Sweet Willie- (NC) 1921 Sutton; Brown G
[From the Brown Collection; 1952, one of 11 Versions. Brown includes music from Greer and Abrams housed at Appalachian State University- available online (some recordings).
According to the Brown collection version G is the F text with suggested changes-- the last three stanzas are from The House Carpenter.
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."
SWEET WILLIE- by an unknown singer as sung by Sutton, 1921. Text from Brown F with changes from G. See music for first stanza below
1 As he rode up to the old man's gate
So boldly he did say,
"Your oldest daughter you may keep at home,
But the young one I'll take away."
2 Come in, come in all seven of my sons
Go take your sister down
For it never shall be said, that a Stuart's son
Has taken my daughter out of town.
3 I thank you sir, that's very fair,
I am not a Stuart's son.
My father is a raging [reigning] king,
My mother she's a Quaker's queen
4 He mounted on his milk-white steed
And her on the dappled bay
He swung his bugle horn around his neck,
And they went riding away.
5 They'd not got but one mile from town,
When she looked back again.
She saw her father and all seven of her brothers
Come tripling over the plain.
6 "Alight you down fair Ellender," said he,
"And hold my steed by the rein,
Till I fight your father and all seven of your brothers,
As they come trippling over the plain."
7 She got down; and she stood right still,
She never said a word,
Till she saw her father and all seven of her brothers
Wallowing in their own heart's blood.
8 "Oh slack your lick dear Willie," said she
For your wounds are very sore.
Your blood flows free from every vein,
But a father I can have no more.
9 So he mounted on his milk-white steed,
And her on the dappled bay.
He swung his bugle horn around his neck,
And he went bleeding away.
10 They rode till they came to his mother's gate.
He tingled there at the ring.
"Oh mother, mother are you asleep or awake?
Oh arise and let me in."
11. 'I'm not a-weepin' fur your silver er your gold
Er either fur your store ;
I'm just a-weepin' fur my sweet little babe
That I never shall see no more.
12. She had not been on sea three months,
I'm sure it was not four,
Until there sprung a leak in her true love's ship
And sunk it to rise no more.
13 'A curse, a curse on all seamen,
A curse forever more.
For you have robbed me of my house carpenter
That I never shall see any more.
G. 'Sweet Willie.' Another text contributed by Mrs. Sutton, who sang it for Dr. Brown, May 15, 1921, "just as they were sung to me in a little hut on Beach Mountain"— but she does not say by whom. It corresponds closely to F except at the close, where instead of the last three stanzas of F appear the following— taken, as Dr. Brown has noted on the manuscript, from 'The House Carpenter' (i.e., 'James Hams') : a striking example of the way in which ballad elements may be shifted about.
11. 'I'm not a-weepin' fur your silver er your gold
Er either fur your store ;
I'm just a-weepin' fur my sweet little babe
That I never shall see no more.
12. She had not been on sea three months,
I'm sure it was not four,
Until there sprung a leak in her true love's ship
And sunk it to rise no more.
13 'A curse, a curse on all seamen,
A curse forever more.
For you have robbed me of my house carpenter
That I never shall see any more.