Records & Info 8. Madam, I Have Come to Court You
CONTENTS:
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Madam, Madam, You Came Courting
DESCRIPTION: When the girl comes courting the boy agrees to "entertain you If you will not call me names." She spurns his wealth: "All I want is a fancy man." He says she can look to the trees to keep her warm "when nights are cold and frosty"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1906 (Reeves-Circle)
KEYWORDS: courting rejection humorous
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South)) Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Reeves-Circle 111, "Ripest Apples" (2 texts)
Creighton-Maritime, p. 121, "Madam, Madam, You Came Courting" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #542
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Wheel of Fortune" (Dublin City, Spanish Lady) (theme)
NOTES: Creighton-Maritime: "Although a different song, this is very like 'The Quaker's Courtship'"; Creighton's song is "Wheel of Fortune" with roles reversed. Nevertheless, though I find no lines shared with that group of songs it is close enough that it may belong there. - BS
Roud, indeed, lumps them -- but logic says that this is rewritten, and hence should be split. - RBW
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Traditional Ballad Index:
Wheel of Fortune (Dublin City, Spanish Lady)
DESCRIPTION: The young man comes to the young woman and asks her to wed. He offers her gold, silver, and land. She tells him she is not interested in these; "all I want is a (good young/handsome) man." That being offered, the two agree to marry
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1883 (Jackson/Burne)
KEYWORDS: courting marriage money virtue playparty
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South,West),Scotland(Aber)) US(Ap,MA,MW,SE,So,SW) Canada(Ont) Ireland
REFERENCES (37 citations):
GreigDuncan4 746, "The Spanish Lady" (9 texts, 8 tunes)
GreigDuncan8 1588, "There's a Lady Over Yonder" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Stewart-Queen, p. 28, "Owre yon Hill" (1 text, 1 tune)
Williams-Thames, pp. 196-197, "March Away" (1 text) (also Wiltshire-WSRO Wt 458)
Wiltshire-WSRO Ox 225, "Yonder Sits a Pretty Little Creature" (1 text)
Belden, pp. 506-507, "Madam, I Have Gold and Silver" (1 text)
Eddy 98, "Spanish Lady" (1 text); Eddy 131, "The Quaker's Wooing" (1 text, 1 tune); possibly Eddy 132, "The Sober Quaker" (1 text, 1 tune)
Gardner/Chickering 173, "The Wooing" (2 texts, the "A" text being "The Courting Case" and "B" being probably this piece)
Flanders/Brown, pp. 154-155, "Yonder Hill There Is a Widow" (1 text, 1 tune)
Reeves-Sharp 69, "Ripest Apples" (1 text)
SharpAp 205, "Come My Little Roving Sailor" (3 texts, 3 tunes)
Sharp/Karpeles-80E 55, "Come, My Little Roving Sailor" (1 text, 1 tune)
Sandburg, p. 71, "The Quaker's Wooing" (1 text, 1 tune); also Sandburg, p. 144, "Kind Miss" (1 text, 1 tune, primarily this piece but with one verse of "The Drowsy Sleeper")
Botkin-AmFolklr, pp. 804-805, "There She Stands, a Lovely Creature" (1 text, 1 tune)
SHenry H532, p. 367, "Tarry Trousers" (1 text, 1 tune -- a curious version in which, after all the business about riches and a good young man, the girl finally sends the lad off by saying she has a sailor love)
OLochlainn-More 79A, "The Tarry Trousers" (1 text, 1 tune)
BrownIII 12, "Madam, I Have Gold and Silver" (1 text, starting with this song but ending with a "Ripest of Apples" verse and ending with a Riley stanza)
BrownSchinhanV 12, "Madam, I have Gold and Silver" (1 tune plus a text excerpt)
Hudson 37, pp. 151-152, "Annie Girl" (1 text, which conflates 2 verses of "The Drowsy Sleeper" [Laws M4], 2 or 3 of "Wheel of Fortune (Dublin City, Spanish Lady)" or "No, John, No: or similar, and 3 verses probably of "Pretty Fair Maid (The Maiden in the Garden; The Broken Token)" [Laws N42])
JHCox 158, "The Spanish Lady" (1 text)
Boswell/Wolfe 45, pp. 79-80, "The Spanish Lady" (1 text, 1 tune, with perhaps half the song being floating material; much of it looks more like "The Barnyard of Delgaty" or something similar than like "Wheel of Fortune")
SHenry H641, p. 383, "Ripest of Apples" (1 text, 1 tune, a tiny fragment of two verses, one of which often occurs with this song while the other is associated primarily with "Carrickfergus." The tune is not "Carrickfergus")
Creighton/Senior, pp. 199-200, "Quaker's Courtship" (1 fragment, 1 tune, which might be either this or "The Quaker's Courtship")
Huntington-Whalemen, pp. 194-195, "Song on Courtship" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-FSWB, p. 149, "Wheel Of Fortune" (1 text)
Opie-Game 36, "Lady on the Mountain"; Opie-Game 87, "Spanish Lady" (7 texts, 3 tunes)
Baring-Gould-MotherGoose #290, pp. 168-169, "(Madam, I have come to court you)" (a short text, which might well be "The Quaker's Wooing" with beginning and end lost, but as it stands, it has no Quakers and must be filed here)
Newell, #6, "There She Stands, a Lovely Creature" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, WHEELFOR* DUBLNCTY* DUBLNCT2 SPALDTIN (VANDY2) (DUBLNCI2)
ADDITIONAL: Frank Harte _Songs of Dublin_, second edition, Ossian, 1993, pp. 48-49, "The Spanish Lady" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ray B. Browne, "Southern California Jump-Rope Rhymes: A Study in Variants" in Western Folklore, Vol. XIV, No. 1 (Jan 1955 (available online by JSTOR)), #22 p. 14 ("On a hillside stands a lady") (1 text)
Georgina Frederica Jackson, Charlotte Sophia Burne, editor, _Shropshire Folk-lore: A Sheaf of Gleanings_ (London, Trubner & Co, 1883, digitized by Google), pp. 509-510, ("Here stands a lady on a mountain"); pp. 551-552, "The Disdainful Lady" ("Yonder stands a comely creature") (2 texts)
Katharine (Tynan) Hinkson, "The Girls' Room" in Christabel R. Coleridge and Arthur Innes, editors, The Monthly Packet (London, 1897 ("Digitized by Google")), Vol. XCIII, p. 345, ("There stands a lady on the mountain")
G.F. Northall, English Folk-Rhymes (London, 1892 ("Digitized by Google")), p. 376, ("Here stands a lady on a mountain") (1 text)
F.W. Waugh, "Canadian Folk-Lore from Ontario" in The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. XXXI, No. 119 (Jan 1918 (available online by JSTOR)), #630 pp. 48-49 ("Here stands a lovely creature"),("Here sits a Spanish lady") (2 texts)
Marie Campbell, "Survivals of Old Folk Drama in the Kentucky Mountains" in The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. LI, No. 199 (Jan-Mar 1938 (available online by JSTOR)), pp. 18-22, "A Plough Monday Play"), especially pp. 21-22, "For Gold and Silver" ("'Kind miss, kind miss, go ask your mother")
J Woodfall Ebsworth, The Roxburghe Ballads, (Hertford, 1896 ("Digitized by Google")), Vol. VIII Part 2, pp. 851-852,"The Handsom' Woman" ("Yonder stan's a hansum woman, who she is I dunnot knaw")
Roud #542
RECORDINGS:
Seamus Ennis, "Dublin City" (on FSB2, FSB2CD)
Hector MacIsaac and Emma MacIsaac, "Galway City" (on NFHMacIsaac02)
BROADSIDES:
Murray, Mu23-y1:104, "The Wheel of Fortune," James Lindsay (Glasgow), 19C [an incredible mixture, with the "Wheel of Fortune" verse, though the rest seems an amalgam of thyme songs -- here spelled "time"]; also Mu23-y1:105, "The Wheel of Fortune," James Lindsay (Glasgow), 19C [even more mixture, with the "Wheel of Fortune" verse, a thyme stanza, a bit of "Fair and Tender Ladies," a "Queen of Heart" verse, and more]
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Keys of Canterbury"
cf. "No, John, No"
cf. "Madam, Madam, You Came Courting" (theme)
cf. "The Quaker's Courtship" (theme)
cf. "Killy's Den" (tune, per GreigDuncan4)
cf. "The Twelfth of May" (floating lyrics)
cf. "The Ripest Apple" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Now All You Lads" (lyrics)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Chester City
All I Want is a Handsome Man
As I Walked Up Through London City
Edinburgh City
Tinkle, Tinkle, Tra-La-La!
NOTES: Although several versions listed here mention Quakers in their titles (e.g. Eddy's text, also that printed by Sandburg), their texts make no mention of the Quaker, and so I list them here.
This obviously began life as a ballad, but was collected in New York as a playparty, and Belden also found it as a singing game. - RBW
Opie-Game 36 has three texts of the "Yonder stands ... who she is I do not know" version.
Opie-Game 87: "This song about an exile in disgrace was probably at the height of its popularity in Edwardian days." The "plot" in this case is that the singer, walking down the street, meets a Spanish or German lady with a baby in her arms. - BS
The text in the Silber-FSWB version is extremely fragmentary, and contains almost nothing of the plot described above. All that happens is that the man and woman meet; she washes her feet and dries them, then he laments young girls' deceiving ways and sings about numbers. - PJS
What Paul describes is fairly typical. The description above is of the fullest texts, but this ballad seems to be unusually good at losing pieces of itself. Often it descends into a purely lyrical piece -- and sometimes it seems to "re-ascend" by taking on a new ending of abandonment.
The existence of the numbers chorus ("Twenty, eighteen, sixteen, fourteen...") seems to be characteristic of a particular, very widespread, sub-version.
It appears likely that we can positively date this song to at least 1822, when John Randolph of Virginia asked a niece if she had heard a ballad with the verse
What care I for your golden treasures?
What care I for your house and land?
What care I for your costly pleasures?
So as I get but a handsome man.
For some reason, scholars have claimed this verse is from "Lord Randal." But it certainly appears to belong here. - RBW
The Ebsworth text is the oldest I have seen -- certainly older than Jackson/Burne -- but Ebsworth does not date it, possibly because it was just a side note to another ballad. The end of the Ebsworth text, following an editorial comment that "woman has the last word as usual," is
He took a pail, and I took a pail, and a-milking he went wi' me;
I said nout, and he said nout; but, ma faith! I think he'll ha' me."
"This is the finale," Ebsworth continues, "Robert Roberts, of Boston, is a safe authority to follow on old books and Lincolnshire customs: he writes, 'To take her pail and go with a girl to milking, is considered almost equal to a proposal of marriage.' This throws light on the popular song '"Where are you going to, my pretty maid?" "I'm going a milking, sir," she said. "May I go with you, my pretty maid?"' and her comprehensive reply, '"Yes, if you please, kind sir," she said.' When he adds, 'Then I cannot marry you!' she knows it breaks the implied contract."'"
The Jackson/Burne text ends
'But fare you well, my dearest creature,
Since I have no more to say.'
'O turn again, young man! I'll have you!'
But his answer was, 'Nay, nay!'
The Campbell text is very close to Sandburg's "Kind Miss," which is also from Kentucky. These texts have an unusual twist to their "Drowsy Sleeper" verse: in printed texts of Laws M4, and one of its sources, "I Will Put My Ship In Order," the lines following "... ask your mother If you my bride shall ever be" are "If she says 'No,' come back and tell me, And I'll no longer trouble thee"; in these two texts the lines are "If she says 'yes,' come back and tell me, If she says 'no,' we'll run away." [These lines are also in Hudson 37 -- another "Drowsy Sleeper"-"Wheel of Fortune" hybrid -- and two closely related recordings of Laws M4: Harry and Jeannie West, More Southern Mountain Folk Songs, Stinson SLP 74, Katy Dear"; Blue Sky Boys, "Katie Dear" (Bluebird B-7661, 1938) and Homer and Walter Callahan, "Katie Dear (Silver Dagger)" (Banner 33103/Melotone M-13071/Oriole 8353/Perfect 13017/Romeo 5353, c. 1934; Conqueror 9145, 1938; on GoingDown), identical texts.]
The Campbell text provides a rationale for this break: "Kind Miss" is a wooing song in a mummers' play. The form of the wooing song usually has a reasonable bid by the male to start an engagement, followed by rejection by the woman and, occasionally, a final acceptance. The "I'll no longer trouble thee" line would end the song prematurely, while the "we'll run away" line leads to the normal wooing song form. Of course, the "Drowsy Sleeper" verse insertion is not necessary for "Wheel of Fortune" to be used as a wooing song, but once the verse was inserted, its form was likely changed to suit its new function. For more on "wooing songs" in mummers' plays, see "Sweet Moll."
The Williams-Thames chorus -- "March away, march away, Trumpets sound and cymbals play. March away, march away, To the merry little fife and drum." -- is from the chorus of "The Merry Little Soldier" (see The Universal Songster or Museum of Mirth (London, 1834 ("Digitized by Google")), Vol I, p. 109, "The Merry Little Soldier" ("I'm a merry little soldier") (1 text)). - BS
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'Yonder Sits a Spanish lady- daddy Lane 1908
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"Vandy, Vandy" Again
Author(s): Arthur Palmer Hudson
Source:
The Journal of American Folklore,
Vol. 75, No. 295 (Jan. - Mar., 1962), pp. 59-61
Published by: American Folklore Society
"VANDY, VANDY" AGAIN:-In "Notes and Queries," A4F, LXXIII (April-June 1960),
I54-I56, Ed Cray, of Los Angeles, published a version of the song "Vandy, Vandy" with
tune notation, comparative notes, and a statement that he would be interested in further
information about the song. Perhaps readers of JAF will be, too.
In his comments Cray refers to a text of the song published by Manly Wade Wellman,
a professional writer of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Following is the text of the song,
with the melody, as given me by Wellman in the spring of I954 and as published by me
in the journal North Carolina Folklore, II (Sept. I954), 3-4.
Notes & Queries
Notes & Queries
59
59
Van - dy,Van-dy, I've come to court you, Be you rich or
be you poor, And if you'll kind- ly en - tr - tain me
Xbt r r r PJ h I_ = l L
I will love you for ev - er-more. For I love you and
- ~r J . Ir J J iJ - 11
I can't help it, Oh, yes, I do.
2. Vandy, Vandy, I've gold and silver,
Vandy, Vandy, I've a house and land,
Vandy, Vandy, I've a world of pleasure.
I would make you a handsome man.
For I love you, etc.
3. I love a man who's in the army;
He's been there for seven long year,
And if he's there for seven year longer,
I won't have no other dear.
For I love him, etc.
4. What care I for your gold and silver?
What care I for your house and land?
What care I for the world of pleasure?
All I want is my soldier man.
For I love him, etc.
5. Wake up, wake up, the dawn is breaking,
Wake up, wake up, it's almost day.
Open your doors and your divers windows,
See my true love march away.
For I love him, etc.
In comparison with Cray's version, the North Carolina version lacks a stanza corre-
sponding to Cray's fifth. The verbal similarities of the corresponding five stanzas are close,
with a few interesting differences to be expected in a real folksong. It is notable that the
North Carolina version has a refrain, whereas Cray's does not. The two tunes seem to show
very little similarity.
To Cray's notes on the links of "Vandy, Vandy" with other folksongs, I should like to
add a few comments of my own. It is a compound of stanzas from several other folksongs
not noted by Cray, among them "The Spanish Lady" and "A Pretty Fair Lady." As put
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Notes & Queries 6I
together, it looks like a survival or adaptation of a very ancient folk-lyric type known as
"song of the night visit," which developed out of a pagan custom permitting the lover of a
girl, under properly regulated conditions, to spend a night with her before marriage. (See
Shakespeare's dramatic use of the custom and its conventions in Romeo and Juliet, II, ii,
and III, v; and also "The Grey Cock," Child No. 248.) Note the serenade in stanza I. The
last stanza resembles the song of the night visit known as the aube or alba (that is, the
dawn song), which the man was expected to sing as he left his lady-love at cockcrow or the
first note of the lark or other "pretty-feathered fowl." (Cray's term "audabe-like" seems to
be a misprint for aubade-like.)
All in all, "Vandy, Vandy" is a lovely Old World song, not at all incongruous with the
piney-woods country of North Carolina, and presumably not with the other far-distant
places cited by Cray in his notes. It is interesting and pleasing to learn that it has had
wide diffusion in the United States, though it seems to have been only recently turned up.
Who knows but that a few others as beautiful may not be caught by the folklorist's fine-
tooth comb, among the nits and tags and wisps of American folksong?
University of North Carolina ARTHUR PALMER HUDSON
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
A NOTE ON THE REVIEW OF American Folklore:-In fairness to the many studies of
American Negro folklore which adequately document African survivals in the American
setting, and in fairness to the book reviewed and its author's conclusions, some comment on
a statement in Hector Lee's review of American Folklore (JAF, Jan.-Mar. I96I) is in
order.
The passage under question reads as follows: "And yet in the case of the lore of the
American Negro he [Dorson] finds the presumption of African origins to be fallacious.
'These field trips to the northern and southern Negro communities proved conclusively,
to me at any rate, that American Negro folklore belongs to the plantation culture of the
Old South.'" This short quotation lifted out of context (pp. I8o0-I8) by the reviewer and
interpreted to find "the presumption of African origins to be fallacious" does not agree
with facts generally accepted through at least a half-century of scholarship, nor, indeed,
does it agree with Dorson's clear statements in the same chapter, which show that the
plantation culture of the Old South gave its local color to much Negro lore clearly traceable
to Africa.
The quotation in its proper context merely indicates the paucity of examples of survival
of the southern heritage in the North. The reviewer's error revives the widely discredited
racist or nationalist notions rejected by Dorson through pages 172-I80 of his chapter on
Negro folklore. Further, in the context of the review, the quotation suggests that the plan-
tation culture of the Old South could, somehow, produce the rich fabric of Negro folklore
apart from antecedent tradition.
Although Dorson tends to stress European traditions and to play down African tradi-
tions in his examples, his reasonable conclusion is to be found in the paragraph which
closes the chapter:
So the forms and ingredients of Negro folklore coalesce and mingle. From European,
African, and American folk materials, and from the vicissitudes of his own life under
slavery and quasi-freedom, the southern Negro has developed a rich complex of unified
folklore whose parts intertwine in a many-veined, dazzling filigree.
University of Nevada KENNETH W. CLARKE
Ely, Nevada
Notes & Queries 6I
together, it looks like a survival or adaptation of a very ancient folk-lyric type known as
"song of the night visit," which developed out of a pagan custom permitting the lover of a
girl, under properly regulated conditions, to spend a night with her before marriage. (See
Shakespeare's dramatic use of the custom and its conventions in Romeo and Juliet, II, ii,
and III, v; and also "The Grey Cock," Child No. 248.) Note the serenade in stanza I. The
last stanza resembles the song of the night visit known as the aube or alba (that is, the
dawn song), which the man was expected to sing as he left his lady-love at cockcrow or the
first note of the lark or other "pretty-feathered fowl." (Cray's term "audabe-like" seems to
be a misprint for aubade-like.)
All in all, "Vandy, Vandy" is a lovely Old World song, not at all incongruous with the
piney-woods country of North Carolina, and presumably not with the other far-distant
places cited by Cray in his notes. It is interesting and pleasing to learn that it has had
wide diffusion in the United States, though it seems to have been only recently turned up.
Who knows but that a few others as beautiful may not be caught by the folklorist's fine-
tooth comb, among the nits and tags and wisps of American folksong?
University of North Carolina ARTHUR PALMER HUDSON
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
--------------------------
Western Folklore - Volumes 13-14 - Page 14 [Lumpkin?]
https://books.google.com/books?id=1IkLAAAAIAAJ
1954 - Snippet view - More editions
Madam, I have gold and silver; / Madam, 1 have ships on the ocean; / Madam, I have house and land. / What care I for your gold and silver? / What care I for ships on the ocean? / What care I for house and land? / All I want is a fine young man
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Tarry trousers refers to the sailor's practice of waterproofing their trousers with tar. This may be among the reasons sailors were referred to as "tars," a term used since 1676. Between 1857 and 1891 sailors also wore black 'tarpaulin' hats (boater-shaped with ribbon around the crown). The term "Jack Tar" has been in use since the 1780s.
Loch Dhui [probably not related]
Roud Folksong Index (S213245)
First Line: As I was walking with my lover
Source: Topic 12T 179 ('The Travelling Stewarts')
Performer: Stewart, Belle
Date: 1967
Place: Scotland
Collector:
Roud No: 5121
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Ower Yon Hill There Lives a Lassie
Roud Folksong Index (S186844)
First Line: Ower yon hill there lives a lassie
Source: Songs & Ballads sung at Blairgowrie Festival, August 1967 p.6
Performer: Stewart, Cathy
Date: 1967 (Aug)
Place: Scotland : Perthshire : Blairgowrie
Collector:
Roud No: 5121
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O'er Yon Hill
Roud Folksong Index (S340268)
First Line: O'er yon hill sure there lives a lassie
Source: Mike Yates Collection: British Library National Sound Archive C 796/18 (VWML 4 CDA Yates)
Performer: Stewart, Sheila
Date: 1960
Place: Scotland :Perthshire : Blairgowrie
Collector: Yates, Mike
Roud No: 5121
Ower Yon Hill There Lives a Lassie
Roud Folksong Index (S218062)
First Line: Ower yon hill sure there lives a lassie
Source: Topic 12T 138 / Ossian OSS CD 96 ('The Stewarts of Blair')
Performer: Stewart, Cathie
Date: 1965
Place: Scotland : Perthshire : Blairgowrie
Collector:
Roud No: 5121
Subjects: Over yon hill : Lassie : Name I do not know : I have gold and silver : Diamond stones : Ships on the ocean : What care I : Fine young man
Mainly Norfolk: English Folk and Other Good Music
Madam, I Have Come to Court You / Ripest Apples / Twenty, Eighteen, …
[ Roud 542 ; G/D 8:1588 ; Ballad Index CrMa121 ; trad.]
George Townshend sang Twenty, Eighteen, … to Brian Matthews in Lewes, Sussex, on February 7, 1960. This recording was included in 2000 on his Musical Traditions anthology Come, Hand to Me the Glass. Brian Matthews and Rod Stradling commented in the album's booklet:
George [Townshend] is joined by his 11-year-old granddaughter Angela for the two verses he sang of this song—it's counting-song version of Oh, No John which Brian Matthews also recorded from Alfred Patching of Fulking, Sussex. It seems to be known all over England and in the USA, Canada, and even Tristan da Cunha! but Scotland has only produced one sighting. Frank Harte sings an almost identical version to George's from Ireland.
Peggy Seeger sang Madam, I Have Come to Court You in 1962 on her Topic EP Early in the Spring. Angela Carter commented:
Peggy Seeger has based this comic courting song on I'm Going Away to Texas (Vance Randolph, Ozark Folk Songs, Vol. 3) with additional verses from other variants. The suitor is rejected very firmly several times until he mentions money.
Joe Jones sang Ripest Apples to Mike Yates in St Mary Cray, Kent, in 1972-75. This recording was included in 2003 on the Musical Traditions anthology of Gypsy songs and music from South-East England, Here's Luck to a Man …. Mike Yates commented in the album notes:
Cecil Sharp linked this fragmentary song with another, titled Twenty, Eighteen, that had been collected by Lucy Broadwood (English County Songs, 1893, p.90), and falls within the Oh, No John family. A version that I recorded from the late Mabs Hall of Sussex includes the Twenty, Eighteen verse (see the Veteran cassette Ripest Apples, VT107), and George Townshend (Sussex) also sings it on [Come, Hand to Me the Glass].
Dr Faustus sang The Disdainful Lady in 2005 on their Fellside CD Wager. They commented in their liner notes:
This was found by Benji [Kirkpatrick] in Shropshire Folk-Lore, edited by Charlotte S Burne. It was sung by Harriet Dowley of Edgmont, Shropshire. We conjured up an extra verse to extend the story for no apparent reason.
The Outside Track sang Madam, Madam in 2010 on their CD Curious Things Given Wings. They commented in their liner notes:
The melody and some verses of this song come from the singing of William Gilkie of Sambro, Nova Scotia, who sang it to Canadian folklorist, Helen Creighton in 1949. The song originally came from Ettrick Valley in Scotland. Lauren MacColl's tune, The Dealer, sews the dialogue together between the unfortunate young man and the object of his affection (Alan and the poor mermaid).
The Unthanks sang Madam in 2015 on their CD Mount the Air.
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Vandy Vandy
[Manly Wade Wellman (1903-1986)]
Rachel Newton sang Vandy Vandy in 2010 on The Shee's album Decadence. This video shows them at National Forest Folk Festival in 2014:
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Madam, Will You Walk? [related variant- courting song not part of this study]
O will you accept a new silver pin
To pin up your hair and your fine donotuse-e-lin?
Madam, will you walk?
Madam, will you talk with me?
No, I won't accept of a new silver pin
To pin up my hair and my fine donotuse-e-lin.
Neither will I walk,
Neither will I talk with you.
Will you accept of the key of my heart
To bind us together and to never never part?
Madam, will you walk?
Madam, will you talk with me?
No, I won't accept of the key of your heart
To bind us together and to never never part.
Neither will I walk,
Neither will I talk with you.
Some of the additions in other versions:
I will give you the keys of Heaven,
To lock the gates when the clock strikes seven.
And
Madam, I present you with six rows of pins
The very first offering my true love brings.
____________________________
Ed Miller Song Lyrics
Posted on July 10, 2008
Ed Miller is one of the finest Scottish musicians I’ve heard. His website is here: There are several versions of this song, “The Spanish lady,” but as usual, Ed Miller’s is unique. Here is my transcription of his song. Please send me corrections for any lines or words I missed. Mistakes are easy to make in transcription, especially if the musician has an accent that is sometimes thick to my ear. rickeyp@bayou.com
The Spanish Lady
As I went up through Edinburgh City,
Being twelve o’clock at night,
There I spied a Spanish lady
Dressing herself by candlelight.
Madam, I am come to court you
In hopes your favor for to gain
If you’ll kindly entertain me
Maybe I’ll come back again
Sit you down you, hearty, welcome
Sit you down you hearty soul,
Sit you down, you hearty. welcome
Whether ye come back or no
Madam, I’ve got gold and silver,
Madam, I’ve got house and land
Madam, I’ve got men and maidens
All shall be at your command
What care I for gold and silver
What care I for house and land
What care I for men or maidens,
All I want is a handsome man
Madam you deal much in beauty
That sweet flower will soon decay
The fairest flower in all your garden
When winter comes will fade away
Ripest apple soon is rotten
Hottest love as soon is cold
Young men vows are soon forgotten
Pray young man don’t be so bold
First comes lilies, then comes roses
First comes April, then comes May
And the fairest flower of all is summer,
When winter comes will fade away
I’ve wondered North
And I‘ve wondered South
[By Gray Fires kept and White Horse Close?]
Down and around by the old clean village
And back by Deacon Brode’s house
Auld age has laid her hands on me
As cold as a fire of ashy coals
But, where or where is the Spanish Lady,
A maid so sweet about the soul
First comes lilies, then come roses
First comes April, then comes May,
And the Fairest flower of all is summer
When winter comes will fade away.