Some Fusions in Missouri Ballads- Barbour 1936
Some Fusions in Missouri Ballads
Author(s): Frances M. Barbour
The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 49, No. 193 (Jul. - Sep., 1936), pp. 207-214
SOME FUSIONS IN MISSOURI BALLADS
BY FRANCES M. BARBOUR
Among the various changes that occur in ballads in their long subliterary careers one of the most common is the shifting of stanzas from
one ballad to another. Such borrowings are obviously encouraged by
peculiarities of the ballad itself. A marked similarity of theme, situation,
and incident makes stanzas from one ballad fit easily into another from
the standpoint of sense, and the characteristic ballad meter affords a
perfect metrical fusion. An additional incentive to the appropriation of
lines from one ballad for use in another is the singer's taste for embellishment.
It is most commonly the lines luxurious in sentiment or verbal
embroidery that have been shifted from one ballad to another, a process
as likely in this case to be conscious as instinctive or accidental.
In the ensuing study of ballad fusions variants of common ballads
current in the Missouri Ozarks [1] have been examined and compared with
other American variants.
BARBARA ALLEN
(Child 84)
He sent his servant down to tell
The town where she was dwellin',
Saying, "Come, 0 come to my master's bed
If your name be Barbary Allen.
"For death is printed on his lips
And o'er his heart is stealin'
And none the better will he be
Till he sees Barbary Allen."
"If death be printed on his lips
And o'er his heart is stealin',
Then none the better will he be
While my name's Barbary Allen."
As she was walking in the fields
She heard the death bells pealin'
And every stroke they seemed to say,
"Hard-hearted Barbary Allen."
She turned her body round and round
And spied the corpse a-comin'.
Saying, "Let him down, O let him down
That I may gaze upon him."
The more she looked, the more she cried,
Her heart was filled with sorrow,
Saying, "Mother, O Mother, go fix my bed,
I'm bound to die to-morrow."
Saying, "Mother, O Mother, go fix my bed,
And fix it soft and narrow,
Sweet William died for me to-day;
I'll die for him to-morrow."
From her breast there sprang a red rose,
From his there sprang a briar;
They climbed and climbed to the church steeple top
And there they tied in a true lovers' knot,
The rose around the briar.
The last five lines of this variant of "Barbara Allen" are a condensation of these two stanzas from "Fair Margaret and Sweet William" (Child 74):
Margaret was buried in the lower chancel,
Sweet William in the higher;
Out of her breast there sprang a rose,
And out of his a briar.
They grew as high as the church-top
Till they could grow no higher,
And there they grew in a true lovers' knot,
Which made all people admire.
Such lines are common, almost identical stanzas occurring at the end of "Lord Thomas and Fair Annet" (Child 73), "Lord Lovel" (Child 75), "The Lass of Roch Royal" (Child 76), and perhaps others.
The shifting of these stanzas to "Barbara Allen," however, seems to have occurred relatively recently. They do not occur in any of the Child versions, but it is obvious that this adaptation is now quite common in America. Six out of eight Missouri texts of "Barbara Allen" contain similar lines (H. M. Belden's A, B, C, and F, [2] and Louise Pound's A[3]).
Approximately the same proportion obtains elsewhere, for some trace of these stanzas is found in two of John H. Cox's three southern variants (B and C[3]), in four of Reed Smith's six,[5] (South Carolina), and in five of
Campbell and Sharp's six,[6] (southern Appalachian). They also occur in
W. R. Mackenzie's Nova Scotia text (B[7]).
In this case the fusion seems to have taken place as a result of a desire for embellishment, although it is obvious that a similarity of situation might have been a contributing force. In all cases there is a desire on the part of star-crossed lovers for reunion in the hereafter. The reunion is here symbolized elaborately, according to the taste of the singer of ballads.
THE HOUSE CARPENTER
(Child 243, "James Harris" or "The Daemon Lover")
"I once could have married a king's daughter
And she would have married me,
But I have crossed the deep briny ocean
All for the love of thee."
"If you could have married a king's daughter
And she would have married thee,
You need not have crossed the deep briny ocean
All for the love of me.
"[If you could have married a king's daughter,
I think you are to blame] [8]
For I am married to a house carpenter,
And I think he's a fine young man."
"If you will leave your house carpenter
And come along with me,
I'll take you where the grass grows green
On the banks of Liberty."
She picked up her dear little babe
And gave it kisses three,
Saying, "Stay at home, my dear little babe,
Keep father company."
She went into her dressing room
And dressed all up so gay
Just for to leave her house carpenter
And sail on the raging sea.
"And what have you got to maintain me upon
And keep me from slavery?"
"I've seven ships in harbor and on sea
And seven more on land
And three hundred of bright boatsmen
To rise at your command."
She picked up her dear little babe
And gave it kisses four,
Saying, "Stay at home my dear little babe
Whose face I shall see no more."
This lady had not been a-sailing on deck
For more than two weeks or three,
When she was down at the bottom of the boat,
Weeping most bitterly.
"O, do you weep for your silver or your gold,
Or do you weep for your store,
Or do you weep for your house carpenter
You left on the other shore ?"
"I neither weep for my silver nor my gold,
I neither weep for my store,
But I do weep for my poor little babe
Whose face I shall see no more."
This lady had not been a-sailing on deck
For more than three weeks or four,
When there sprang a leak at the bottom of the boat;
Her weeping was heard no more.
Two versions of this ballad from Tuscumbia, Missouri, contain an elaborate stanza descriptive of the lady's appearance. In one it is the following:
She dressed herself all neat and clean,
All dressed in living green,
And all the cities that she went through,
They took her to be some queen,
and in the other:
She dressed herself in scarlet red,
Her waist with maiden green,
And every city that she rode through,
They took her to be some queen.
These stanzas are an adaptation from "Lord Thomas and Fair Annet" (Child, B, stanza 20, and D, stanza II). This shift does not occur in any
of the Child versions of "The Daemon Lover," and it is not a common
one. The adaptation is apparently a clear case of a desire for embellishment
and could hardly be accounted for by the very vague similarity of
situation. Almost any occasion is an excuse for a woman to dress up,
and your ballad singer, it seems, will dress her up with no excuse at all.
THE SILVER DAGGER
Come all ye young people, come circle round me,
Listen to these few lines I'm going to write;
They're just as true as ever were written,
Concerning a fair and beautiful bride.
He courted her for his true love,
And he loved her dearly as he loved his own life,
And he ofttimes said while in her presence
He'd make her his lawful and wedded wife.
But when his parents came to know this,
They strove to part them night and day,
Saying, "Son, 0 son, she's a poor orphant girl;
O do not have her," they would sometimes say.
Then he knelt down before his father,
Saying, "Father, father, pity her,
And do not keep me from my true love,
For she is all the world to me."
But when his true love came to know this,
She resolved what she would do;
She rambled forth and left her village,
No more her present groups to view.
She stole away a silver dagger
And concealed it near her heart,
He who was standing near
Heard and knew his true love's voice;
He ran like somebody distracted,
Saying, "O, my love, I fear you're lost."
Then he picked up the bloody body
And rolled it over in his arms,
Saying, "Gold, no gold nor friends can save you;
You're bound to die with all your charms."
Then her two black eyes she opened,
Saying, "0, my love, you've come too late.
Prepare to meet me on Mount Zion,
Where all our joys will be complete."
Then he picked up the bloody dagger
And thrust it quickly through his heart,
Saying, "This may prove an awful warning
To those who would true lovers part."
"The Silver Dagger," according to Cecil Sharp,[9] is commonly confused
with an English ballad, "Awake, Awake," and Professor Kittredge
has assembled the original and confused versions.[10] In this case, the
stanzas have been shifted from "The Silver Dagger" to the English
ballad. "Awake, Awake" (or "The Drowsy Sleeper"), in comparison
with "The Silver Dagger," is flat and tasteless to the palate. A girl
simply refuses to arouse her sleeping parents to ask their permission to
marry her lover, of whom they disapprove. Apparently the ballad singer
found in the closing stanzas of "The Silver Dagger" the spice lacking in
the quiet indecisive story of "Awake, Awake"; and in consequence the
gentle English ballad commonly occurs in America highly flavored
with tragic violence:
Then Willie drew a silver dagger
And pierced it through his aching heart,
Saying, "Farewell to my own true lover,
Farewell, farewell, I am at rest."
Then Mary drew the bloody dagger
And pierced it through her snow-white breast,
Saying, "Farewell, dear father, mother;
Farewell, farewell, we're both at rest."[11]
Here again the situations are sufficiently similar that material from one
ballad fits almost equally well in the other.
PRETTY POLLY
(Child 4, "Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight")
"I have drowned here six fair ladies,
And the seventh one you will be.
"Take off those costly robes you wear
And fold them here by me -
They are too costly and too fine
To float on the salt, salt sea."
"Turn your back around to me -"
. . . .
She picked him up quite manfully
And plunged him into the sea.
Saying, "Lie there, lie there, you false-hearted man,
Lie there instead of me,
Your clothes are not too costly and too fine
To float on the salt, salt sea."
She mounted on the milk-white steed
And led the dappled gray,
And rode into her own dear home;
It was three long hours till day.
"Come down, come down, my pretty little parrot
And sit upon my knee"
. . .
. . . .
"I won't come down, I can't come down
And sit upon your knee -
The way you've murdered your own true love
I'm afraid you'll murder me."
In this fragmentary remnant of a ballad which is quite rare in Missouri
(I believe only one other variant' has been reported from there) there
occurs a very unusual borrowing. The parrot in this variant behaves in
an altogether different manner from what he does in any other variant
that I have examined. Ordinarily he calls to his mistress on her return,
arousing her irate father, who questions him. For a minute we tremble
for the fate of a young person who has recently made off with many of
her parents' worldly possessions. But the parrot displays a remarkable
resourcefulness, explaining that he had called for his mistress to drive
the cat away from him. The parrot is rewarded by his mistress with a
gold and ivory cage.
The bird of the Phelps County version behaves like an accusing conscience.
He is so different, in fact, that one immediately suspects a
substitution, for ballads have a way of holding to the essential facts of the
story in the midst of verbal changes. As it happens, a bird from an
entirely different ballad has been substituted for the girl's parrot.
The source of this strangely misfit bird is "Loving Henry"2 and
similarity of situation is sufficient reason for the shifting of this bird to
"Pretty Polly." A jealous girl murders her lover and throws his body
into a well. Finding the bird a witness to her crime, she calls to it as
follows:
"Fly down, fly down, little birdie," she called,
"And sit on my right knee,
For the costly cords that's round my waist
Will be supplied to thee."
To this the bird answers:
"I could fly down if I would fly down
And sit upon your knee;
But the way you murdered your own true love
Surely you would murder me."
Here certainly a desire for elaborateness could not have prompted the
shift, for the lines from "Loving Henry" are much less colorful than the
lines which they have replaced. In this case, I believe, a singer's memory
harbored two birds which were interchangeable, and after a lapse of time
this confusion resulted.
1 All variants printed here were sung by Miss Minnie Doyel, Arlington, Phelps County, Missouri.
2 Journal of American Folk-Lore, Vol. XIX, pp. 286 and following.
3 Louise Pound, American Ballads and Songs, I3, P. 9.
4 Folk Songs of the South, 16, p. 96.
5 South Carolina Ballads, ?8, p. 219.
6 English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, p. go and following.
7 Ballads and Sea Songs from Nova Scotia, ?9, p. 35.
8 Supplied from H. M. Belden, Journal of American Folk-lore, Vol. XIX,p. 297.
9 English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, p. 330.
10 Journal of American Folk-lore, Vol. XXX, pp. 342-3.
11 Louise Pound, American Ballads and Songs, also Journal of American Folk-lore, Vol. XXX, p. 338.