Recordings & Info 264. The White Fisher
[This recording is listed in the Child Collection Index when in fact two recordings were used by James M. Carpenter to transcribe the only known traditional tunes (according to Julia C. Bishop) as sung by Bell Duncan in the 1920s. See Carpenter's transcription in Sheet Music: 264. The White Fisher and also English & Other Versions. Here's more from The Tunes of the English and Scottish Ballads in the James Madison Carpenter Collection by Bishop:
Bell Duncan learnt her version of 'The White Fisher' from her mother. As Carpenter comments elsewhere, Bell Duncan's 'texts are long and full, many of the songs learned from her mother and others sixty-five, seventy years earlier', so this would date it back to 1860 or 1865. There are only a few other extant versions of the ballad, all of them consisting of the words alone: that in Peter Buchan's Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland, and two versions collected by Gavin Greig in Aberdeenshire, from Miss Bell Robertson and Mrs Annie Robb. Bell Duncan's is closest to Annie Robb's version in its verbal details but is six stanzas longer and, as in the Buchan and Robertson versions, stresses t he mother's disapproval of the unvirtuous wife.
There are no known US or Canadian traditional versions of this ballad.
R. Matteson]
CONTENTS:
1) Alternative Titles
2) Traditional Ballad Index
3) Child Collection Index
ATTACHED PAGES: (see left hand column)
1) Roud No. 3888: The White Fisher (7 Listings)
Alternative Titles
Lady Diamond
Fair Ellen (White Fisher)
Traditional Ballad Index: White Fisher, The [Child 264]
DESCRIPTION: Willie learns that a "popish priest" fathered his wife's baby. She tells Willie to cast the babe in the sea; he instead gives the child to his mother. Willie's wife weeps for the babe and reviles him; Willie tells her the babe is alive; both are happy
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST_DATE: 1878
KEYWORDS: pregnancy bastard death drowning return adultery abandonment disguise clergy infidelity
FOUND_IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES: (5 citations)
Child 264, "The White Fisher" (1 text)
Bronson 264, comments only
DBuchan 60, "The White Fisher" (1 text)
GreigDuncan2 197, GreigDuncan8 Addenda, "The White Fisher" (3 texts, 1 tune)
DT 264, WHITFISH
Roud #3888
NOTES: Bronson notes that Child's view of this ballad is distorted by his single text, and believes that it should be modified in view of the collections by Grieg. - RBW
In the Greig-Duncan2 197 texts the seducing "popish priest" is replaced by a rapist: either a foot-page who had worked without pay for her father for seven years "and he made me pay the fee," or her "father's butler boy." The foot-page partially repeats the Jacob-Rachel-Laban (Genesis 29.16-20) theme; see the discussion for "The Flanders Shore." - BS
Child Collection Index- Child Ballad 264: The White Fisher
Child --Artist --Title --Album --Year --Length --Have
264 Bell Duncan The White Fisher The James Madison Carpenter Collection 1927-1955 No
264 Elizabeth Robb The White Fisher (1) The James Madison Carpenter Collection 1927-1955 No
264 Elizabeth Robb The White Fisher (2) The James Madison Carpenter Collection 1927-1955 No