The Cruel Mother- Smith (CT) pre1949 Flanders A
[Not a local title, The Cruel Mother title was probably assigned or given to informant by Flanders. Taken from Flanders, Ancient Ballads p. 230-238 (Child 20); Version A.
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.
A. The Cruel Mother- sung by Mrs. w. H. Smith in Houlton, Maine, as known in her childhood. Her parents were from Canada. Printed in the Waterbury, Conn, Republican, April 10, 1949; and, stanzas 7, 6, 7, 8, and 9 in Ballads Migrant in New England, 66. H. H. F., Collector
Structure: A1 A2 B C (2,2,2,2); Rhythm C; Contour descending; scale: Dorian, but could be pentatonic since B and F are very weak. t.c. D. For mel. rel. see Sharp1, b2(I) ("Edward.").
THE CRUEL MOTHER
In New York lived a lady fair,
All alone and alone-y,
'Twas there she had two pretty little babes.
Down by the greenwood side-y.
(Follow the pattern of the refrain for all stanzas.)
She had an apron old and thin
She wrapped those two pretty babies in.
She had a penknife keen and sharp,
She pierced those babes to the true tender heart.
She dug a hole both wide and deep,
She laid them down and bade them sleep.
As she was returning home that night,
'Twas there she met those two pretty babes.
"O babes, O babes, if you were mine,
I would dress you up in silks so fine."
"O mother dear, we once were thine,
You neither dressed us coarse or fine.
"But you had a penknife keen and sharp.
You pierced us both to the tender hearts.
"You dug a hole both wide and deep.
You laid us down and bade us sleep."