Six Pretty Fair Maids- (VA) 1920 Davis L
[My title, no title given. From Davis, Traditional Ballads of Virginia; 1929. His notes follow. It seems like stanza six may have been edited to remove, "a naked lady to see," since it was published in a high school paper.
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.
L. [Six Pretty Fair Maids] No title given. Sent in by Mr. W. E. Somers, of Wachapreague, Va. Accomac County. November 11, 1920. This ballad was printed in an article on " English and Scottish Ballads " by Miss Louise Lilliston, in the November 11,
1920, issue of Ocean Current, the semi-monthly paper of the Wachapreague High School, of which Mr. Somers was at that time principal.
1. "Give me some of your father's gold,
And some of your mother's fee,
And two of the best nags that stand in the stall,
The best of twenty and three."
2. She brought him some of her father's gold,
And some of her mother's fee,
And two of the best nags that stood in the stall,
The best of twenty and three.
3 She mounted on her milk-white steed,
Whilst he on the iron gray;
They rode away to the dark blue sea,
'T was just two hours from day.
4 "Get down, get down," my pretty fair maid,
Get down, get down," cries he,
"Six pretty fair maids I have drowned here,
And the seventh one thou shalt be.
5 "Take off, take off thy silken dress,
Take it off, take it off, I say,
For silks are too rich and costly
To be thrown into the sea, salt sea."
6. "If I must take off this silken dress,
Please turn your back upon me,
For it would be a sin for a lady like me
To undress before servants like thee."
7. He turned his back upon her,
Whilst beaming over the sea,
She caught him around his fair spare waist,
And she threw him into the sea.
8. "Lie there, lie there, false-hearted young man,
Lie there instead of me;
Six pretty fair maids you have drowned here,
And the seventh one drowneth thee."
9. "Help me out, help me out, my pretty fair maid,
Help me out, help me out," said he.
"I'll take you back to your father's home,
And there I'll marry thee."
10. "Lie there, lie there, false-hearted young man,
Lie there, lie there," cried she,
"Six pretty fair maids you have drowned here,
And the seventh one drowneth thee."
11. She mounted on her milk-white steed.,
Whilst leading the iron gray,
She rode away to her father's house,
'T was just one hour from day.