Rose de Marian Time- Norton (NC) 1936 Chase/ Brown B
[From the Brown Collection of NC Folklore- Version B. Chase titles it The Cambric Shirt, in his American Folk Tales and Songs, 1956. Here's are Chase's note's followed by Brown B, then music from Brown Vol. 4-- at the bottom of the page is Chase's complete text.
In his notes (see below) I think Chase is referring to The Missouri/Vermont version's refrain which is printed, "Fluma luma laky sloomy." I'm not sure of his Virginia reference.
R. Matteson 2014]
Chase's notes: This tune came from Mrs. Fannie Norton of Norton, North Carolina. Some of these verses are from the Mother Goose versions, where the refrain runs
Parsley, sage rosemary, and thyme!
Hilton Norton, Mrs. Norton's grandson, who first told me about this ballad, had written it out
Rose de Marian Time!
This is another one of the ancient songs in our language, No. 2 in Professor Child's collection. It is also known in Virginia, (with a refrain "Lomma lomma linktum slomalee") and in Vermont.
The Elfin Knight (Child 2)- Brown Collection
This set of courting riddles, commonly known in this country as 'The Cambric Shirt,' though not very old (the earliest text known to Child was a seventeenth-century broadside), has persisted rather well both in the old country and in America. It has been reported from tradition in Ireland, Aberdeenshire, Yorkshire, Northumberland, Sussex, Wiltshire, and Somerset, and in Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina (apart from the present collection), Georgia, Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska, and California.
It has two chief types of refrain, one of which, "rosemary and thyme," undergoes strange transformations on the tongues of singers — none stranger, perhaps, than the "arose Mary in time" and "Rose de Marian time" of texts A and B below. The other type, represented in text C below, seems to be only American. It is recognizable in Child's version J, which came from Massachusetts, and in texts from Maine, Vermont, Indiana, Missouri, and Texas, but I have not found it in British texts.
B. 'Rose de Marian Time.' Recorded by Professor Richard Chase of the Institute of Folk Music at Chapel Hill in 1936 from the singing of Mrs. Fannie Norton of Norton, N. C. Similar to A, but the refrain is "Rose de Marian Time," the first stanza has "yonder town" and "young lady" instead of "Wichander's town" and "young woman," and it lacks the odd expression "I threw my specs." Instead of "Between salt sea and Dace town" it has "Between salt water and sea shore."
There is in the collection another text sent in by Professor Chase in the same year, a version "edited for teaching." It is not clear from the manuscript just what the editing consists of, nor whence this version was procured. The last six of its ten stanzas (without the second and fourth lines, i.e., the refrain) run as follows:
5 I came back from yonder town —
She sent word to that young man.
6 Tell him to clear me an acre of land —
Between the sea and the salt sea strand.
7 Tell him to plow it with a muley cow's horn —
And sow it all over with one grain of corn.
8 Tell him to reap it with a stirrup leather —
And bind it all up in a chee-chicken feather.
9 Tell him to thresh it in a shoe sole —
And crib it all in a little mouse hole.
10 Tell him when he's done this work —
Come to town and get his shirt.
B. 'Rose de Marian Time.' Sung by Mrs. Fannie Norton of Norton, Jackson county. Recorded at Chapel Hill, 1936, by Professor Richard Chase.
1. As you go through yonder town
Rose de Marian Time!
Take this dress to that young lady
And tell her she is a true lover of mine.
Variant text of stanza 2:
Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,
Rose de Marian time!
Without any seam or seamster's work,
Then she'll be a true lover of mine.
For melodic relationship, of. OSSG 18, No. 8. Scale: Mode III. Tonal Center: d. Structure: ab (4,4).
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The Cambric Shirt- Fannie Norton; 1936 text adapted by Richard Chase.
As you go through yonders town,
Rose Marie and thyme!
--Take this word to that young girl,
If she shall be a true lover of mine.
Tell her to make me a cambric shirt'
Rose Marie and thyme!
without any seam or needle work,
and she shall be a true lover of mine.
Tell her to wash it in yonder well,
Rose Marie and thyme!
where water never ran nor rain never fell,
and she shall be a true lover of mine.
Tell her to dry it on yonder thorn,
Rose Marie and thyme!
where leaf never was since Adam was born,
and she shall be a true lover of mine.
I came back from yonder town,
Rose Marie and thyme!
She sent word to that young man,
If he would be a true lover of mine
. . .tell him to clear me an acre of land,
Rose Marie and thyme!
between the sea and the salt sea sand,
and he shall be a true lover of mine.
Tell him to plow it with a muley-cow's horn,
Rose Marie and thyme!
and sow it all over with one grain of corn,
and he shall be a true lover of mine.
Tell him to reap it with an old stirrup leather,
Rose Marie and thyme!
and bind it all up in a tom-tit's feather,
and he shall be a true lover of mine.
Tell him to shock it in the sea,
Rose Marie and thyme!
and bring it all home dry to me,
and he shall be a true lover of mine.
Tell him to thresh it in an old shoe sole,
Rose Marie and thyme!
and crib it all in a little mouse hole,
and he shall be a true lover of mine.
Tell him to gather it in a bottomless sack,
Rose Marie and thyme!
and bring it all home on a butterfly's back,
and he shall be a true lover of mine.
Tell him when he's done this work,
Rose Marie and thyme!
come on to town and get his shirt,
then he shall be a true lover of mine.