The Golden Willow Tree- Wooten (KY) 1917 Sharp I
[From English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians; Vol. 2, 1932. My title replacing the generic Golden Vanity.
R. Matteson 2014]
Sharp's Notes No. 41. The Golden Vanity:
Texts without tunes: Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, No. 286. A. Williams's Folk Songs of the Upper Thames, p. 199. Gavin Greig's Folk-Song of the North-East, ii, arts. 116 and 119. Cox's Folk Songs of the South, p. 169 (see also further references). Journal of American Folk-Lore, xxiii. 429; XXX. 330.
Texts with tunes:—Gavin Greig's Last Leaves, No. 101. Kidson's Garland of English Folk Songs, p. 72. Tozer's Fifty Sailors' Songs, p. 30. English Folk Songs (Selected Edition), I. 36 (also published in One Hundred English Folk-Songs, p. 36). Christie's Traditional Ballad Airs, i. 238. English County Songs, p. 182. Songs of the West, 2nd ed., No. 64. Journal of the Folk-Song Society, I. 104; II. 244. Ford's Vagabond Songs of Scotland, p. 103. Journal of American Folk-Lore, xviii. 125. Wyman and Brockway's Lonesome Tunes, p. 72. British Ballads from Maine, p. 339. Davis's Traditional Ballads of Virginia, pp. 516 and 602. McGill's Folk Songs of the Kentucky Mountains, p. 97.
I. [The Golden Willow Tree]- Sung by Mr. WILLIAM WOOTON at Hindman, Knott Co., Ky., Sept. 21, 1917
Heptatonic. Dorian.
I had a little ship and I sailed on the sea,
Crying O the land that lies so low,
I had a little ship and I sailed on the sea,
And she went by the name of the Golden Willow Tree,
As she sailed on the Lowlands low, low, low,
As she sailed on the Lowlands low.