The House Carpenter- Armistead (VA) 1915 Davis J
[From Kyle Davis, Jr.'s Traditional Ballads of Virginia, 1929. Davis says in Traditional Ballads of Virginia that "The House Carpenter" is second only to "Barbara Allen" in popularity in Virginia with fifty-two texts and seven musical transcriptions of which twenty-nine texts and seven melodies are given A-AA. Additionally two variants are given as an appendix which have stanzas of the House Carpenter within a related ballad.
R. Matteson 2013]
Traditional Ballads of Virginia (Davis' commentary)
JAMES HARRIS (THE DAEMON LOVER) (Child, No. 243)
Next to "Barbara Allen" in Virginia popularity stands "The House Carpenter," with fifty-two texts and seven melodies, of which twenty-nine-texts and all seven melodies are here given. "The House Carpenter" is its almost invariable title, which yields only once to "The House Carpenter's Wife" (a slightly more appropriate title) and once to "On the Banks of the Sweet Laurie." "James Harris" which appears once, and "The Daemon Lover," which appears three times at the head of manuscripts (and therefore in the table of contents), may be regarded merely as identifications, not as local titles. The lover has lost not only his name, but also, with the possible exception of four variants, ail trace of his demoniac character.
The Virginia texts are most closely related to Child B, but with occasional stanzas and details that suggest other Child versions. But as all the Child versions are based upon A, with traditional modifications, the story of Child A may be profitably scanned as a preliminary step: "Jane Reynolds and James Harris, a seaman, had exchanged vows of marriage. The young man was pressed as a sailor, and after three years was reported as dead; the young woman married a ship carpenter, and they lived together happily for four years, and had children. One night when this carpenter was absent from home, a spirit rapped at the window and announced himself as James Harris, come after an absence of seven years to claim the woman for his wife. She explained the state of things, but upon obtaining assurance that her long-lost lover had the means to support her- seven ships upon the sea - consented to go with him, for he was really much like unto a man. 'The woman-kind' was seen no more after that; the carpenter hanged himself."
The Virginia ballad cuts out all the antecedent action and the aftermath about the carpenter. It omits all names (except for the stolen "Fair Ellen" of Virginia F), and deprives the lover altogether of his ghostly character (with the possible exception of Virginia A, M, N, and Appendix A). The Virginia story, then, is a compressed and very human drama of illicit elopement and retribution. A seaman returns to find his old love married, it seems happily, to a house carpenter, by whom she has a child (or more). By his persuasiveness and by promises, the old lover induces the wife to desert husband and babe and sail away with him. But soon she pines for the old ties, weeps for her sweet little babe, and (sometimes after she has had a vision of the torment in store for her) the ship springs a leak and sinks to the bottom of the sea. There is often a final stanza voicing her contrition, her curse upon deceiving men, or her warning to other women. In Virginia texts the carpenter does not reappear, as he does in Child B, to grieving and swoon at the news of the disaster and to curse such deluding mariners. Virginia A, M, N, and appendix A are related to Child E and F; they contain the "hills of heaven and hell" stanzas, in which the so-called lover by interpreting the wife's vision assumes a more eerie and diabolical personality. But she never spies his cloven foot, as in Child E, F, and G, and, even the vision stanzas are exceedingly rare in Virginia.
"The House Carpenter" is very often corrupted with other songs and ballads that fit in with its general motif. But it generally preserves its own identity; it does not, like "The Lass of Roch Royal" in Virginia, merely contribute certain stanzas to other songs of the texts that follow, A-E are more or less pure and unalloyed variants, though the name "Fair Ellen," in F9 and Q4, and stanzas E 8, K 7, N 3, suggest "Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor." But with R the combined texts begin. R-AA are marked by the intrusion of a stanza or more from some other source, but with the "House Carpenter" story still well preserved. Appendices A and B have been corrupted almost beyond recognition, but they still preserve two or three stanzas of the ballad. The "shoe my foot" stanzas of "The Lass of Roch Royal," appear in R 7, and 8, S 7 and 8, Appendix A 5 and 6, Appendix B 5 and 6; and the chorus of Appendix A is a stanza of "The Lass of Roch Royal" seldom found in Virginia. In variants T-AA stanzas are supplied from certain later songs- which have something in common with "The House Carpenter" such as a lovers' greeting, a lovers' parting, a false lover, a remorseful lover, a betrayed lover's lament or warning, -etc. Traces of "The False young Man," "The True Lover's Farewell," "The Rejected Lover," "The Wagoners Lad," "Cold Winter's Night," "Careless Love," and perhaps other English folk-songs are to be found in the Virginia variants T-AA, and in the appendices. "The False Young Man" is the most frequent intruder. These variants in combination are a most interesting feature of the ballad in Virginia.
J. "The House Carpenter." Collected by Miss Nancy Pearson. Sung by Mr. Armistead, of Cobbs Creek, Va. Mathews County. November 15, 1915.
"I could 'a' married a king's daughter,"
"I'm sure that you're much to blame;
I have married a house carpenter,
And I'm sure he's a nice young man,
I have married a house carpenter,
And I'm sure he's a nice young man."
2 "If you forsake your house carpenter
And go along with me,
I'll take you where the grass grows green
On the banks of sweet O'lee.
I'll take you where the grass grows green
On the banks of sweet O'lee."
3 "If I forsake my house carpenter,
And go along with you,
What have you there to entertain me
And keep me from hard slavery?
What have you there to entertain me
And keep me from hard slavery?"
4 "I have hundreds of ships all out on sea
Or sailing for dry land,
With ten hundred and ten bold sailor men,
Which all shall be at your command,
With ten hundred and ten bold sailor men,
Which all shall be at your command."
5 She dressed herself in rich array,
As rich as she could afford,
And she walked the streets round and round,
And she shone like glittering gold,
And she walked the streets round and round,
And she shone like glittering gold.
6 Then she pressed her babe up to her lips
And give it a kiss or three.
Saying, "Stay at home, my darling little babe,
And keep your papa company";
Saying, "Stay at home, my darling little babe,
And keep your papa company."
7 She had not sailed more than two lengths at sea,
Not more than three, I'm sure;
Before this fair lady she began to weep,
And she weeps most bitterly;
Before this fair lady she began to weep,
And she weeps most bitterly.
B "What are You weeping for? my gold?
Or either for my stores?
Or are you weeping for your house carpenter
That you never shall see any more?
Or are you weeping for your house carpenter
That you never shall see any more?"
9 "I'm not weeping for your gold,
Or neither for your stores,
But I'm weeping for my darling little babe
That I shall never see any more,
But I'm weeping for my darling little babe
That I shall never see any more."
10 They had not sailed more than three lengths at sea,
Not more than four, I'm sure,
Before the ship she springs a leak
And sinks to rise no more;
Before the ship she springs a leak
And sinks to rise no more.
11 "Now my poor husband is at home
Or wondering where I may be,
While my poor body is food for the fish
On the bottom of the deep blue sea;
While my poor body is food for the fish
On the bottom of the deep blue sea."
12 "Say here is a curse to all seafaring men,
Likewise to others' pure strife;
For they have robbed me of my house carpenter
And taken away my life;
For they have robbed me of my house carpenter
And taken away my life."