The Daemon Lover- Price (RI-MA) 1945 (c. 1910) Flanders M
[This is one of the most important versions collected in the US, assuming that it is legitimately traditional and not remembered from print (Scott; Child F). The fact that it was collected from Edith Ballinger Price (April 26, 1897–September 29, 1997), an American writer and illustrator, makes it more intriguing. Because Price was educated and could have accessed printed materials (Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads and Scott's Minstrelsy), her version has aroused suspicion. The version closely resembles Child F but has some elements from other versions.
Alisoun Gardner-Medwin says in her article, "The Ancestry of "The House-Carpenter": A Study of the Family History of the American Forms of Child 243": "It is possible that a copy of this book [the 1812 edition of Sir Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border] 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 [the Price version] 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] "
Footnotes:
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.
Brian Peters says that the transcription:
"from Edith Price of Newport, RI, looks an awful lot like a collation from the two versions of the ballad in Motherwell's 'Minstrelsey'. If the singer did indeed give it the title 'Daemon Lover', that alone would be grounds for suspicion."
Whether this is a re-creation or authentically tradition is not known and at this point- may never be known. It is unique in the US.
About the date, John Minear points out: In an introduction to another ballad in Flanders collection, which was also obtained from Miss Price, it says she learned it "about 1910 when a small child, from the singing of a friend in Amherst, Massachusetts ...." We don't know for sure if this is the same person or an accurate dating for her "Daemon Lover," but we might assume that it is.
John Minear: This may be the only version so far that might claim Massachusetts as an origin, although it was collected from a person in Newport, Rhode Island. It was sung by Edith Ballinger Price, on October 23, 1945. She learned it as a young girl from "a lady living in Massachusetts, whose forebears came from England." This version is considerably different from the other New England versions and is entitled "The Daemon Lover."
Wiki Bio: Edith Ballinger Price (April 26, 1897–September 29, 1997) was an American writer and illustrator of eighteen children's books. Starting in 1911 she studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. She later studied at the New York Art Students League and the National Academy of Design.
Her first book, Blue Magic, was originally published in St. Nicholas Magazine in 1918, and was published in book form by The Century Company in September, 1919. It concerns a seven-year-old invalid named Fen, who is travelling in Egypt and Italy with his family, but who is prevented by his poor health from leaving their yacht. He is befriended by an old family connection who, to amuse him, pretends to be a blue djinn named Siddereticus.
She was very interested in the Girl Scouts of the United States. She started the Brownie Scouts program. She wrote their first handbook along with many stories for various Girl Scout related magazines, such as The American Girl, Girl's Guide Gazette, and Girls Today. She was the "Great Brown Owl" of the organization from 1925 to 1932. Price was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey and died in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
My Analysis: Price learned this c. 1910 when she was a little girl. This is the only US version that has the supernatural lover with the cloven foot found in Child E and F.
'The Daemon Lover'- Child, Version F; Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, fifth edition, 1812, II, 427; taken down from the recitation of Walter Grieve by William Laidlaw.
11 They had not sail'd a league, a league,
A league but barely three,
Until she espied his cloven foot,
And she wept right bitterlie.
Compare to Price's verse:
They hadna' been a league, a league,
A league but only two,
When she beheld his cloven foot,
From his gay robe thrusting through.
The missing word in stanza 2, verse three is probably "taffetie" and was likely not understood by the transcriber (or the informant- even though she was educated). The phrase,
Masts of the beaten gold
And sails of taffetie.
has been attributed to Homer (Iliad and the Odyssey) and is dated to around the eighth century BC! Of course it also appears in the Daemon Lover, Child F again:
9 She set her foot upon the ship,
No mariners could she behold;
But the sails were o the taffetie,
And the masts o the beaten gold.
R. Matteson 2013]
The Daemon Lover- sung by Edith Ballinger Price, on October 23, 1945. She learned it as a young girl from "a lady living in Massachusetts, whose forebears came from England."
"I've seven ships upon the sea,
Beaten with the finest gold,
And mariners to wait upon us;
All this she shall behold."
She set her foot unto the ship,
No mariners did she behold;
But the sail was o' the [taffetie]
And the mast o' the beaten gold.
They hadna' sailed a league, a league,
A league but only one,
When she began to weep and to mourn
and to think on her little wee son.
"Now hold ye tears, my dearest dear;
Let all your weeping be:
For I'll show you how the lilies grow
On the banks of Italee.
They hadna' been a league, a league,
A league but only two,
When she beheld his cloven foot,
From his gay robe thrusting through.
They hadna' sailed a league, a league,
A league but only three,
When dark and fearsome grow his looks
And gurly grow the sea.
"Now hold your tears, my dearest dear,
Let all your weeping be
And I'll show ye how the white lilies grow
At the bottom o' the sea."
They hadna' sailed a league, a league,
A league but only four;
When the little wee ship ran 'round about
And never was seen more.
[Clinton Heylin has to say about the Price text from Dylan’s Daemon Lover: The Story of a 450-Year Old Pop Ballad. Helter Skelter, 1998:
"Establishing the revenant nature of the former lover adds an important dimension to an otherwise mundane tale of temptation and guilt. What it does not afford is an explanation of the supernatural powers with which our 'Dæmon Lover' is endowed on his return. The final verse of the Greig-Buchan text confirms that it is the spirit of 'James Harris' that causes the ship to sink (unlike in the familiar broadside texts); that the storm is invoked by the revenant; and that the white lillies on the banks of Italy were intended to contrast with the white fishes/lillies at the bottom of the sea. Though Buchan's text does not depict the advent of the storm, Robert Scott's North Eastern text does, as do both of William Motherwell's variants, his Minstrelsy text bearing the more authentic tone:
They had not sailed a mile awa,
Never a mile but three,
When dark, dark, grew his eerie looks,
And raging grew the sea.2
Motherwell's nine-verse text appeared in the 1827 edition of his Minstrelsy, Ancient & Modern. An American text, collected from New England by the same indefatigible collector who had previously located the 'George Allis' fragment, suggests that Motherwell's text drew upon an enduring tradition. This eight-verse 'condensation', transcribed in October 1945, despite narrative holes, is an excellent text, another rare rendition to have survived in America without the debilitating input of De Marsan. It also adds an important piece to our jigsaw - the notion of the lady in the song becoming increasingly aware that her former lover is not all that he seems. In the Motherwell-Price text/s encroaching dread consumes the song long before the destruction of the ship.
Thankfully not only did one Edith Ballenger Price, from Newport, Rhode Island, recall that fine verse about "his eerie looks" but she also provided the only American text to date to contain an all-important reference to "his cloven foot." The image of the lady catching sight of 'her lover's' cloven foot is one of the most dramatic snapshots in all of popular balladry. Ms. Price says that she learnt the song from a lady whose family came from England, the only real suggestion that the 'dæmonic' version might have once had a foothold in English tradition. Comparing Ms. Price's rendition with the one in Motherwell's Minstrelsy affords an invaluable insight into how the strings of tradition can preserve the supernatural. The similarities are striking: [here follows a comparison verse by verse]
......
Perhaps one is doing Ms. Price a disservice referring to her rendition as a condensation. Her eight verses accord remarkably well with Motherwell's nine. Perhaps, as the English and American broadsides elected to start the tale in act three, some long-forgotten Scottish wag decided to take Mr. Graves at his word and begin proceedings in "the last act of the play." As it is, Motherwell's reciter and Ms. Price both start and end on the same verse and inbetween agree on all the main particulars (the absence of mariners, the banks of Italy, the cloven foot, the raging sea and a fine 'lingering' quartet that builds to its climax four miles/leagues from shore).
Indeed, the two texts - recorded a hundred and twenty five years and three thousand miles apart - correspond so well that it begs the question: could Motherwell's version, which was after all a published text, have spawned its own rivulet of tradition? I think not. Setting aside the fact that Motherwell's work remained largely unknown outside antiquarian circles (and indeed the text in question Motherwell only apologetically included as a preface for what he deemed the more authoritative version, t'wit that published by Scott), the imagery in Price's rendition is, if anything, more convincing than Motherwell's. In particular, the penultimate verse, slightly Anglicized in Motherwell, rings with an authentic Scottish brogue in Price:
They hadna' sailed a league, a league,
A league but only three,
When dark and fearsome grow his looks
And gurly grow the sea.5
I presume that our New England lady was not in the habit of using the word 'gurly' despite the fact that, when imbued with some vocal gravel, it acquires a fine onomatopoeic quality. That her recollection had an authentic basis can be confirmed by reference to page 297 of George Kinloch's manuscript:
Till grim, grim grew his countenance,
And gurly grew the sea.6
Ms. Price's version also bypasses the strange offer made by the revenant, "mariners to wait upon us" - subsequently contradicted by the lady's protestation, "woe be to the dim mariners/ that nowhere can I see!" In Ms. Price's rendition, "She set her foot unto the ship/ no mariners did she behold." Her second verse, though it finds no real parallel in Motherwell, replicates - almost word-for-word - verse nine of Scott. The absence of mariners on this spectral ship is a lovely touch, one whose disappearance (sic) from tradition is much to be mourned."]