The Jew's Daughter- Branham (KY) 1957 Roberts
[From: In the Pine; Roberts, 1978. Some of his notes follow.
R. Matteson 2015]
25. THE JEWS DAUGHTER
(child 155)
Kentucky has yielded a goodly number: JAF, 1906: 292; KFR,1957:92, and 1960, 127; SharpK, no. 31, 6 texts, and four in my collection. The present text was given to me without music by Angie Ward in 1957 from Mrs. Tandy Granham, both of Johnson County. It has many details in common with Child F and N, both of which came from Ireland. See the study of an unusual Kentucky version by F.T. Stamper and wm. H. Jansen, JAF, 1958: 16-22.
The Jew's Daughter- from Mrs. Tandy Granham, of Johnson County, Kentucky, 1957.
It happened all on one cold day,
The drops of dew did fall,
And every scholar at that school
Got lief to play the ball.
They knocked it high, they knocked it low,
They knocked it to the Jew's gate.
"Come in, come in, my little boy Hugh.
And get your ball again."
"I can't come in, I dare[n't] come in,
You would tell the school master on me.
And if the school master knew of all,
He would cause my blood to fall."
Then up stepped the Jew's daughter
With apples in her hand,
"Come in, come in, my little boy Hugh,
And get you two or one."
She took him by the little white hand
And led him through the hall.
She took him to that stone well
Where none could hear him squall.
She set him down in a silver chair
And pricked him with a pin.
And in her little basin clear
She let his heart's blood spin.
She wrapped him in a sheet of lead
From two and two enfold,
She took him to that Dross Well
Where it is both deep and cold.
Day going off, and night coming on,
All children going home,
Every mother had her son
But Hugh's mother she had none.
She broke her a switch off yonders birch
And ran up through the town
Saying, "If I meet my little boy Hugh,
I vow I'll whip him home."
She ran till she came to the Jew's gate,
The Jews were all asleep.
She ran till she came to the Dross Well,
Where it was both cold and deep.
"Are you in here, my little boy Hugh?
Oh, yes, I'm afraid you are,
Speak one word to your mother dear,
Who has been so tender to you."
"Oh, yes, I'm in here, dear Mother," he cried,
"I've been lying here so long,
With a little pen knife pierced through my heart,
The blood it ran so strong.
"Oh, help me out, dear Mother," he cried.
"And bury me by Yonder church.
Help me out, dear Mother," he cried,
"And make my coffin of birch."