The Cruel Mother- Henderson (ME) 1954 Flanders C
[Not a local title, The Cruel Mother was probably assigned or given to informant by Olney/Flanders. Taken from Flanders, Ancient Ballads p. 230-238 (Child 20); Version C.
Flander's notes by Coffin follow.
R. Matteson 2014]
All the Flanders versions of this song are fragments, and not very clear fragments at that. However, it is obvious from these scraps that a pretty complete "Cruel Mother" has been known in New England. The A text preserves the idea that the children are ghosts, the D fragment tells who the woman's lover was, and the A version as well as the E and F stanzas tell of the childbirth. of course, Phillips Barry (British Ballads from Maine, 80 f.) prints a number of full New England versions in which the mother bears her father's clerk two or so illegitimate children, murders the babies with a penknife, and then buries their bodies.
Later, when she sees some children playing ball, she tells them of the things she would do for them if they were her own. They readily inform her they were once hers and weren't treated any too well. This is the Child A-H form of the ballad and is well known in the United States. Child 20 is also common to Britain, especially Scotland, and to Denmark and Germany as well, though its form is more often incomplete than not. Confusions, such as the one in Flanders B-C where the mother seems to murder the children after meeting them by the greenwood side, are frequent in this song, particularly in Britain. Sometimes, as in Child I-L, additional stanzas describing penance the woman must do for the crime appear.
Originally the ballad preserves various medieval murder and burial superstitions that are discussed in L. C. Wimberly's Folklore .in the English and, Scottish Ballads ([Chicago-, 1928], 254) and by Cox, Sharp, and other collectors in their notes. The song has frequently borrowed from other ballads such as "The wife of Usher's well (Child 79), "The Maid and the Palmer" (Child 21), and perhaps "Dives and Lazarus" (Child 56). see coffin, 51, for references to such interchanges.
A start or a bibliography can be had by consulting Coffin, 50-51 (American); Dean-smith, 61 (English); Greig and Keith, 21-22, and Ord, 459 (Scottish); and Child; notes, I, 218 f.
The three tunes given here belong to two families: The Lewis tune fits in with BC, group A, while the Smith and Delorme tunes seem to be outside the usual child 20 tradition and fit in better with runes used in Child 13.
C. The Cruel Mother. Copied literatim et punctatim from a handwritten book entitled Poesie belonging to Mrs. Mary Piers Henderson of Old Town, Maine. This book belonged to her late husband, who was a woodsman. Mr. Henderson was born in Jackman, Maine. Mrs. Henderson said, "My husband especially enjoyed these woods songs. He was not a singer, so he used to recite them as poetry. After he retired, he found much pleasure in reading them as verses. I have heard them sung many times but cannot seem to remember the tune." M. Olney, Collector; August 14, 1954
The Cruel Mother
As I was pacing father's hall
All alone, and aloney-O
I saw three babes a-playing ball,
Down by the greenwood side-e-o.
O the first one's name it was Peter
And the other's name was Paul
And the other little babe had none at all
Down by the greenwood side-e-o.
Said I to this babe, "Will you be mine?"
A11 alone and aloney-O
I'11 dress you in silks and satins fine
Down by the greenwood sidey-O
Then said the babe "When I was thine
All alone and aloney-O
You dressed me neither in sack nor fine
Down by. . .
She then took out her pen-knife sharp,
And pierced it through his tender heart.
And then she dug a little grave
And neither sheet nor blanket gave
She then her pen-knife stuck in clay
And there it sticks to this very day.