Seventh Pretty Maid- Smith (NS) 1937, Creighton A; 1943 recording
[My title, replacing the generic "Lady Isabel". From Traditional Songs from Nova Scotia by Creighton and Senior; 1950. Creighton and Senior first met and collected from the 86 year old Dennis Smith soon after they arrived in Halifax in July 1937. The got a version of "The Outlandish Knight" Child No. 4 then (probably named following Karpeles). Creighton's recording of Smith, then 92, was made in 1943 (see below Barrett's excerpt). This version should be dated back in the 1800s but no one bothered to ask Smith when and where he learned it.
The opening stanza is taken from the Bailiff's Daughter of Islington, Child ballad 105, and this combination has occurred in several versions from the Northeast (see Flanders C and D).
R. Matteson 2014]
Excerpt: From Acetate Disc to Digital Audio: Tracing the Copies of Helen Creighton’s Sound Recordings by Creighton Barrett
One of Creighton’s most prolific and well-documented singers was Dennis Smith, from East Chezzetcook, Nova Scotia. Smith was 87 when Helen first met him, and he was 92 when Helen first recorded him in 1943. Despite his age, he was a lively character. In A Life in Fol-klore (1975, p. 136), Helen described his drama-tization of “Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight,” writing that “like most old timers he spoke the last word, but this time he shouted it so vehe-mently [she] feared he would smash the micro-phone.” Smith routinely animated his songs with knee-slaps and other motions, and despite his song-ending antics, Doreen Senior wrote that he had a “vigorous voice with true pitch” (1951, p. 83).
[Seventh Pretty Maid] Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight [A] from collected text in 1937 and Library of Congress recording made by Dennis Smith in 1943. Sung by Mr. Dennis Smith, Chezzetcook. Compare Child, C, verses 6-9, and D, verses 12-16, 22, 28.
'Twas of a youth and a well bred youth,
He being a squire's son,
And he went a-courting an inn-keeper's daughter,
Belonged to North Cumberland.
2. He courted a part of a summer's season
And part of a winter courted he,
And all he courted this fair lady for
Was to take her sweet life away.
3. "Oh give me half of your father's fee
And part of your mother's gold,
And we will bet away to some foreign counteree
And married we will be."
4. Then she went down !o her father's stable door
There stood horses thirty-three,
Then she mounted a milk white steed
And him on a silvery grey.
5. She mounted on her milk white steed
And he rode the fast travelling grey,
Then they rode till they came to a-riverside
Three hours before it was day.
6. "Alight, alight, my pretty fair maid,
Alight alight, " cried he,
"For six pretty maids I have drownded here
And the seventh you shall be."
7. "Strip off, strip off your silken clothes
And lie them on the green.
For I do think your clothing is too gay
For to lie in that watery stream."
8. "If I strip off my silken clothes
And lie them on the green,
Then I do think it is a great shame
For a naked woman to be seen."
9. Then this young woman turned her back to him
And so bitterlee did weep,
And all the strength that this fair lady had
She shoved him into the brink.
10. "Oh sink or swim you false-hearted man,
I think you have got your doom,
But I do think that your clothing is too say
For to sink in that watery tomb !"
11. Oh then she mounted her milk white steed
And led the silvery gray,
She rode till she came to her father's house
Three hours before it was day.
12 The parrot being up in the window so high,
"Oh where have you been?" cried he.
"I've been away to Scotland's bridge
Young Henry he lies under the sea."
13. "Don't prittle, don't prattle my pretty polly dear
And tell no tales on me,
And your cage shall be made of the very best of gold
And hung on an ivory tree. "