie-O
The Bonny Banks of Airdrie-O
The Burly, Burly Banks of Barbree-O
Arrat, an Marrat, an Fair Mazrie
The Bonnie Banks o' Airdrie
Three Young Ladies
Traditional Ballad Index: Babylon, or, The Bonnie Banks o Fordie [Child 14]
DESCRIPTION: An outlaw accosts (three) sisters, demanding that one of them marry him on pain of death. As all refuse, he kills all but the youngest. She accidentally learns that he is their brother. The outlaw usually then kills himself in remorse.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1770s (Herd, according to Opie-Game; the source for 1803 (Scots Magazine))
KEYWORDS: brother sister outlaw crime incest
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland,England) US(NE,SE,So) Canada(Mar,Newf)
REFERENCES (22 citations):
Child 14, "Babylon, or, The Bonnie Banks o Fordie" (6 texts)
Bronson 14, "Babylon, or, The Bonnie Banks o Fordie" (8 versions plus 2 in addenda)
GlenbuchatBallads, pp. 112-115, "Arrat, an Marrat, an Fair Mazrie" (1 text)
GreigDuncan2 199, "The Bonnie Banks o' Airdrie" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
BarryEckstormSmyth p. 72, "Babylon" (1 fragment)
Flanders/Olney, pp. 61-63, "The Burly, Burly Banks of Barbry-O" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #5}
Flanders-Ancient1, pp. 213-222, "Babylon" (4 texts, 3 tunes) {A=Bronson's #8, C=#5}
Davis-More 9, pp. 68-71, "Babylon, or, The Bonnie Banks o Fordie" (1 text)
BrownII 8, "Babylon; or, The Bonnie Banks o Fordie" (1 text)
OBB 57, "Babylon, or, The Bonnie Banks o Fordie" (1 text)
Fowke/Johnston, pp. 18-19, "The Bonny Banks of Virgie O" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #3, but the texts differ noticeably}
Greenleaf/Mansfield 4, "The Bonnie Banks of the Virgie, O" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #4}
Peacock, pp. 809-811, "The Bonny Banks of Ardrie-O" (1 text, 2 tunes)
Karpeles-Newfoundland 3, "Bonny Banks of Virgie-O" (1 text, 4 tunes) {Bronson's #3}
Leach, pp. 88-90, "Babylon, or, The Bonnie Banks o Fordie" (2 texts)
Niles 11, "Babylon; or, The Bonnie Banks o Fordie" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-FSNA 71, "Three Young Ladies" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #3, but with different information about the collector and informant}
MacSeegTrav 6, "Babylon" (1 text, 1 tune)
Opie-Game 60, "Three Sisters" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Gummere, pp. 188-189+344, "Babylon; or The Bonnie Banks o Fordie" (1 text)
HarvClass-EP1, pp. 58-59, "Babylon; or, the Bonnie Banks o Fordie" (1 text)
DT 14, VIRGIBNK* VIRGIBN3* BONFARDY
Roud #27
RECORDINGS:
Joshua Osborne, "The Bonny Banks of Ardrie-O" (on PeacockCDROM) [one verse only]
Ken Peacock, "Bonnie Banks of the Virgie-O" (on NFKPeacock)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Bonnie Hind" [Child 50] (plot)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Bonny Farday
The Rocky Banks of the Buffalo
Baby Lon
NOTES: If one one interested in reproductive biology, there is an amazing amount of information hinted at in this song....
Jolly, p. 94, has an interesting observation regarding incest: she quotes Jared Diamond to the effect that "people seem to choose mates who are almost, but not quite, like themselves. In fact, people like people who look a bit like their parents, right down to earlobe size."
Similarly, Jones, p. 67 (on the basis of "T-shirt experiments," in which women smelled the used clothing of men) notes "a preference by women for partners who smell rather, but not too much, like their own fathers." On p. 191, Jones notes that "sheep have a drive to copulate with someone who looks like their mother [I must admit I'd love to know how *that* experiment was performed!], and to a lesser extent the same is true for men."
But it should be recalled that parents share 50% of their genes with their children, and siblings also share 50% of their genes. Assuming (as is likely) that sexual preference is conditioned genetically rather than by environment (the latter being more or less the Freudian assumption), one's siblings would be the most desirable sexual partners, one's parents being less desirable simply because they are too old.
So why isn't there more incest? Apparently that's hard-wired, too. People have a built-in "aversion" to falling in love with people they grow up with. Presumably this is a semi-instinctive incest taboo: The deep-down emotional assumption seems that these people are siblings or parents or offspring (so Edward Westermarck; cited by Ridley-Red, p. 283, and Ridley-Agile, pp. 171-173).
But Ridley cites another study (Ridley-Red, p. 281), "two siblings reared apart are surprisingly likely to fall in love with each other if they meet at the right age" (cf. Ridley-Agile, p. 173). The reference is to M. Greenberg and R. Littlewood, "Post-adoption incest and phenotypic matching: Experience, personal meanings, and biosocial implications," in the British Journal of Medical Psychology, 68:29-44, 1995.
There does seem to be anecdotal evidence for this; newspaper reports say that Britain in 2008 started to work on laws to make sure adopted children knew about any relatives they had. This was in response to a case of two twins separated in infancy; they met when they grew up, fell in love, and were married before anyone realized they were siblings. Similarly, Jones, p. 133, talks about various laws being considered to deal with the case where the child of sperm donation encounters a half-sibling -- which, in this era when tens of thousands of children are born this way, is likely to be increasingly common in future. But the particular cases cited may be just isolated incidents, not a rule.
And incest stories are not unusual in folklore. Note for instance the many brother/sister matings in the pagan Greek religion, and in other early multi-diety faiths. Or consider the story that King Arthur had a child by his sister (something with no historical basis; as the notes to "King Arthur and King Cornwall" [Child 30] show). This seems to be a subject with deep roots in human psychology.
I have not seen Greenberg and Littlewood to know if Ridley is describing it correctly, let alone to know if the conclusions are justified. But it may be less surprising than it sounds. Evolutionary success consists in conserving one's genes. This means that the evolutionary ideal is to marry someone related at about the first or second cousin level -- close enough to share a lot of genes, not so close as to have a particularly high risk of reinforcing dangerous recessives.
(There does seem to be one side footnote to this, mentioned by Jolly, p. 95, and by Judson, pp. 52-53. They note that there are many variants in the genes of the MHC, or major histocompatibility index -- and that people apparently can tell, by smell, who shares their MHC genes; women don't want to be involved with men who are too close in MHC. But, of course, brother and sister need not share MHC genes -- given the size and complexity of the gene group, they very likely will not -- it's just that the odds are higher than among strangers.)
It is interesting to note that surveys have shown that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but ugliness is not -- that is, almost everyone agrees that certain people are ugly, but not everyone agrees on who is attractive. It is further interesting to note that -- insofar as this has been studied -- we seem to find attractive people who appear to share our own genetic traits. (I can't remember where I read this. The bit about beauty and ugliness came from a very poor newspaper summary of research done at a local college.)
Obviously a sibling is the closest relative we can find within our generation. If siblings are raised separately, they will not feel the raised-together taboo, so the shares-my-genes attraction will produce a tendency to fall in love. At least, that seems the logical implication of the data. And hence songs such as this and "Sheathe and Knife" and "Lizie Wan."
For this to happen, the siblings, it appears, would have to be separated by the age of three; otherwise, the aversion kicks in. But Ridley adds that the aversion seems to be stronger in females. If the brother is older (as seems to be the case, e.g., in "Lizie Wan," and probably in this song), he might have left the household before the girl reached the "aversion threshold."
In that context, it's worth remembering that sons of noble families were often sent away from their homes to be raised and trained in arms. In England, noble siblings were rarely raised together in the Middle Ages. So -- assuming all this hypothesizing is correct -- incestuous love affairs would be much more common among the nobility than the common folk. Indeed, there was a rumor that Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, the fifth son of George III who later became King of Hanover, fathered a child on his sister Sophia; see Sinclair-Stevenson, pp. 123, 128. Sinclair-Stevenson thinks it impossible that Cumberland was actually the father, but it hardly matters if he was; the point is that he could have been. (A *really* dirty part of my mind notes that George III -- like his descendant Nicolas II of Russia -- long forced his daughters of marriageable age to stay at home with him. But George's daughters, at least, managed affairs -- see Sinclair-Stevenson, p. 124).
An even stronger instance of brother-sister incest occurs in the Bible, no less. Very few female members of the Davidide royal family are mentioned in the Bible, and those that are are usually passed over quckly -- except one. 2 Samuel, chapter 13 (one of the chapters that seems to have been written by an immediate witness -- some suspect the priest Abiathar), details the rape of David's daughter Tamar by her half-brother Amnon; the next several chapters are devoted to the dreadful after-effects of that rape.
The Inca royal family was famous for brother-sister marriages -- although this may be somewhat exaggerated. The Incas did not have written records (Mason, p. 111), so their history was preserved in oral tradition -- and that tradition was then transcribed by the Spanish, and in conflicting form (Mason, pp. 113-115). Several early Emperors supposedly married their sisters, but the first one fully historic emperor, Yahuar Huacac, did not do so (Mason, p. 117). It was not until Topa Inca Yupanqui that we have a fully documented case of brother-sister marriage (Mason, p. 129), and he did not die until 1493. Mason says that he established the rule for later emperors -- but there were only three more, according to the list on p. 111 of Mason: Huyana Capac (1493-1525), Huascar (1525-1532), and Atahuallpa (1532-1533). Thus there was probably enough outbreeding in the Inca line to avoid immediate collapse -- especially since the chosen monarch was often not the old emperor's eldest son.
The Habsburg fanily was also known for its incest -- ironic, for an oh-so-Catholic dynasty; they seemed to welcome marriages within the prohibited degrees. To be sure, these were partly marriages of policy. Elliot, p. 272, shows a genealogy of the monarchs of Spain and Portugal. Portugal's Sebastian I (died 1578) was the son of John of Portugal and Juana of Spain. John was the son of John III and Catherine; Juana was the daughter of Charles V and Isabella. John III was the son of Emmanuel of Portugal and Maria daughter of Ferdinant and Isabella of Spain. Catherine was the daughter of Philip I of Habsburg and Juana daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. Charles V was also the daughter of Philip I and Juana, and Isabella his wife was also the daughter of Emmanuel and Maria.
A normal person, not inbred, has eight great-grandparents. Sebastian was so inbred that he had four: Emmanuel was his father's father's father and his mother's mother's father; Philip I was his father's mother's father and his mother's mother's father; Maria was his father's father's mother and his mother's mother's mother, and Juana was his father's mother's mother and his mother's father's mother.
What's more, because Maria and Juana were sisters, instead of the usual 16 great-great-grandparents, Sebastian had only six great-great-grandparents!
This situation would recur a century and a half later with the last Habsburg King of Spain, Carlos II, known as "the Bewitched" because he was so mentally and physically handicapped. He wasn't bewitched; he was inbred. Like Sebastian, he had only four great-grandparents, because his father Philip IV (himself an inbred descendent of Charles V) had married his niece Mariana of Austria (Elliott, p. 357, or see the genealogy on p. 136 of Elliott). The Wikipedia entry on Carlos says that he was more homozygous than the offspring of a brother/sister mating. (That is, there was so much inbreeding in his ancestry that he had more duplicates of particular genes than the children of a brother/sister match.) With Carlos the Bewitched, the Spanish Habsburgs died out, because they had inbred themselves to death.
The ultimate example of incestuous royal families, though, is surely the Ptolemaic Dynasty, which ruled Egypt from the time of Alexander the Great until the Roman conquest. Ptolemy II, late in life, would marry his sister Arsinoe II, and Ptolemy IV took up with his sister Arsinoe III.
And then there are the children of Ptolemy V. The older son, Ptolemy VI Philometer (which means "loving his mother"!), married his sister Cleopatra II; they had a daughter Cleopatra III. The second son of Ptolemy V was Ptolemy VIII Physcon, who in his turn married Cleopatra II and then, while she was still alive, her daughter Cleopatra III. Their children were Ptolemy IX Lathyrus, Cleopatra IV, and Ptolemy X Alexander. Ptolemy Alexander would later marry Cleopatra Berenice, the daughter of Ptolemy Lathyrus and Cleopatra IV. (This did have genetic effects, to be sure. The later Ptolemies were mostly immensely, grotesquely fat and diseased. On the other hand, Cleopatra VII -- "the" Cleopatra, of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony fame, whose mother and grandmother were non-Ptolemies -- was certainly accomplished and probably quite beautiful.)
Later, Cleopatra VII would marry a couple of her brothers, but that was political. In the cases of Arsinoe II and Cleopatra III, their royal brothers and uncles married for love, or at least lust. Thus, historically, royal incest seems not to have been all that uncommon. Probably more common than the above would imply, given how strongly it would be hushed up! - RBW
Bibliography
Elliott: J. H. Elliott, Imperial Spain 1469-1716, 1963, 1970 (I use the 1990 Penguin paperback edition)
Jolly: Alison Jolly, Lucy's Legacy: Sex and Intelligence in Human Evolution, Harvard University Press, 1999
Jones: Steve Jones, Y: The Descent of Men, Houghton Mifflin, 2003
Judson: Olivia Judson, Dr. Tatiana's Sex Advice to All Creation, Henry Holt/Owl Books, 2002
Mason: J. Alden Mason, The Ancient Civilizations of Peru, revised edition, 1968 (I use the 1971 Penguin paperback)
Ridley-Agile: Matt Ridley, The Agile Gene Perennial, 2004 [originally published 2003 under the title Nature via Nurture]
Ridley-Red: Matt Ridley, The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature, Penguin, 1993
Sinclair-Stevenson: Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson, Blood Royal: The Illustrious House of Hanover, Doubleday, 1980
Keefer's Folk Index: Bonnie(, Bonnie) Banks of the Virgie-O [Ch 14]
Rt - Bonnie Banks o/of Fordie ; Rocky Banks of Buffalo
At - Bonny Banks of Virgie O
Lloyd, A. L. & Isabel Arete de Ramon y Rivera (eds.) / Folk Songs of the, Oak, Sof (1966), # 13
Wells, Evelyn Kendrick (ed.) / The Ballad Tree, Ronald, Bk (1950), p104 (Babylon)
Fowke, Edith and Richard Johnston / Folk Songs of Canada, Waterloo Music, Bk (1954), p 18 (Bonny Banks of Virgie O)
Broadside Electric. More Bad News, Clever Sheep CS-1704C, Cas (1996), trk# A.01 (Babylon)
Clapp, June. Buttermilk Hill, Butterfly CP 1992, Cas (1992), trk# B.03 (Three Young Ladies)
Cowan, Debra. Dad's Dinner Pail. Songs from the Helen Hartness Flanders Coll.., Falling Mountain FM 1044, CD (2005), trk# 7 (Burly, Burly Banks of Barbry-O)
Kines, Tom. Of Maids and Mistresses, Elektra EKL 137, LP (1957), trk# B.02 (Banks of the Virgio)
Mitchell, Howie. Howie Mitchell, Folk Legacy FSI 005, LP (1962), trk# A.08
Monk, Mr. and Mrs. Ken. Lomax, Alan / Folk Songs of North America, Doubleday Dolphin, Sof (1975/1960), p141/# 71 (Three Young Ladies)
Peacock, Ken. Songs and Ballads of Newfoundland, Folkways FG 3505, LP (1956), trk# A.02
------Bonnie Banks o/of Fordie [Ch 14]
Rt - Bonnie(, Bonnie) Banks of the Virgie-O
Leach, MacEdward / The Ballad Book, Harper & Row, Bk (1955), p 89
Leach, MacEdward / The Ballad Book, Harper & Row, Bk (1955), p 90 [1930ca] (Heckey Hi Si Bernio)
-----Rocky Banks of Buffalo [Ch 14]-----
Rt - Bonnie(, Bonnie) Banks of the Virgie-O
Shute, Bill; and Lisa Null. Feathered Maiden and Other Ballads, Green Linnet SIF 1006, LP (1977), trk# B.05
Child Collection Index
014 Alasdair Roberts Babylon Ayrtime.org E.P. 2010 3:58 Yes
014 Anita Best The Bonnie Banks o Fordie Old Songs & Bothy Ballads - 'Some Rants o Fun' 2006 No
014 Betsy Miller & Ewan MacColl The Bonnie Banks O' Airdrie A Garland of Scots Folksong 1960 No
014 Bill Shute & Lisa Null Rocky Banks of the Buffalo The Feathered Maiden and Other Ballads 1977 2:55 Yes
014 Brian Peters The Banks of Airdrie Gritstone Serenade 2010 4:59 Yes
014 Broadside Electric Babylon More Bad News.. 1997 5:48 Yes
014 Broadside Electric Babylon CD-ROM Demo 1998 No
014 Claire Hamill & Andrew Warren Babylon Summer 1998 No
014 Debra Cowan & Michael DeLalla Burly Burly Banks of Barbry-O Dad's Dinner Pail and Other Songs from the Helen Hartness Flanders Collection 2005 6:49 Yes
014 Dick Gaughan The Bonnie Banks O'Fordie No More Forever 1972 7:17 Yes
014 Eileen McGann Bonnie Banks of Fordie Pocketful of Rhymes 2010 7:09 Yes
014 Ella Grow Ladeau Bank Robber's Wife The Helen Hartness Flanders Collection No
014 Elmer Barton The Burly Banks of Barby-O Burly Banks of Barbry O: Eight Traditional British-American Ballads 1953 No
014 Ewan MacColl The Bonnie Banks of Airdrie-O [Scots] The Long Harvest, Vol. 5 - Some Traditional Ballads in Their English, Scots and North American Variants 1967 4:33 Yes
014 Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger The Bonnie Banks of Airdrie Bad Lads and Hard Cases - British Ballads of Crime and Criminals 1957 4:39 Yes
014 Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger The Bonnie Banks of Airdrie The Anthology 2010 No
014 Highland Reign Bonnie Banks of Fordie O Caught in the Rain 2007 4:38 Yes
014 Howie Mitchell The Bonnie, Bonnie Banks of the Virgie, O American Folk Songs 1963 4:00 Yes
014 Ian Giles The Bonnie Banks of Fordie Folk Music of Scotland 2001 No
014 Ian Giles The Bonny Banks of Fordie Scotland the Brave - A Pageant of Celtic Music 2008 No
014 John Jacob Niles Bonnie Farday My Precarious Life in the Public Domain [Folk Balladeer] 2006 6:56 Yes
014 John Jacob Niles Bonny Farday The Ballads of John Jacob Niles 1960 5:14 Yes
014 John Jacob Niles Bonnie Farday Child Ballads 2008 No
014 Jon Boden Babylon - The Bonnie Banks of Fordie A Folk Song a Day - May 2011 7:00 Yes
014 Jonathan Moses Burly Burly Banks of the Barbry-O (1) The Helen Hartness Flanders Collection No
014 Jonathan Moses Burly Burly Banks of the Barbry-O (2) The Helen Hartness Flanders Collection No
014 Jonathan Moses Burly Burly Banks of the Barbry-O (3) The Helen Hartness Flanders Collection No
014 Jonathan Moses Burly Burly Banks of the Barbry-O (4) The Helen Hartness Flanders Collection No
014 Jonathan Moses Burly Burly Banks of the Barbry-O (5) The Helen Hartness Flanders Collection No
014 Ken Peacock Bonnie Banks of the Virgie-O Songs and Ballads of Newfoundland 1956 3:25 Yes
014 M.J. Harris & Martyn Bates The Banks of Fordie Murder Ballads (The Complete Collection) 1998 13:07 Yes
014 Malinky The Bonnie Banks O Fordie Live in Sneek, Netherlands, February 6th, 2004 2004 6:00 Yes
014 Malinky The Bonnie Banks O Fordie The Unseen Hours 2005 4:50 Yes
014 Malinky & Ranarim Bonnie Banks O Fordie + Pennknivsmördaren Live at Celtic Connections Festival, Glasgow 2007 5:42 Yes
014 Margaret Christl The Bonny Banks O Airdrie-O Jockey to the Fair 1977 5:25 Yes
014 Martha Reid The Banks O Airdery O Scottish Tradition 24: Songs and Ballads from Perthshire 2011 No
014 Mary Stewart Robertson The Banks of Airdrie The James Madison Carpenter Collection 1927-1955 No
014 Minnie Haman The Bonnie Banks O'Fordie Scottish Tradition 5: The Muckle Sangs - Classic Scottish Ballads 1992 1:02 Yes
014 Moira Cameron Banks of Airdrie-O One Evening as I Rambled 1991 No
014 Mrs. Norman Engler Three Sisters on the Bonnie, Bonnie Banks of the Rye-O The Max Hunter Folk Song Collection
4:06 Yes
014 Nic Jones Banks of Fordie Game Set Match 2006 4:49 Yes
014 Nic Jones The Bonnie Banks of Fordie Ballads 1997 6:16 Yes
014 Nic Jones The Bonnie Banks of Fordie Landmarks - 30 Years of a Leading Folk Music Label 2006 6:15 Yes
014 Nic Jones The Bonnie Banks O' Fordie The First Folk Review Record 1974 No
014 Old Blind Dogs The Bonnie Banks O'Fordie A Celtic Collection 1996 4:30 Yes
014 Old Blind Dogs The Bonnie Banks O'Fordie New Tricks 1992 4:29 Yes
014 Peggy Seeger The Burly Burly Banks of Barbree-O [English] The Long Harvest, Vol. 5 - Some Traditional Ballads in Their English, Scots and North American Variants 1967 5:33 Yes
014 Pete Coe Banks of Virgie In Paper Houses 2004 8:08 Yes
014 Raymond Crooke Bonnie Farday <website> 2007 5:42 Yes
014 Round the House The Banks of the Fordie At This Stage 2010 No
014 Skyboat The Bonnie Banks of Airdrie Ship in Distress 1981 No
014 The Womenfolk Two Fair Maids Never Underestimate the Power of the Womenfolk 1964 1:54 Yes
014 Tim O'Brien Fair Flowers of the Valley Fiddler's Green 2005 4:20 Yes
014 Tom Kines Banks of the Virgie-O Of Maids and Mistresses 1957 No
Excerpt from The British Traditional Ballad in North America
by Tristram Coffin 1950, from the section A Critical Biographical Study of the Traditional Ballads of North America
14. BABYLON
Texts: Barry, Brit Bids Me, 72 / Brown Coll / BFSSNE, VII, 6 / Bull Tenn FLS, VIII,, #3, 69 / Child, III, 5 / Davis, FS Va / Greenleaf and Mansfield, Bids Sea Sgs Newfdld, 10*
Local Titles: Baby Lon, Hecky-Hi Si-Bernio, The Bonny Banks of the Virgie 0,
Story Types: A: Three girls go out to walk or to "pull flowers", and on their way they meet a robber. He kills two of them, and, when the third wishes her brothers were there or says her brother is near-by, he questions her and finds out he has slain two of his sisters. After the discovery, he kills himself.
Examples: Butt lenn FLS, VIII, #3, 70;
Geenleaf and Mansfield.
B: The same situation occurs. The man seizes the eldest of the three girls and asks her to be "young Robey's wife". When she refuses, he stabs her to death. After he has done the same to the second girl, the third kills him.
Examples: BFSSNE, VII, 6.
Discussion: This ballad is quite rare in America. The Type A versions follow the Child A story, although the Barry text from Maine (a fragment) seems to belong to Child F and may have been preserved through the singing of tinkers and gypsies. Also, the Newfoundland text, besides condensing twelve stanzas into four so that the number of girls is not clear, mentions
two brothers (Child F) instead of one. In Tennessee, the brother's name is Baby Lon, and the "pulling flowers" for a talisman is retained at the start (see Child A).
The Type B ballad is unique to America and is another example of the self-sufficient woman entering the folk song. See Child 14 F and #4 (SharpK, Eng FS So Aplcbns, B).
The refrains vary. Two that give the title to the song (see Child A) are the Newfoundland "too ra lee and a lonely 0-On the bonny, bonny banks of Virgie, 0" and the New York (BFSSNE) "hecky-hi Si Bernio-On the bonny, bonny banks of Bernio".
MacKenzie (J4FL, XXV, 184) prints a song called Donald Munro in which a father unknowingly kills his sons and which MacKenzie feels is "vaguely reminiscent" of Babylon.
___________
Mainly Norfolk: The Bonnie Banks of Fordie/ Babylon
[Roud 27; Child 14; Ballad Index C014; trad.]
In spite of the innocent title, The Bonnie Banks of Fordie is a cruel ballad of senseless murder. Dick Gaughan sang it on his 1972 Trailer album, No More Forever. He explained in his album's sleeve notes:
The Bonnie Banks o' Fordie has all the makings of a classic ballad… two cases of fratricide and a consequent suicide. It's also known as The Duke of Perth's Three Daughters, and is in the Child collection as Babylon, or The Banks of Airdrie. The climax comes in the penultimate verse with the revelation that the murderer is in fact, Babylon, the brother, and leads up to his inevitable suicide. I learned this in approved traditional fashion from my mother, who sang it as a child's skipping song.
Nic Jones sang an Americanised version (“outlaw”, “rattlesnake”, “bank robber”) of The Bonnie Banks of Fordie in 1974 on The First Folk Review Record. Here the robber is not related to the three sisters, the third sister is rescued by her brother, and the robber gets hanged. This recording was later included in the Fellside anthology Ballads. According to the sleeve notes,
Nic collected this version from verses to be found in Child and the tune was inspired by the one in Dean Christie's Traditional Ballad Airs for The Laird of Drum. Child discovered five versions of this song and noted that the ballad could also be found in Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the Faeroe Islands. Bronson reported eight versions including four from North America.
A live performance from the late 70's of unknown source is on Nic Jones' CD Game Set Match.
Jon Boden sang The Bonnie Banks of Fordie with verses nearly identical to Dick Gaughan's (except that he sings it in English rather than in Scottish) as the May 28, 2011 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day. He noted in the project blog that he learned his version from Ian Giles at the Half Moon pub in Oxford.
Lyrics
Nic Jones sings The Bonnie Banks of Fordie
Oh there were three sisters lived in a bower
Oh I am so bonnie
They've gone out for to pull all the flowers
On the bonnie, bonnie banks of Fordie.
And they've not pulled a flower but one
Till by there came an outlaw man.
Now they had not pulled a flower but one
When up there stepped a banished man,
etc.
And he's gone up to the eldest one,
He's turned her around and he made her stand.
And he's taken the first one by the hand
And he's turned her round and he's made her stand,
“Oh, will you be a bank robber's wife?
Or will you die with my little pen knife?”
“Oh, it's will ye be a robber's wife?
Or will you die by my pen knife?
“Oh, it's I'll not be a bank robber's wife,
But I'd sooner die with your little pen knife.”
“Oh, it's I'll not be a robber's wife!
I would rather die by your pen knife.”
And he's killed the girl and he's laid her by
To keep the red rose company.
So he's taken out his little pen knife
And there he's twined her of her life.
And he's taken the second girl by her hand,
Turned her around and he made her stand.
And he's taken the second one by the hand
And he's turned her round and he's made her stand.
“Oh, will you be a bank robber's wife?
Or will you die with my little pen knife?”
“Oh, it's will you be a robber's wife?
Or will you die by my pen knife?”
“Oh, it's I'll not be a bank robber's wife,
But I'd sooner die with your little pen knife.”
“Oh it's I'll not be a robber's wife!
I'd rather die by your pen knife.”
So he's killed the girl and he's laid her by
To keep the red rose company.
So he's taken out his little pen knife
An there he's twined her of her life.
And he's taken the youngest by her hand,
He's turned her around and he made her stand.
And he's taken the third one by the hand
And he's turned round and he's made her stand.
“Oh, it's will you be a bank robber's wife?
Or will you die with my little pen knife?”
“Oh, it's will you be a robber's wife?
Or will you die by my pen knife?”
“Oh, I'll not be a bank robber's wife,
But I'd sooner die with your little pen knife.”
“Oh, it's I'll nor be a robber's wife
Nor will I die by your pen knife.
But her own brother John came a-riding by
And this bold robber he chanced to spy.
For I have a brother in yonder tree
And if you kill me then he'll kill thee!”
And he's gone up to his sister fair,
He's taken her up by her long yellow hair.
“Come tell to me your brother's name!”
“Oh, my brother's name it is Babylon.”
And he's sent out his page-boys three
To take this robber most speedily.
“Oh sister, sister, I've done you wrong,
Oh sister, sister, I have done you wrong!”
“Two of my sisters you took their life
All with your cruel and your bloody pen-knife.
And he's taken out his little pen knife
And there he's taken his own sweet life.
For my sisters then you shall die.”
And they hanged him up on the gallows high.
They'd thrown him into a poisoned lake,
To feed all the toads and the rattlesnakes.
_________________
Folktrax: BABYLON (aka BONNY BANKS OF AIRDRIE/ BARBRIE/ ELDRIE/ FORDIE-O/ VIRGIE-O/ THE DUKE OF PERTH'S THREE DAUGHTERS
"There were three ladies lived in bower" "The Duke of Perth he had three daughters" - 3 pretty maids go for walk - meet a robber - CHILD#14 - ROUD#27 - BRONSON 1 (8var tunes) - MOTHERWELL p88 - BUCHAN & HALL p82-3 - GREIG- KEITH LL 1925 p15 - RYMOUR 1906 2 p77-9 - GREIG-DUNCAN 2 p44 "BB of Airdie-o" (2var) - CARPENTER Ms from Mary Stewart Robertson, New Deer, Aberdeensh 1929 - SCOT STUDENT SB 1 p19-22 - SEEGER-McCOLL SI 1960 p76 Betsy Henry (McColl's mother) Auchterarder, Perthsh "The BB of Airdrie" - McCOLL-SEEGER 1977 p61 John Mcdonald - RICHARDS-STUBBS EFS 1979 p212 sent to RVW Lib by E Shekleton of Redlands High School for Girls, Bristol (nd) --- GREENLEAF NFL 1933 - FLANDERS-OLNEY 1953 p61 "Burly burly banks of Barbry-o" - DAVIS Va 1960 - PEACOCK SNO 1965 pp809-11 Joshua Osborne, Seal Cove, Nfl 1960 "BB o Airdrie-o"/ Mr & Mrs Ken Monks 1951 "BB of Virgie-O" - KARPELES NFL 1971 #3 p27 Mr & Mrs Monks/ Florrie Snow 1v/m/ Mrs Bridget Hall 1v/m/ Mrs May Snow 1v/m Nfl 1929 "Banks of Virgie-O"-- rec on Dictaphone by James M. Carpenter N.E. Scotland 1929-35 "The Bonny Banks of Eldrie-O" - Ewan MacCOLL & Peggy SEEGER "The Long Harvest" ARGO ZDA 70 1967 Olney & Flanders (New Hampshire) and from Ewan's mother, Betsy McColl (Miller), Auchterarder, Perthshire - Dick GAUGHAN: LEADER LER-2072 1972 - Nic JONES (+ gtr) FOLKSOUND FS-100 1974 - CARPENTER Coll #308/ CASS-14984B "BB of Eldrie-o" - Minnie HAMAN rec by Hamish Henderson, Perthsh: TANGENT TNGM 119/D 1976 "BB o Fordie-o" --- Elmer BARTON, rec by Helen Hartness Flanders Vermont USA: MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE LP 1953 "Burly Banks of Barbry O"