The Fency King- French (KY) 1932 Niles A
[From: The Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles, 1961. This version seems to be fashioned after or similar to the Harmon Version (NC, 1930). This is likely a ballad recreation. Niles engaging notes follow.
R. Matteson 2015]
The Fency King and the English King
(Niles No. 49 A)
HER NAME was Aunt Flory French, and she was born in Mount Sterling, Ky., in about 1858. She did not know her age, but these vital statistics are passed on to me by a friend. She was toothless and gay and a very unwilling singer when I encountered her in 1932 at the Daniel Boone Hotel in Whitesburg, Ky.
At a very early age, Aunt Flory had married Richard ("paddy") French. I never discovered her maiden name. I said, "Captain French? Captain of what army?" knowing that the cavalier confederate general John Bell Hood had been born in Mount Sterling and expecting to discover what her husband had fought with General Hood. But she threw back her head and cackled out a long laugh and said, "young man, my husband was a captain of soldiers." Aunt Flory had an answer for everything.
I believe she was as thin a person as I've ever seen. She said, "Don't buy me no food, food don't do me no good. I eat continual, but I gum my vittles, and so I'm as thin as a snake." (She had no teeth.)
She was holding an audience in direct competition with the radio broadcast of the Democratic National convention of 1932. (perhaps I should explain that in those days, very few homes in the Kentucky mountains had radios, and thus people from all around gathered in the lobby of the Daniel Boone Hotel in Whitesburg to listen to the events being broadcast from Chicago over the hotel radio. A great many people are listening to the radio, but Aunt Flory had her listeners, too. Her voice was wispy and, as I said before, she was an unwilling singer. Furthermore, she was not really interested in singing, or in my process of writing down what she sang. Then, too, she was determined to make an act out of everything.
But she was as cunning and as humorous a person as I've ever encountered. At one point I asked her whether she knew any other ballads, and she said: "I know more ballards than a dog has fleas, but I hain't a-goin' to sing any more because I'm plumb sung out, and this here radio-machine is a lot more interesting than you or your singin'."
I then asked her - much to the delight of her increasing audience - what a tenny-ball was. She came up with a surprising answer: "A tenny-ball is a ball what grows on a tenny-tree, just like a sycamo' ball grows on a sycamo' tree."
Next I tried to straighten out the pronunciation of the word "France," but to her it was Fence and Fencermen. I asked her where Fence was. She declared it was a place far, far south - south even of Texas. I assumed she was thinking of Mexico.
Finally, I asked her where she lived.
"In Kentucky, of course," she said with pursed lips.
"I know, but where in Kentucky?"
"With some no-count, tore-down in-laws and grandchildren."
"But where, exactly?" I demanded.
"Hain't no exactly about it, young feller. Hit's up the second holler on the left."
Meanwhile, I had bought her a ten-cent bottle of perfume. It was a kind of perfume called Jockey Club. Aunt Flory opened the tiny bottle and daubed it all over her face and arms. Turning to her admiring public, she said, "Hot dog! I stepped in a mudhole and come up with a shoeshine!"
I concluded she was positively irrepressible.
The Fency King and the English King- Sung by Aunt Flory French, 1932 Kentucky, collected/arranged by Niles.
1. Oh, King Henry lay a-musering
Upon his bed so fine:
"The King of Fence's tribute
Has been owing quite some time.
Far-la-la-la-la, fa-la-la_la-la,
'S been owing quite some time."
2 He called upon his youngest page,
The youngest page called he:
Has been owing for some time
Go over to the Fency King,
And that right speedily."
(repeat refrain & last line of each verse)
3. "Oh, worthy, mighty King of Fence,
Some gold is due in England.
And you will send this tribute home,
Or Fence will feel great England's hand."
4, "Your master's in his tender age,
And does not know my high degree.
Here, take him three fine tenny-balls
That he may learn to romp and play."
5. "What news, what news, my little page,
What news bring you to me?"
"It's I can tell you anyhow
That you will not agree."
6. "He says you're young, of tender age,
And can't not know his high degree,
And he has sent you tenny-balls
That you may learn some skip-er-ee."
7. When proud Henry marched through the Fence,
A-drumming merrily,
They killed ten thousand Fencermen,
And their king left speedily.
8. "It's I will send his tribute home,
I'll send him gold and fee,
And I will send my daughter,
And she will be for free."