Sweet William & Fair Ellen- (NC) c1940 Brown 4B(1)
[From the Brown Collection; 1952, version 4B(1) in Brown Vol, 4 (music) one of 11 Versions. Brown includes music from Greer and Abrams housed at Appalachian State University- available online (some recordings).
This is version B(1)in the Brown Collection Vol. 4, no date, no singer, just a single stanza with music. Surprisingly it is not in Bronson (the second published version Bronson has missed). Although the text is associated with Brown D, I suspect the music is from the Greer Collection and is associated with Brown B.
R. Matteson 2011, 2014]
3. Earl Brand (Child 7)
This admirable specimen of the tragic ballad seems to have held its place in the favor of ballad singers better in America than in the old country. Greig reports it from Scotland, to be sure, both in the Folk-Songs of the North-East and in Last Leaves, and Ord has it in his Bothy Songs; but the absence of any mention of it in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society seems to show that it is extinct in English tradition. On this side of the Atlantic it has been reported as traditional song in Newfoundland (BSSN 7-8), Nova Scotia (BSSNS 9-11), Maine (BBM 35-40), Virginia (TBV 86-91, SharpK I 21-3, 25), West Virginia (FSS 18-19), Kentucky (SharpK i 24-5), Tennessee (FSSH 36-7, BTFLS viii 64-5), North Carolina (JAFL xxviii 152-4, SharpK 1 14-19, SSSA 45-6, BMFSB lo-ii, SCSM 115-16), Georgia (SharpK I 19-20), Mississippi (FSM 66-8), Florida (SFLQ viii 136-8), the Ozarks (OMF 219-21, OFS I 48-9), Indiana (BSI 37-8), and Illinois JAFL IX 241-2). 'The Soldier's Wooing,' reckoned by some as a secondary form of "Earl Brand,' is dealt with later in the present volume. The American texts follow in general the tradition of Scott's form of the ballad ('The Douglas Tragedy' of the Minstrelsy, Child's version B), clinging in particular to the '"buglet horn" that "hung down by his side," recognizable through a variety of transformations. Old Carl Hood has vanished entirely. Most of the North Carolina versions, and also that from Georgia, have introduced a new element, the question of the hero's origin. *When scornfully described by the girl's father as "a steward's son" (transformed in texts A, C, F below into "Stuart's son"), he proudly declares that his father is a regis king and his mother a Quaker's queen. Possibly this has been picked up, and corrupted, from the English stall ballad of 'The Orphan Gypsy Girl,' the opening line of which in Cox's West Virginia version (FSS 335) runs: "My father is king of the gypsies, my mother is queen of the Jews."
B(1) 'Sweet William and Fair Ellen.' No evidence of singer, date, or place of recording. Melodically very similar to Prather 3D(i), Byers 3D, Johnson 3C, and less so to Sutton version 3G. The general outline of the M. B. Miller version also shows considerable relationship.
For melodic relationship, cf. *BMFSB 10. Scale: Mode II, plagal. Tonal Center: c. Structure: abcb1 (2,2,2,2) = ab (4,4).
1 As he rode up to the old man's gate
And boldly he did say,
"Your youngest daughter you may keep at home,
But the oldest I'll take away."