Said an Old True Love- Frye (NC) 1945 Brown N
[From: The Brown Collection of NC Folklore, Volume 2; 1953. This version is in the Abrams Collection and the complete text may be viewed there in MS form: East Bend, Yadkin County, North Carolina; dated 1945. I've done some minor editing.
The title was given by the informant and also appears as "The House Carpenter." Additionally there is a recording (see link below) by Abrams.
R. Matteson 2013]
40. James Harris (The Daemon Lover)
(Child 243)
If the various traditional versions of this ballad all go back, as Child believed, to the long-winded, pedestrian seventeenth-century broadside of 'James Harris,' they constitute something of an argument for Barry's doctrine of communal re-creation. For its range as traditional song, see BSM 79, and add New Hampshire (NGMS 95-7), Tennessee (SFLQ xi 127-8), North Carolina (FSRA 38-40), Florida (SFLQ viii 160-1), the Ozarks (OFS I 166-76), Ohio (BSO 70-7), Indiana (BSI 136-48, JAFL lvii 14-15), Illinois (JAFL LX 131-2), Michigan (BSSM 54-8), and Wisconsin (JAFL LIT 46-7, originally from Kentucky). Few regional collections made in this country fail to record it ; [1] it is therefore surprising that Child knew, apparently, only one American text and that a fragment. It is almost always called in America 'The House Carpenter.' The notion that the lover from the sea is a revenant or a demon, present in the original broadside and less definitely in some of the other versions in Child, has faded from most American texts; with us it is a merely domestic tragedy. And perhaps for that very reason it is one of the favorites of American ballad singers. There are some fourteen texts in the North Carolina collection, most of them holding pretty closely to one version. A full text of this version is given first and most of the others described by reference to this.
Footnote for above:
1. There are traces of it in our K and M versions.
N. 'Said an Old True Love.' One of the songs collected by Professors W. Amos Abrams and Gratis D. Williams in 1945 from Pat Frye of East Bend, Yadkin county. See headnote to 'Lady Isabel and the Elf -Knight' G. Twelve stanzas. The time formula lacks the usual "I'm sure it was not," and has instead
They haden been sailing more weeks than two
And not exceeding three
They hadden been sailing more weeks than three
And not exceeding four.
No mention of sailing past the islands of heaven and hell. Ends, like A and I, with a curse:
She cussed the sailor round and round
She cussed the boatman lad
For robbing her of her home and her house carpenter
And taking her life away.
Complete text:
Listen: http://contentdm.library.appstate.edu/docapp/abrams/field_recordings/house_carpenter_frye.html
1. 'Well met, well met," said an old true love,
"Well met, well met," said he;
"I have just returned from the salt, salt sea,
And it's all for the sake of thee."
2 I could of [have] married the king's daughter
I'm sure she'd of married me
But I refused all crowns of gold,
And its all for the sake of thee.
3 If you could of married the king's daughter
I'm sure you are to blame;
For I am married to the house carpenter
And I'm sure he's a nice young man
4 If you will leave your house carpenter
And go along with me,
I'll carry you to where that the grass grows green
ON the banks of the sweet Willie.
5 If I do leave my house carpenter
And go along with you
What have you got to maintain me on,
Or keep me from slavery.
6 I have six ships all sailing on sea,
They're sailing for dry land
Besides one hundred thirty-six jolly seamen
And us [we] will be at your command
7 She goes and picked up her lonesome little babe,
And a kiss[es] she gave it three,
Saying stay at home with your pappy
And keep him company.
8 They hadn't been sailing more weeks than two
And not exceeding three
Before this young lady she began to weep
And she wept most bitterly.
9 Is it my gold you're weeping for,
Or is it for my store.
Or is it for the sake of your house carpenter,
Whose face you will see no more.
10 It's not your gold that makes me weep
Nor neither for your store.
It's all for the sake of my lonesome little babe
Whose face I shall see no more
11 They hadden been sailing more weeks than three
And not exceeding four
Before this ship it sprung a leak
And it sink [sank] for to rise no more
12 She cussed the sailor round and round,
She cussed the boatman lad [1]
For robbing her of her home and her house carpenter
And taking her life away.
1. boat and land