The Ancestry of "The House-Carpenter": A Study of the Family History of the American Forms of Child 243
by Alisoun Gardner-Medwin
The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 84, No. 334 (Oct. - Dec., 1971), pp. 414-427
The Ancestry of "The House-Carpenter" A Study of the Family History of the American Forms of Child 243
THERE HAVE BEEN MANY ATTEMPTS to examine the American forms of the traditional ballads and their ancestors the British ballads. Emphasis has been laid on the literary relationships and few scholars have attempted to say who were the immigrants who could have brought the ballads to America.
In a recent study Herschel Gower brings together what little is definitely known about the early settlers and the changes perceptible in the ballads as they survive in America.[1] He points out that on evidence drawn from family names there was by 1790 a high percentage of people of Scottish descent, from Northern Ireland and directly from Scotland, in the Southern Appalachian region.[2] Contemporary records are scarce; what there are point to a concentration of Lowland Scots and Scotch-Irish in the very region where the ballads were discovered in the early twentieth century. Cecil Sharp noticed this when he was collecting in the Southern Appalachian mountains. He was aware that the Gaelic-speaking Highlanders formed a group apart, and that the people from whom he was obtaining the ballads were originally (either directly or after a generation or two in Ireland) from the English speaking Lowlands of Scotland. This is why he called his collection English Folk-Songs from the Southern Appalachians. In his introduction to the edition published in 1917 he says:
If the prevalence of the gapped scale in the mountain tunes is any indication of the ethnological origin of the singers, it seems to point to the North of England, or to the Lowlands, rather than the Highlands, of Scotland, as the country from which they originally migrated. For the Appalachian tunes, notwithstanding their "gapped" characteristics, have far more affinity with the normal English folk tune than with that of the Gaelic speaking highlander and may, therefore, very well have been derived from those who, dwelling on the borders of the Highland Kingdom, had been infected to a certain extent, with the musical proclivities of their neighbors. It will be observed moreover that the Notes contain a large number of references to Dean Christie's Traditional Ballad Airs and to the late Gavin Greig's Folk-Songs of the North-East, and both of these are collections of traditional songs from Lowland, not Highland, Scotland.[3]
Sharp continues by pointing to some evidence that the country of origin was England not Scotland and then says "However, it is not a matter of great importance which of these two hypotheses [that is, whether the country of origin was northern England or lowland Scotland we accept, because, in either case the tunes in question would quite correctly be called English." [4]
If Sharp's title refers to the English language, as distinct from the Gaelic, there is every reason to believe that the people who brought the ballads came from the most northerly area where English was the native tongue, the lowlands of Scotland.
Indeed, Sharp's opinion, based on the similarity of the tunes of the Southern Appalachians with those of lowland Scotland, expressed in 1917, is confirmed by later studies of the words such as that of Professor Herschel Glower.
In this essay I would like to look in detail at one ballad, Child 243, which is known in Scotland as "The Demon Lover" and in America as "The House-Carpenter," setting it against the historical and geographical background whenever possible. I shall examine the changes that occur within the ballad as it surfaces into print throughout the nearly 300 years since it first appeared about 1685, with the aim of finding out, if possible, when and by what route this ballad traveled to America. There is little that need be said about the earliest history of the ballad. It has recently been fully discussed by John Burrison in his article "James Harris" in Britain since Child." [5]
Although I find myself coming to a different conclusion about the later history of the ballad, I feel Burrison has most expertly dissected this subject, and I have found his exposition most helpful. The broadside which Child printed as version A is all we have before the mid-eighteenth century, but it must have been sung quite often to have been refined to the version printed in 1757 and 1785 which Child called B. This is said to be the version which developed into the American forms of "The House-Carpenter" and certainly the first verse is strikingly akin to a common opening of the American versions. [6]
However this English form of the ballad is by no means the only ancestor of the American "The House-Carpenter" and perhaps this essay will show that the connections with the Scottish side of the family are even stronger. This Scottish branch consists of several versions (Child C , D, E, F, G.) collected and printed in the nineteenth century.
The American form of the ballad was known to Child, for he printed two verses published in Philadelphia in 1858.This version, together with the broadside of 1860 published by De Marsan in New York, is the first appearance in print of the American form, but this does not prove that it is the earliest American version, and indeed I believe that this ballad flourished here for at least two generations before it was printed. In this century hundreds of American versions have been collected, most of them from oral tradition and with their tunes, while in Britain Olive Campbell and Cecil Sharp, English Folk-Songs from the Southern Appalachians (New York, 1917), xviii.
Burrison could find only four texts published after Child died, and all of these from before 1900. This is a striking contrast and one that is not found in this ballad alone; I would hope that this study would lead to a tentative answer to the question why some ballads die out in Britain but flourish in America. John Burrison has so elegantly defined the relationships of Child A and B and the Scottish versions that there is no need to repeat the same arguments. He suggests that there may well have been oral transmission between A and B, and that the Scottish "Demon Lover" forms are oral variants.[7] Before we start considering the American forms there is one element in the Scottish tradition that calls for further discussion. This is the demonic nature of the seducer and the place he promises to take the woman. This is an element not found in A or B; some of it remains in the tradition, some does not. In Buchan's version (Child C) the seducer mysteriously grows huge (stanza 22):
He reached his hand to the topmast,
Made all the sails go down.
In Motherwell's two versions and in Scott's (E11, G7, F11) the seducer is recognized by his cloven foot:
They had not sailed a league, a league,
A league but barely three,
Until she espied his cloven foot,
And she wept most bitterly. (E11)
These elements do not reappear in the tradition of this ballad, and would seem to be solely Scottish motifs. The mysterious land, on the other hand, to which the seducer promises to take the girl does remain in tradition and survives to the present day as a prominent feature of the plot. When the young woman starts to weep the seducer promises to take her to a wonderful land; it should be noted that in these Scottish versions this promised land appears very late in the plot, long after she has gone away on the ship.
"O hold your tongue of your weeping, "say she,
"Of your weeping now let me be;
I will shew you how the lilies grow
On the banks of Italy." (FI2, compare C16, 21, D6, E16, 17, G6)
In only two versions, Scott's (F) and the one found in Motherwell's manuscript (E), in this verse associated with a vision of the hills of heaven and hell (FI3, 14, E14, 15). [8] Belden says there is a Danish ballad of a treacherous merman (DgF 39) which "bears some resemblance to" this ballad, and Coffin mentions that "the Danes have a song concerning a treacherous woman." [9] Svend Grundtvig knew of Scott's and Buchan's versions but he felt there was no connection between this ballad and the Danish "Nokkens Svig." There is, however, a very similar situation elsewhere in Danish balladry. In "Ribold og Guldborg" (DgF 82) a seducer beguiles a girl by promising to take her to a land of eternal spring:
"Ieg skal fore jer paa den oe:
Hvor I skal leve og aldrig do." (G5)
(I shall take you to the island
Where you shall live and never die.) [10]
There are no lilies, however, in this land, nor is it called Italy, so even here the connection is tenuous.[11] A mysterious other world exists elsewhere in Scottish balladry. Thomas the Rhymer (Child 37) is shown by the Queen of the Fairies, the road to heaven, the road to hell and a "bonnie road/ That winds about the fernie brae," which is the road to Elfland. This ballad was known in Scotland at the same time as "The Demon Lover" and was also printed by Scott. The three roads are also in "Thomas off Ersseldoune" as the roads to heaven, hell, and purgatory. When this mysterious land occurs, in E and F, it comes just before the vision of the hills of heaven and hell; the vision is more frequent, occurring in other Scottish versions as well. It would suggest that a belief in a mysterious "otherworld," which was not heaven or hell or purgatory, and which could be reached by an earthly journey, was current in Scotland in the early years of the nineteenth century, and this is what has come into the tradition of Child 243 at this point. Whether this version reflects Celtic or Scandinavian beliefs or both is a fascinating line of inquiry, but one which cannot be followed here.
F13
"O what hills are yon, yon pleasant hills,
That the sun shines sweetly on?"
"O yon are the hills of heaven," he said,
"Where you will never win."
F14
"O whaten a mountain is yon," she said,
"All so dreary with frost and snow?"
"O yon is the mountain of hell," he cried,
"Where you and I will go." (Compare E14, 15)
If the promised land where the lilies grow and the vision of the hills of heaven and hell represent a faint but genuine folk tradition, then it is not surprising that they remain in the song when it migrates to America.
When we turn to the American versions we find that they are varied, and clearly there is going to be no simple answer to the problem of their relationships with the British versions. It would seem reasonable to start with the De Marsan broadside, for so far as we know this was the earliest published of the complete versions.
This broadside has been much discussed; it is markedly like the American oral versions of the twentieth century, yet there are differences: it is clearly related to Child B, the eighteenth-century English broadside, yet there is a definite Scottish element.
THE HOUSE CARPENTER [12]
1. "Well met, well met, my own true love,
Well met, well met!" cried he.
"For I've just returned from the Salt Sea,
And all for the love of thee!" (Compare BI)
2. "I might have married the King's daughter, dear,"
"You might have married her," cried she,
"For I am married to a House-Carpenter,
And a fine young man is he!" (Compare B2, 3, 4)
3. "If you will forsake your House-Carpenter,
And go along with me,
I will take you where the grass grows high,
On the banks of old Tennessee!" (Compare E13, F12)
4. "If I forsake my House-Carpenter,
And go along with thee,
What have you got to keep me upon,
And keep me from misery?" (Compare B5, and the Scottish tradition)
5. Says he, "I've got six ships at sea,
All sailing to dry land,
One hundred and ten of your own countrymen,
Love, they shall be at your command!" (Compare B6, C9, F7)
6. She took her babe upon her knee
And kissed it one, two and three,
Saying, "Stay at home, my darling sweet babe,
And keep your father's company!" (Compare C11, E7, F8, H2)
7. They had not sailed four weeks or more
Four weeks or scarcely three,
When she thought of her darling sweet babe at home,
And she wept most bitterly. (Compare B9, 10, C17, FI2)
8. Says he, "Are you weeping for gold, my love,
Or are you weeping for fear,
Or are you weeping for your House-Carpenter,
That you left and followed me?" (Compare B9, B10, C17, F12)
9. "I am not weeping for gold," she replied,
"Nor am I weeping for fear,
But I am weeping alone for my sweet little babe,
That I left with my House-Carpenter." (Compare B10)
10. "Oh dry up your tears, my own true love,
And cease your weeping," cried he,
"For soon you'll see your own happy home,
On the banks of old Tennessee!" (Compare E13, FI2)
11. They had not sailed five weeks or more,
Five weeks or scarcely four,
When the ship struck a rock and sprang a leak,
And they never were seen any more.
12. A curse be on the sea-faring men,
Oh, cursed be their lives,
For while they are robbing the House-Carpenter,
And taking away their wives. (Compare BW3)
When this is compared with the eighteenth-century English broadside (Child B) a great many similarities can be seen, especially in the first and last verses. The De Marsan version, however, has a much more flowing syntax which suggests that between the two printed versions there were a number of oral ones. The difference in syntax can be seen by comparing the two verses:
Child B, stanza 5
"But if I should leave my husband dear,
Likewise my little son also,
What have you to maintain me withall,
If I along with you should go?"
De Marsan, stanza 4
"If I forsake my House-Carpenter,
And go along with thee,
What have you got to keep me upon,
And keep me from misery?"
The repetition of "weeping for gold" and "weeping for fear" in verses 8 and 9 of De Marsan is clearly akin to the incremental repetition of oral tradition and, especially in the way it comes with the woman weeping for the child when she remembers him, a far better advancement of the story than in B.
Although the De Marsan broadside follows Child B closely, there are two points which should be noted. The Scottish versions are also derived in part from B, and it is not impossible that a version closer to B than the ones that were printed in the early nineteenth century could have been current in Scotland, or indeed that the broadside itself could have been carried there. Moreover there are three verses in De Marsan that could not have come from the English B and are like verses found only in Scottish tradition. They are verses , where she takes the baby on her knee and kisses it, and the two verses in which the seducer says he will take the woman to a promised land (verses 3 and 10). Therefore there must have been influence from Scotland in the ballad before De Marsan printed it. This influence is also seen,although not so clearly, in the fragment printed in Philadelphia in 1858, where we have two verses, the equivalents of De Marsan 2 and 10. Where and when this mixing of the English broadside tradition and the Scottish oral tradition took place cannot be shown from this evidence alone, but I think that further investigation of the American tradition will show that it took place well before 1860 and probably in America.
Let us look more closely at the mysterious land to which the young woman is beckoned. In America the use has changed markedly, from the seducer saying "I will shew you how the lilies grow, On the banks of Italy" (F12) to "I will take you where the grass grows high, On the banks of old Tennessee" (De Marsan 3). It is evident that when this was printed this place-name had already undergone the changes noted by W. Edson Richmond.[13] There are, as will be seen from his article, a great many American substitutes for "Italy." Some of them are nonsensical, but sound like it (for example, “sweet Da Dee," "sweet Willie"); some represent a memory that the journey was a sea journey ("salt water sea"); some show an attempt to place the song in a geographical context familiar to the hearers, and of these "Tennessee" is an example. It has a similar rhythm to "Italy" but is otherwise not very like it; moreover the Tennessee is a river, and it is obvious from the context in De Marsan that a sea voyage of three or four weeks is contemplated. It is interesting to note in this connection that there was a belief among the early settlers that a mysterious western sea lay only as far to the west of the Appalachian watershed as the Atlantic lay to the east. There is an early map made by Farrer in 1651 that shows this slim American continent. [14] In 'A Perfect Description of Virginia', Farrer puts this belief into words' [15] He says:
From the head of the Janes River above the falls ... will be found like rivers issuing into a south sea or a west sea, on the other side of those hills, as there is on this side, where they run from the west down to the east sea after a course of one hundred and fifty miles; but of this certainty Henry Briggs, that most judicious and learned mathematician, wrote a small tractate and presented it to the noble earl of Southampton, the governor of the Virginia Company in England anno 1623.
Briggs says there is a sea "on the other side of the mountains beyond our falls which openeth a free and fair passage to China."[16]
These geographical tracts were of course written at a much earlier date than that from which we have the ballad, and by the time the De Marsan broadside was printed it was well known that the Tennessee was a tributary of the Mississippi. However, since I am suggesting that the ballad arrived in America some considerable time before the 1860 printing let us look for a possible clue to the date that the river acquired the name "Tennessee". Here again maps are very helpful. In 1760 A New Map of the Cherokee Nation was published; the river there is called "Cherokees or Hogehegee River," and there is a settlement on it called "Tunnassee."[17] In a sketch map of about 1783 the river is called "Tenefee"; [18] by 1794 both the river and the state are called "Tennassee." [19] If I am correct in my belief that the ballad came to the Appalachian Mountains before 1775, then it would seem not impossible that the name "Tennessee" was substituted for "Italy" because the old belief in a western sea just beyond the mountains had not yet been superseded by the correct knowledge of the geography of the rivers and perhaps also
because Tennessee represented the mysterious and beckoning west. The position within the ballad which this verse occupies is significant. In the Scottish versions it appears late in the story, after the young woman has discovered what the situation is and has started to weep. In many American versions it appears right at the beginning, as if this were the one promise that would persuade the young woman to leave. In De Marsan it appears in both positions; a closer look at the broadside shows that there is a significant change in the words the second time this verse appears.
De Marsan
3. "If you will forsake your House-Carpenter,
And go along with me,
I will take you to where the grass grows high,
On the banks of old Tennessee!"
10. "Oh, dry up your tears, my own true love,
And cease your weeping," cried he,
"For soon you'll see your own happy home,
On the banks of old Tennessee."
The first six lines are very like the Scottish versions and they appear in the American position and again in the Scottish one, after she weeps. Indeed the first two lines are close to the Scottish (see FI 2). However, all hint of mystery has evaporated in the last two lines: the demon lover has become the most ordinary of seducers and all he offers is "Your own happy home." This is far from the Scottish tradition, and indeed is not often found in American versions. Nearly all of the versions published by Bronson consistently give this promise as the inducement to leave and omit it from the end of the story.[20] Three of his examples( 54, 71, and 94) repeat the verse at the end, and only 94 changes the words as De Marsan does. If De Marsan had been influential in the spread of this ballad in America, one would expect to find a larger percentage of versions following this particular change.
One or two minor points also suggest that when this ballad was published in 1860 it was taken from a tradition that had been flourishing in America for a long time. The change from Ship Carpenter to House Carpenter is perfectly understandable since American houses are largely made of wood, yet it would seem likely that if this ballad had not been current inland for some time before it was taken up by De Marsan there might have been less reason to change the name, for even as late as 1869 there were wood carpenters working in the shipbuilding industry of the coastal towns. In the American tradition there is a marked increase in the length of the voyage mentioned. One is only told of a short sail in the British versions: compare these phrases "not been long upon the sea" (Child B); "a league but barely three" (C); "a league, a league, A league but barely twa" (D); "A mile awa, Never a mile but one" (G); with De Marsan "They had not sailed four weeks or more, Four weeks or scarcely three."Many American versions have this long voyage and it is possible that this reveals that the singers remembered the long and dreary voyage across the Atlantic that they or their forebears endured when emigrating. By the end of the nineteenth century the trans-Atlantic voyage was rather shorter than this, perhaps two weeks on the average, so the change must have taken place well before the printing of the De Marsan version.
Let us look now at elements that are present in both the Scottish versions and in many American versions, but not in De Marsan or the Philadelphia broadside. The vision of the hills of heaven and the hills of hell, closely associated with the promised land in the Scottish tradition, is retained in the same position in the American version as in the Scottish, at the end of the ballad, after the young woman weeps.[21] Here are two American examples:
Bronson 78
12. What hills, what hills, my own true love,
That look so white like snow?
It's the hills of heaven, my own true love,
Where all righteous people go.
13. What hills, what hills, my own true love,
That look so dark and low?
It's the hills of hell, my own true love,
Where you and I must go.
Bronson 50
13. What banks, what banks is that, my love,
As black as any crow?
The banks, the banks of hell, my love,
Where you and I shall go.
14. What banks, what banks is that, my love,
As white as any snow?
The banks, the banks of heaven, my love,
Where all tender babies shall go.[22]
There are many minor variations (Bronson's 2, for example, has a light and a dark cloud) and the motif is very common. It must, however, be the Scottish vision, and, based on our present evidence, it must have come from Scotland. Moreover, this motif occurs in only two of Child's versions: E, from Motherwell's manuscript (Motherwell did print a version, but not one with this motif); and F, which Child took from the 1812 edition of Sir Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. It is possible that a copy of this book was brought to America and provided a source for some versions. It is interesting to note here that one of the versions collected by Helen Hartness Flanders is so close verbally to F that it must have been taken from Scott's book not long before it was recorded. [23] The influence of Scott's book can be observed in a comment found in a letter from Margaret Reburn of Iowa, to Child in 1881, where she mentions that she has seen a volume
of Scott's Minstrelsy. Apart from a volume of songs, whose title she could not remember, this was the only printed book containing ballads that she had seen.[24]
However, since Motherwell also picked up the motif, though he did not print it, it seems probable that the motif was in current oral tradition, and it seems likely that it came into the song from Scotland. Moreover, Motherwell's manuscript version seems to be nearer the American tradition. If we place Scott's and Motherwell's versions side by side as on p. 423, we notice that Motherwell's "hills of hell," like the American ones, are "black and dark," whereas in Scott's version they are covered with snow. The contrast in Scott is between summer sunshine and winter snow, in Motherwell and the American versions [see Bronson 78 and50, above] between light and dark, even when, as in the second example quoted, the banks of heaven are compared to snow to emphasize the brightness and whiteness.
CHILD E (Motherwell's manuscript)
14. "O what a bright, bright hill is yon,
That shines so clear to see?"
"O it is the hill of heaven," he said,
"Where you shall never be."
15. "O what a black, dark hill is yon,
That looks so dark to me?"
"O it is the hill of hell," he said,
"Where you and I shall be."
CHILD F (Scott's Minstrelsy)
13. "What hills are yon, yon pleasant hills,
That the sun shines sweetly on?"
"O yon are the hills of heaven," he said,
Where you will never win."
14. "O whaten a mountain is yon," she said,
"All so dreary with frost and snow?"
"O yon is the mountain of hell," he cried,
Where you and I will go."
The other element which is present in the Scottish group and in some American variants, but not in De Marsan's broadside, is the finery that the young woman dresses up in before she leaves. (This finery should be distinguished from his offer to her of fine clothing.) Compare this verse from the Scottish side with the American one.
CHILD D
13. She's drawn the slippers on her feet,
Were covered o'er with gold,
Well lined within wi velvet fine,
To hide her frae the cold.
(See also D4 and perhaps E8)
BRONSON 2
4. She dressed herself as in a yellow rose,
Most glorious to behold,
And she walked the streets all round and about,
And shined like glittering gold.
(See also Bronson 9, 25, 27, 32, 33, 34, 47, 50 etc.)
It will be observed that this element is frequent in America. It is found in versions from the Southern Appalachians, and interestingly enough, it is also found in New England. Helen Hartness Flanders collected many versions of this ballad, and Tristram P. Coffin, who wrote the critical analyses for the collection, felt that the Flanders versions were much affected by the popularity of the song in print. He says:
"Most of the texts follow De Marsan's song, which is similar to Child B, rather faithfully, but he probably took his version from established oral tradition." [25]
It is true that these New England versions are very like De Marsan, and indeed we know that a copy of De Marsan's broadside came north, for there is one in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, Massachusetts, nevertheless six of the sixteen versions published by Helen Hartness Flanders contain the verse describing the young woman who dresses herself up, and walks up and down, and who looks like "a glittering queen."[26]
This image could have come to New England directly from Scotland or more probably from the oral tradition current in America, since the Flanders versions are closer to the Southern Appalachian ones than to the Scottish. While it is possible that other American broadside versions existed and were later lost, evidence points to a widespread currency of the ballad in American oral tradition, quite apart from the influence of the De Marsan broadside.
The internal evidence from the words of the American versions of Child 243, which we have been examining, seems to point to a very strong Scottish influence. There is also a certain amount of evidence that the ballad was current in America some considerable time before it emerged in print in 1858. How far back can we reasonably make it? On the evidence furnished by the words themselves we can only say that there must have been several streams of influence from Scotland, and it is probable that the song had been in oral tradition in America for several generations of singers before the end of the nineteenth century.
Let us turn to the historians for help at this point. It is well established that there was a migration from lowland Scotland to Northern Ireland in the years following 1860, when King James started the Plantation in Ulster. At no time after that were the people of Northern Ireland cut off from their relatives in lowland Scotland. The passage was short, and tinkers and cattle drovers as well as people of the upper classes frequently crossed the channel. It was not uncommon for young men from Northern Ireland to go to Glasgow University, where they would have heard and even sung ballads. By the middle of the seventeenth century rising rents, poor harvests and religious difficulties forced the Scots to leave Ireland. Many of them came to Pennsylvania in several waves of immigration. They found the coastal plain already occupied, and they moved inland up the rivers. When they reached the Appalachians they turned south and went down into the Shenandoah valley. From here they spread up the valleys into the hills east and west and spilled over into the Piedmont of the Carolinas. By the end of the eighteenth century, they were following Daniel Boone through the Cumberland Gap to the west.[27] The date when these Scotch-Irish reached the Southern Appalachian area is important. They were certainly there by the time of the 1790 census, for as Professor Gower points out, there were a good many Scotch-Irish names in that area as reported in the census.[28] A map dating from 1770, by John Henry, shows plainly the words "Irish Track" written across the Shenandoah valley.[29]
It does seem likely that settlers from Northern Ireland had already reached the first ridge and valley of the Appalachians by the second half of the eighteenth century. Meanwhile a second group of emigrants was coming directly from Scotland to the coastal ports of Virginia and traveling up the rivers towards
those same mountains. Ian Charles Cargill Graham shows that between 1707 and the American Revolution merchants of the port of Glasgow made themselves the chief traders of tobacco between Virginia and Europe.[30] As well as carrying tobacco these merchants established stores in the Fall Line towns of Virginia that became centers of trade and, I suggest, also of cultural exchange.[31] Moreover, although the factors themselves went back to Scotland at the time of the Revolution, there were settlers who stayed. These Scots would have found it easy to get to know the settlers, already in the area, who had come from Northern Ireland. They were of the same racial stock, spoke a similar dialect, and may well have found they shared the same family names. Either of these groups of settlers could have brought ballads from lowland Scotland to the very region of America where they were recorded in the early twentieth century.
The Scottish versions of Child 243 on which we have been basing our comparison were recorded in Scotland in the early years of the nineteenth century; the emigrants had arrived in increasing numbers from the mid-seventeenth century until the latter part of the eighteenth, when the outbreak of war in 1775 brought a sharp halt to the migration. After the Revolution emigration picked up again, but not in such numbers to this particular area; people were by then going further west. However, the flourishing oral tradition from which Scott and others drew their songs had been alive in Scotland for many years before 1800. Bronson shows this clearly in his article on "Mrs. Brown and the Ballad," and Bishop Percy must have been aware of this for he sought out ballads from Scotland.[32] Therefore, it seems reasonable to suppose that ballads from Lowland Scotland could have come to the Southern Appalachian area by one of two routes, either directly from Glasgow in the eighteenth century or via Pennsylvania after a stay of a generation or two in Ireland. With regard to the particular song under discussion it, was published as a broadside (Child B ) too late (1757) for it to have come via Ireland so it seems probable that this was a song that traveled to America with the Scottish tobacco traders.
Since there was close communication between the mountain country of Virginia, where tobacco was grown, and Scotland, where Glasgow was at that time the chief European port for tobacco, there was undoubtedly a good chance of American songs returning to Scotland to confuse matters. John Burrison flinches from considering this point but we must not ignore it.[33] Professor Gower cites a passage from Scott's Marmion which reveals a reasonably accurate knowledge of American geography. [34] Moreover there is in volume II of Buchan's Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland a most interesting conjunction of two songs which is highly suggestive of American influence.[35] Buchan includes one song called "The Minister's Daughter of New York," [36] the first of his two versions of Child 20; and another, called by the more common name "The Cruel Mother." [37] In spite of the different title "The Minister's Daughter of New York" represents the more common tradition, in Britain and in America, of this song. The usual city named in this ballad is "York"; but one would think no more about the use of an American city name, were it not for the immediately preceding ballad, a song clearly commenting on American conditions. [38] “The Virginian Maid's Lament" bemoans the cruel life of a slave on a Virginian plantation, a slave who composes in a verse form like those of Scotland, and who expresses a longing for Scotland. Even if the life of an indentured servant was perhaps not quite as bad as that of a real slave, and even if the terrible story that Buchan reports in his notes of children being press-ganged away with the connivance of town officials to be sold as servants in America is exaggerated, the song shows a real knowledge of conditions in America. [39] Although I cannot point to a proven case of a Child ballad returning to Scotland in the early nineteenth century yet I feel that the possibility is there and should not be ignored. It is not impossible that an American version of "The House-Carpenter" could have returned to Britain by 1907 when H. E. D. Hammond printed the Dorset version that forms the basis for Burrison's theories.
After considering in some detail the Scottish versions of Child 243 and the American variants we are drawn to a very different conclusion from that reached by Burrison in his article. His proof that stanza 6 -in the version he discusses- (the one where the young woman dresses up and shines like glittering gold) existed in Britain goes back no further than 1907, [40] and there was not such plain evidence of migration to the Southern Appalachians during the nineteenth century to explain the appearance of this stanza as collected by Sharp. The earliest version Sharp found was collected in 1909.[41] I am inclined to think that the Scottish element in the ancestry of "The House-Carpenter" is rather stronger than the English, and that the ballad must have migrated to America in several versions (the Scottish versions differ appreciably among themselves as well as from Child B) which have inter-related among themselves in America between 1775 and the present day. It is noteworthy that Eddy and Tolman say that American texts of "The House-Carpenter" do not vary greatly from the De Marsan broadside" without committing themselves as to whether the broadside came from or influenced tradition.[42] If the broadside had been a strong influence in spreading this ballad one would expect to find a more even distribution over the United States, yet we find that Bronson printed five versions from New England compared with nearly forty from the Southern Appalachians. In the Midwest and West the distribution is more even, as one would expect if the ballad were already in oral tradition before the great movement west began in the nineteenth century. This distribution pattern seems to me one last brick in the edifice of theory I am building. I believe that the ballad known in Scotland as "The Demon Lover" and in America as "The House-Carpenter" came to the Southern Appalachian region from Scotland in the middle of the eighteenth century. There it was current in oral tradition, being changed in small details, such as the name" Tennessee" which reflects the local geography as known at an early date, and surviving until the twentieth century as a living entity. It gathered up elements, at times from other ballads, and in its turn influenced them. It was picked up in the mid-nineteenth century and printed at least twice( 1858 and 1860), and these printed versions combined with the oral tradition to reinforce some of the changes. I believe also that this ballad was not alone in the path it took in coming to America, and a further study of individual Child ballads found in America, especially those listed by Gower as specifically Scottish ones, should reveal a similar pattern of development and travel.[43] Moreover, this ballad while little sung in Britain in the twentieth century, has become one of the favorite songs in American tradition up to the present day. Perhaps the coming of industrialization and the modern world caused the song and its fellows to fade away in Scotland, while by a quirk of fate, the versions that had gone to an isolated and mountainous region of America were preserved up to the present day, it seems to me that one reason for this preservation is that the ballad was taken across the Atlantic by people who still felt singing such songs to be a fine pastime, and at the time when that tradition was at its height.
Radcliffe Institute
Cambridge, Massachusetts
FOOTNOTES
[1] Herschel Gower, "The Scottish Palimpsest in Traditional Ballads Collected in America," in Reality and Myth, ed. William E. Walker and Robert L. Welcher (Nashville, Tenn., 1964), 117-144.
[2] Ibid., 120.
[3] Olive Campbell and Cecil Sharp, English Folk-Songs from the Southern Appalachians (New York, 1917), xviii.
[4] Ibid., xix.
[5] John Burrison, "'James Harris' in Britain Since Child," JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE, 80 (1967), 271-284.
[6] Ibid., 272.
[7] Ibid., 273.
[8] This vision is discussed by E. B. Lyle, "The Visions in St. Patrick's Purgatory, Thomas of
Erceldoune, Thomas the Rhymer and The Daemon Lover," Neuphilologische Milleilungen (in
press).
[9] H. M. Belden, Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folklore Society (Columbia, Mo.,
1940), 79; Tristram P. Coffin, The British Traditional Ballad in North America (Philadelphia,
1950), 1400.
[10] Svend Grundtvig, Danmarks gamle Folkeviser, vol. 2 (Copenhagen, 1858, 1966), 59.
[11] For further discussion of the otherworld in "Ribold og Guldborg," see Alisoun Gardner-
Medwin, "Paradise on Earth?" Folklore, 74 (1963), 305-317.
[12] "The House-Carpenter" a broadside printed about 1860 by De Marsan in New York, in
Phillips Barry, "Traditional Ballads in New England-II," JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE 18 (1905), 207-209.
[13] W. Edson Richmond, "Ballad Place Names," JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE, 59 (I946), 267.
[14] William P. Cummings, The South East in Early Maps (Princeton, N.J., 1958).
[15] John Farrer, A Perfect Description of Virginia (London, 1649), reprinted in Peter Force,
Historical Tracts, vol. 2 (Washington, D.C., 1838), ch. 8.
[16] Cummings, 141
[17] "A New Map of the Cherokee Nation," The London Magazine, 24 (1760), 96.
[18] Manuscript map of the Cherokee Nation, Harvard College Library. Number 3810/1783.
[19] United States Constitutional Sesquicentennial Society, "Map of Virginia-1794" (Washington,
D.C., 1938).
[20] Bertrand B. Bronson, The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads (Princeton, N.J., I959),
429-496.
[21] See Lyle for a recent discussion of this vision.
[22] Ibid., 464, 450.
[23] Helen Hartness Flanders, Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England, vol. 3
(Philadelphia, 1963), 315.
[24] Child manuscript, vol. x8, Number 25241-.47F*, Harvard College Library.
[25] Coffin, 287.
[26] Flanders, 293.
[27]. I base my account of the Scotch-Irish emigration to America on: James G. Leyburn, The
Scotch-Irish (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1961); R. J. Dickson, Ulster Emigration to Colonial America
(London, 1966); E. R. R. Green, ed., Essays in Scotch-Irish History (London and New York, 1969);
Henry J. Ford, The Scotch-Irish in America (Princeton, N. J., 1915); Charles A. Hanna, The
Scotch-Irish or the Scot in North Britain, North Ireland, and North America (New York, 1902);
and Wayland F. Dunaway, The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1940).
[28] Gower, 120.
[29] John Henry, "A New and Accurate Map of Virginia" (London, 1770).
[30] Ian Charles Cargill Graham, Colonists from Scotland (Ithaca, N.Y., 1956); see also Jacob M.
Price, "The Rise of Glasgow in the Chesapeake Tobacco Trade, 1707-1775," William and Mary
Quarterly, 11:2 (1954), 179-199.
[31] Graham, 119-122.
[32] Bertrand H. Bronson, The Ballad as Song (Berkeley, Calif., 1969), 74-75.
[33] Burrison, 278.
[34] Gower, 123.
[35] Peter Buchan, Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1828).
[36] Ibid., 217.
[37] Ibid., 222.
[38] Ibid., 215.
[39] Buchan, 332-335.
[40] Burrison, 278.
[41] Sharp and Campbell, 121-122.
[42] A. H. Tolman and M. O. Eddy, "Traditional Texts and Tunes," JOURNAL OF A MERICAN FOLKLORE, 35 (1922), 347.
[43] Herschel Gower, "Traditional Scottish Ballads in the United States," Ph.D. dissertation (Vanderbilt University, 1957), 87-113.