Susan Price- (NC) c.1878 Brown E; Walker
[From: Brown Collection (A-F Versions) Vol. 2, c.1952, version E. This Hicks/Harmon version was supplied by Edith Walker around 1939 from Aunt Betty Hicks, mother of Nora Hicks who at one time lived on Rich Mountain. "Aunt Betty" is Elizabeth Hicks (b. Oct. 1860- d. 1942) her parents were John A. (b. circa 1840) and Ellen Baird. This is a Hicks ballad probably though her husband, William Hicks' (b. 1858–) family. This branch of the Hicks family has been called the "Mast Gap Hicks" (and Mast's Gap Hicks). Nora Hicks (b. 1886-) acquired many ballads though her grandmother Fanny Hicks, who was the same generation as Council Harmon (her cousin).
Edith Walker, of Watauga County who became a student at Appalachian State, collected and sang ballads in the late 1930s about the time Abrams began making recording at Appalachian State University at Boone, NC. Originally I thought this ballad is likely from Nora Hicks (of the Mast Gap Hicks) who Walker "discovered" about that time (see: North Carolina Folklore Journal- Volumes 34-37, Page 23, 1987). Nora and her daughter Addie sing some of it on a c.1940 Abrams recording; it is transcribed in Brown, Vol. 4, first verse.
The Betty Hicks/Nora Hicks version would be the same version as the Harmon family version collected in Tennessee by Henry (Sam Harmon's version; Sam father Goulder was Council Harmon's son). The Hicks/Harmon families inter-married and descended from David Hick and his son "Big Sammy" and their kin (Council Harmon; Fanny Hicks). Roby Monroe Hicks (b. 1882) sang the family version on Warners' "Her Bright Smile," 1940. A fuller version of Roby Monroe's ballad was collected from his wife Buna in 1966 (see her text which she learned from him- Burton/Manning Vol. 2).
R. Matteson 2014]
OLDER BALLADS MOSTLY BRITISH
14. Young Beichan (Child 53)
It has been suggested that the frequent and widespread occurrence of this ballad as traditional song may be due to its frequent appearance in broadside and songbook print (for which see Barry, BBM 106-22, and especially Kittredge's bibliographical note, JAFL XXX 294-7). The argument may easily, however, be turned the other way: that ballad printers used it because it was known to be a favorite. Cause and effect are not easily distinguished in such cases. There is at least no question that it is a favorite. It has been reported as traditional song in recent times in Scotland (LL 40-2), Northamptonshire (ECS 62-3), Lincolnshire (JFSS iii 192-9), Wiltshire and Hampshire (FSUT 147-9; Williams says it is "common to the whole of the Thames Valley"), Sussex (Sharp's Folk-Songs of England v 32-3), Somerset (FSSom no. 65), even, the tune at least, in the Isle of Man (JFSS vii 315) ; and on this side of the water in the Bahamas (JAFL xli 585-8), Newfoundland (FSN 88-92, BSSN 17), Nova Scotia (BSSNS 16-19), Maine (BBM 106-22), Vermont (VFSB 204-8), Pennsvlvania (JAFL XXIII 450-1), Virginia (TBV 158-71, SharpK i 87, SCSM 212-13), West Virginia (FSS 36-41), Kentucky (JAFL xx 251-2, xxii 64-5, SharpK i 79-80, 83-6, 87, 88, LT 58-61, DD 86-7), Tennessee (SharpK i 81-3. 86, FSSH 55-9, BTFLS viii 68-9), North Carolina (JAFL xxviii 149-51, SharpK i 77-9, 80-1, FSRA 18-20), South Carolina (SCB 104-6), Mississippi (FSM 75-6), Florida (SFLQ VIII 144-6), the Ozarks (OMF 197-201, OFS i 83-8), Ohio (BSO 28-9), Michigan (BSSM 143-5), and Nebraska (ABS 53-6, really from Indiana).
There are certain interesting variations among these many texts. Kittredge, in the note above referred to, remarks that some of the American texts differ from the broadsides in retaining a detail of the Turks' barbarous cruelty: a hole is bored in Beichan's shoulder by means of which he is harnessed and becomes a draft-animal. Thus in Child A:
For thro his shoulder he put a bore.
An thro the bore has pitten a tree,
An he's gard him draw the carts o wine.
Where horse and oxen had wont to be.
Similarly in B D E H I N. The word "tree" here means "draught-tree," the pole of a wagon or cart by which it is attached to the draft animal. "Tree" in this sense was apparently not an acceptable locution, was not understood in America ; Henry's Tennessee text and our version E change it to "key," two of the West Virginia texts and the only text in TBV that retains this feature change the word to "rope" and the other West Virginia text to "string." Other American texts that keep the word change the meaning; the "tree" is now that to which the captive is tied (chained, nailed, bound, fastened, sometimes around his middle), giving a quite different picture. So BBM D, TBV E, SharpK A E, JAFL xxviii 150, XXX 295, and our A version. Some of the texts have in the closing scene what seems to be a reference to the heroine's baptism, most definitely in Child A:
He's take his bonny love by the han,
And led her to yon fountain stane;
He's changed her name frae Shusy Pye,
An he's cald her his bonny love, Lady Jane.
Some of the American texts, both from the North and from the South, retain the feature of the change of name, but I judge that in each instance it is understood of a change of name by marriage, not by christening. Finally, certain of the American texts make the heroine declare her love with an un-American frankness. When the prisoner offers wealth and position to the lady if she will free him from his bonds, she tells him that all she wants is his "fair body." This locution is found in none of the Child texts; but it is in Coverly's Boston broadside, in The Forget-Me-Not Songster, and in traditional texts from Nova Scotia, Maine, Vermont, Virginia, and North Carolina (though not in any of the texts in our collection). Whether the innovation originates with Coverly is not clear, but it is contrary to the general American mores to express desire so simply.
Our collection has six texts of Young Beichan.
E. 'Susan Price.' From the manuscript songbook of Miss Edith Walker of Boone, Watauga county. This is the same version as that reported by Henry, FSSH 55-8, from Blount county, Tennessee — which is only a few miles away on the other side of the state line from Watauga county. This version is distinguished by deriving the hero not from London but from Glasgow (there is a trace of this in Kinloch's version. Child H, where, though Beichan is London-born in stanza 1, he becomes "the lord frae Scotland" in stanza 12 and "my Scottish lord" in stanza 18, and comes home to "Glasgow town" in stanza 20, and the Turkish lady comes to "the Scottish shore" in stanza 28) and by having Deham propose first his oldest and then his youngest brother as substitute before he finally agrees to marry the lady himself. Although the two texts correspond rather closely in the main, there are variations that make it worth while to record Miss Walker's text here. In the manuscript it is written as couplets, but the rhyme shows that it is really in quatrains and I have so printed it.
1 Young Deham from Glasgow is gone
All the Turks for to see.
And the Turks took him as a prisoner
And bound him to a thirsty[1] tree ;
2 Through his left shoulder they bored a hole
And through and through they drune[2] a key
And they forced him into the dungeon deep
Where the light of day he ne'er could see.
3 The jailer had a beautiful daughter —
A beautiful creature, oh ! was she —
The jailhouse door was open wide
And by Lord Deham did stand she.
4. 'Now have you any house or land,
Or any other buildings free?
What would you give to a pretty girl
To set you at your liberty?
5 'Glasgow town is all my own,
Besides other buildings two or three :
All this I'll give to a pretty girl
To set me at my liberty.'
6 She took him by the liberty[3] white hand,
Through rooms and rooms went he and she;
The sugar bread and wine so red,
Was all to nourish his fair body.
7 They drew a leave[4] between them both
For seven long years and a day.
'And if you don't come unto the time,
All the blame on you I'll lay.'
8 The seven year being most gone
Miss Susan thought the time was long.
I must go seek my young Deham,
I know not where or what land.'
9 Her father built her a little ship
And put it on the raging sea.
And in it he put gold enough
To bear her own sweet company.
10 She sailed high and she sailed low ;
Some turquoise stones she chanced to spy.
As she sat cracking her milk-white fingers
Three gentlemen came riding by.
11 Is this Deham's hall?
Or is there any knight within?'
'This here is young Deham's hall,
And there is a knight within.
12 'He's a-sittin' at his wedding table,
Makin' welcome with his noble kin.'
13 When she came to Lord Deham's gate
She dingled loudly at the gate.
'Just wait a while,' the proud porter says,
'I'll quickly rise and let you in.
14 'There's the purtiest woman at your gate
That ever my two eyes did see.'
He kicked the table with his foot
And caught all upon his knees.
15 The silver pans and earthen cans,
All to pieces they did fly.
'I'll lay my life,' Lord Deham says,
Miss Susan Price come over sea!'
1 6 'Now are you married to another woman?
I'm sure I hain't to another man.
Just pay me down ninety thousand pounds
And I'll sail back to the Turkish land.'
17 'My dearest jewel, now don't say so!
But if you murmur, let it be;
I'll wed you to my older brother,
If contented with him you will be.'
18 'I wish you great luck with your older brother,
But I don't want no such a man.
Just pay me down ninety thousand pounds
And I'll sail back to the Turkish land.'
19 'My dearest jewel, now don't say so!
But if you murmur, let it be;
I'll wed you to my younger brother,
If contented with him you'll be.'
20 'I wish you great luck with your younger brother,
But I don't want no such a man.
Just pay me down ninety thousand pound
And I'll sail back to the Turkish land.'
21 'My dearest jewel, now don't say so!
But if you murmur, let it be;
I'll wed you to my own self
If contented you'll be.'
22 Up then spoke the new bride's mother :
'Such a thing was never known,
To marry a damsel in the morning fair
And wed another before it's noon!'
23 'You can take your brown girl home,
I'm sure she's none the worse by me;
I aim to wed the lady fair
That set me at my liberty.'
1. trusty tree
2. Henry's text has "drew." For the meaning of "key" see headnote. ["drew a tree"]
3. ["lily"] So the manuscript ; perhaps merely a mistake not corrected.
4. The meaning seems to be "promise" or "agreement"; "leave" a strange word for it.