Six King's Daughters- Peck (VA) pre1914 Davis N
[From Davis, Traditional Ballads of Virginia; 1929. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2014]
LADY ISABEL AND THE ELF-KNIGHT
(CHILD, NO.4)
THIS ballad is one of the few most frequently found in Virginia, where variously known as "Pretty Polly," "The Seven King's Daughters," "King's Daughter," "The Pretty Gold Leaf," "The Salt Water Sea," "Miss Mary's Parrot," and under several other titles. Its polyonymity is almost equal to its ubiquity - twenty-eight variants under sixteen different titles. In Virginia it does not, however, when compared with" Barbara Allen," "The House Carpenter" and several others quite live up to its reputation of having obtained the widest circulation of all ballads. Child's remarkable introduction to this ballad discusses at some length its extraordinary currency in the southern as well as the northern nations of Europe. Space is also given to a consideration of the hypothesis that the ballad is a wild shoot from the story of Judith and Holofernes, with Holofernes the original of the Elf-Knight. Child concludes; "It is a supposition attended with less difficulty that an independent European tradition existed of a half-human, half-demonic being, who possessed an irresistible power of decoying away young maids, and was wont to kill them after he got them into his hands, but who at last found one who was more than his match, and lost his own life through her craft and courage. A modification of this story is afforded by the large class of Bluebeard tales."
All the Virginia texts correspond much more closely with the Child series C-G (and Sargent and Kittredge H) than to A and B. Warning might perhaps be given of the confusion of Pollies in most of the Virginia texts. The girl and the parrot have the same name and are not always immediately distinguishable.
For American findings of this ballad see Barry, No. 4; Belden, No. 1 (fragment); Brown, p. 9 (North Carolina); Bulletin, Nos. 2-4, 6-12; Campbell and Sharp, No. 2 (Massachusetts, North Carolina, Kentucky, Georgia); Child, III, 496 (Virginia, from The Folk-Lore Journal, VII, p. 28); Cox, No. I and p. 521 (fragment and melody); Hudson, No. I (Mississippi); Jones, p. 301 (fragment); Journal, XVIII, 132 (Barry, Massachusetts, text and melody); XIX, 232 (Belden, Missouri); XXII, 65 (Beatty, Wisconsin), 76 (Barry, New Jersey, melody only), 374 (Barry, Massachusetts, text and melody, Missouri), 344 (Barry, Massachusetts); XXVII, 90 (Gardner, Michigan); XXVIII, 148 (Perrow, North Carolina); XXXV, 338 (Tolman and Eddy, Ohio); Mackenzie, Ballads, No. I, and p. 391 (melody); Sandburg, P: 60 (R. W. Gordon Collection); Scarborough, p. 43 (Texas, text and melody); Shearin, p. 3; Shearin and Combs, p. 7; Reed Smith, No. I; Reed Smith, Ballads, No. I; Wyman and Brockway, p. 82. For additional references, see Cox, p. 3; Journal, XXIX.
N. "The Six King's Daughters" or "The Seventh King's Daughter," or "Pretty Polly." collected by Miss Mary E. Peck of the Farmville Ballad Club. Sung by her father (when she was a child). Prince Edward County, May 1914, printed in the Focus for May 1914, p. 214.
1 "Go gather up your mother's gold.
Likewise your father's fee."
For I have drowned six king's daughters,
And you the seventh shall be, be, be,
And you the seventh shall be."
2 He mounted on his iron gray,
And she the dappled bay,
And off they rode to the broad seaside,
Three hours before 't was day, day , day,
Three hours before 't was day.
3 "Go turn your back to the salt-water sea
Your face to the limbs of the tree,
She picked him up so manfully,
And plunged him into the sea, sea, sea,
And plunged him into the sea.
4. "Lie there, lie there, you false-hearted wretch,
Lie there instead of me,
For it never was intended for me
To float upon the salt-water sea, sea, sea,
To float on the salt-water sea."
5. She mounted upon the iron gray,
And led the dappled bay,
And away she went to her own home again,
One hour before 't was day, day, day,
One hour before 't was day.
6. "Polly, Polly, my pretty Polly,
Pray tell no tales on me;
Your cage shall be made of the finest beaten gold,
And hung upon the weeping willow tree, tree, tree,
And hung on the weeping willow tree."