The Brown Girl- (VA) 1889 Babcock- Child
[From Mr. W.H. Babcock to the Folk-Lore Journal, VII, 33, 1889. Also found in Child's Additions and Corrections p. 509 dated 1890, added by Kittredge. The original text introduction by Babcock immediately follows.
R. Matteson 2012, 2014]
THE LONDON BALLADS by Mr. W.H. Babcock to the Folk-Lore Journal, VII, 33, 1889
THEY come from that prosperous but out-of-the-way county of Virginia, in the corner between the Potomac and the Blue Ridge. Plain people of the conservative overseer and small -tenant class have transmitted them from mother to daughter, through the years and lives that have passed since the first settlement, as in England before it. Of course they do not think of writing them down, and know nothing of the books in which the relics of balladry are treasured.
One evening as we approached, in the dusk, our home near Washington, a ballad, then heard for the first time, came chanted to us out of the open windows. The new nurse girl, white, and from up the river, was singing the smaller children to sleep. When the song of many words ended, another was taken up, and after it another. Plainly the services of the collector were called for, and most members of the family enlisted, as opportunity offered. Unfortunately the pace of the music kept ahead of the reporters ; and when she undertook to recite the lines deliberately, something was sure to be omitted or confused. Memory depended in part on the swing and excitement of her habitual mode of utterance. But a fair approach to completeness, in some cases, was made by repetition and comparison; and the results in full were read to the young woman's mother, who made some notable additions, and declared the ballads to be substantially correct. She could not explain anything which is not obvious, nor, indeed, tell us anything of them but what I have said in the beginning.
"Wilson" is, perhaps, the most important of the series: a near relative of "Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight," whatever names may seem to say. That cycle, so carefully studied and preserved by Professor Childs, cannot afford to leave this stray member wandering unrecorded over Virginia foot hills. It lives in the air and the ear alone, as indeed it always has from that far time when some crude singer first gave it to our ancestry. With all its imperfections, we ought to be glad to make its acquaintance in type, for we shall never greet an older friend among living things.
Additions and Corrections p. 509 dated 1890:
Still another, from the singing of a Virginian nurse-maid (helped out by her mother), was communicated by Mr. W.H. Babcock to the Folk-Lore Journal, VII, 33, 1889, and may be repeated here, both because it is American and also because of its amusing perversions.
The Brown Girl
1 'O mother, O mother, come read this to me,
And regulate all as one,
Whether I shall wed fair Ellinter or no,
Or fetch you the brown girl home.'
2 'Fair Ellinter she has houses and wealth,
The brown girl she has none;
But before I am charged with that blessing,
Go fetch me the brown girl home.'
3 He dressed himself in skylight green,
His groomsmen all in red;
And every town as he rode through
They took him to be some king.
4 He rode and he rode until he came to fair Ellinter's door;
He knocked so loud at the ring;
There was none so ready as fair Ellinter herself
To rise and let him in.
5 'O what is the news, Lord Thomas?' she said,
'O what is the news to thee?'
'I've come to invite you to my wedding,
And that is bad news to thee.'
6 'God forbid, Lord Thomas,' she said,
'That any such thing should be!
For I should have been the bride myself,
And you should the bridegroom be.
7 'O mother, O mother, come read this to me,
And regulate all as one,
Whether I shall go to Lord Thomas' wed,
Or stay with you at home.'
8 'Here you have one thousand friends,
Where there you would but one;
So I will invite you, with my blessing,
To stay with me at home.'
9 But she dressed herself in skylight red,
Her waiting-maids all in green,
And every town as she rode through
They took her to be some queen.
10 She rode and she rode till she came to Lord Thomas's door;
She knocked so loud at the ring;
There was none so ready as Lord Thomas himself
To rise and let her in.
11 He took her by her lily-white hand,
He led her across the hall;
Sing, 'Here are five and twenty gay maids,
She is the flower of you all.'
12 He took her by her lily-white hand,
He led her across the hall,
He sat her down in a big arm-chair,
And kissed her before them all.
13 The wedding was gotten, the table was set,
. . .
The first to sit down was Lord Thomas himself,
His bride, fair Ellinter, by his side.
14 'Is this your bride, Lord Thomas?' she said;
'If this is your bride, Lord Thomas, she looks most wonderfully dark,
When you could have gotten a fairer
As ever the sun shone on.'
15 'O don't you despise her,' Lord Thomas said he,
'O don't you despise her to me;
Yes, I like the end of your little finger
Better than her whole body.'
16 The brown girl, having a little penknife,
And being both keen and sharp,
Right between the long and short ribs,
She pierced poor Ellinter's heart.
17 'O what is the matter, fair Ellinter,' said he,
'That you look so very dark,
When your cheeks used to have been so red and rosy
As ever the sun shined on?'
18 'Are you blind, or don't you see,
My heart-blood come trickling down to my knee?'
Corrections:
3[1], 2. green and red should be interchanged: cf. 9.
13, 14. Rearranged.
15[1]. said she.