The House Carpenter- Moses (NY-NH) 1934 Flanders B
[From Ancient Ballads III, Flanders; 1963. The Flanders/Coffin notes follow.
Flanders added this to her collection on February 9, 1935. This version can be considered a New Hampshire version rather than New York version.
R. Matteson 2013]
James Harris, or the Daemon Lover
(Child 243)
Behind the sentimental Child A version of this song lies the legend of Jane Reynolds of Plymouth and a sailor, James Harris; who exchanged marriage vows. He was pressed into the service and after three years reported dead. Jane then married a ship carpenter. They lived happily for four years and had children. One night when the carpenter was out, Jane heard a rapping at the window. It was the ghost of Harris come to claim his love. She explained to him what had happened but was willing to follow him off when he promised her great wealth. On shipboard, she began to repent her infidelity, but too late. The ship sank, or at least she was never heard of again. Her bereaved husband later hanged himself.
In America, the supernatural element of the song and the names of the lead characters are not retained. Usually, though not always (see Flanders E1 and E2), the husband is a house, not a ship, carpenter. The action before the arrival of the lover and the suicide of the husband are invariably omitted. This form of the song, which is quite standard throughout the states, can no doubt be laid to the popularity of the song in print, perhaps to the broadside published by De Marsan (see Phillips Barry, British Ballads from Maine, 308-309) about 1860. Most of the texts follow De Marsan's song, which is similar to Child B, rather faithfully, but he probably took his version from established oral tradition. See JAF, XXXV, 347; Belden, 79-80; J. Harrington Cox, Folk Songs of the South (Cambridge, Mass., 1925), 139; and Arthur K. Davis, Traditional Ballads of Virginia (Cambridge, Mass., 1929), 439, tor discussion along this line.
The Flanders A-L texts are of a normal American sort, close to but not exactly like the De Marsan broadside. M, with its retention of the ghostly title, can be compared to Scottish Child D and F. The N1 and N2 "Banks of Claudy" versions represent an unusual line of development. They retain the name of the lover, as well as his ghostly nature, and with the one recorded in Greig and Keith, 196, represent two of the few surviving texts that are not of "The House Carpenter" sort. See Child A, B, C, and F for the miraculous gilded ship.
The song, once common, is now rare in Scotland. However, it survives in England, with a ship carpenter instead of a house carpenter, in a form much like the American. See Dean-Smith, 80, and Belden, 79-80, for references. There are no European analogues to the story, though the motif is not unusual. A Danish tale of a deceitful woman is somewhat like "James Harris." In America, it borrows heavily from many other ballads. See Flanders G; also note the references in Coffin, 140.
The eleven tunes for Child 243 consists of one large group of related tunes and three single, evidently unrelated ones: Wales, Price, and Sullivan. The large group can be subdivided into closely related subgroups as follows: 1) Moses, Richards; 2) Merrill, George; 3); Fish, Degreenia, Mancour; 4) Reynolds. The Wales tune may be related to the large group rather than being independent.
The House Carpenter- sung by Miss Ruth Moses of New York City "set down...from the singing of her father, who lives in Woodstock, New Hampshire." Printed in the Springfield, MA, Republican in 1934.
"Oh, I might have married the Kings's daughter fair
And she would have married me,
but I have refused the crowns of Gordon gold,
And 'tis all for the sake of thee."
"If you have refused the King's daughter fair
I think you're much to blame,
For I am married to a House Carpenter
And I think he's a nice young man."
"If you will forsake your House Carpenter
And go along with me,
I'll take you where the grass grows green
On the banks of sweet Guerlee."
"If I forsake my House Carpenter
And go along with thee,
Oh, what hast thou got to maintain me on
Or to keep me from slavery?"
"I've got three ships loaded down with gold
And a-sailing now for land,
With a hundred and ten right jolly seamen bold,
And they're all at your command."
Then she dressed herself in scarlet red,
A color you all have seen,
And as she walked the streets up and down
She looked like a glittering queen.
Then she took up her darling little child;
She gave it kisses three,
Saying, "Stay at home, my darling little child,
For to keep your father company."
They had not been at sea more than two weeks,
I'm sure it couldn't have been three,
When that fair lady was seen for to weep,
And she wept most bitterly.
"Oh, is it for my gold that you weep?
Or is it for my store?
Or is it for your House Carpenter
That you never can see any more?"
"Oh, it is not for your gold that I weep,
Nor it is not for your store,
But it is for my darling little child
That I never can see any more."
They had not been at sea more than three weeks,
I'm sure it couldn't have been four,
When the ship sprang a leak; to the bottom then she sank
And she sank to arise no more.
Then that brings a curse on all womenkind,
Likewise on all men alive,
Who'll steal away from a House Carpenter
And take away his wife.