The House Carpenter- Cornwright (NY) 1944 Cutting A
[From: Lore of an Adirondack County by Edith E. Cutting, 1944 by Cornell University Press. The opening stanza is very similar to Allen Johnson's version, which he learned in Calais, Maine.
From Tauny site: Edith E. Cutting – teacher, author and folklorist – was born in the Essex County town of Lewis, on a small family farm. She attended the New York State College for Teachers, where in 1936 she enrolled in an elective course in American Folklore, taught by Dr. Harold W. Thompson, a founder of the New York Folklore Society. Thompson encouraged his students to interview their friends and families and collect examples of their old customs, stories and sayings, to make them aware of their heritage and their communities. Research from this first class project was later published in 1944 by Cornell University Press as Lore of an Adirondack County, the first such published collection of any North Country folklore materials. It contains fascinating tales, weather lore, games, ballads and songs shared by older men and women of the Champlain Valley whom she had known as a child.
R. Matteson 2013]
The House Carpenter- Recited by Mrs. Cornwright (NY) 1944. Collected by Cutting.
"Well met, well met, my fair pretty maid."
"Not so very well met," said she,
For I am married to a house-carpenter,
And he is good to me."
"If you will leave your house-carpenter,
And go along with me,
I will take you where the grass grows green
On the banks of a sweet valley."
"If I should leave my house-carpenter,
And go along with thee,
What have you to maintain me upon,
To keep me from slavery?"
"I have houses on the land
And ships on the sea,
And a hundred and ten of the fine young men
Which shall be at your command."
She took her babe all in her arms,
She gave it kisses three.
"Stay at home, stay at home with your own kind father,
For he is good to me.
Stay at home, stay at home with your own kind father,
For he is good to thee."
She had not sailed six weeks on sea,
Oh, no, not scarcely three,
Before this fair maid began to mourn
And she mourned most bitterly.
"Is it for gold that you do mourn,
Or is it for me?
Or is it for your house-carpenter
That you left and followed me?"-
"'Tis not for gold that I do mourn,
Or is it for thee,
But it is for my house-carpenter that I mourn
And also my sweet baby."
She had not sailed six months on sea,
Oh, no, not scarcely three,
When a hole in the ship caught a leak,
And the mourner was heard no more.