The Jew's Daughter- Gibson (VA) 1931 Davis AA
[From Davis, More Traditional Ballad of Virginia; 1960. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2015]
SIR HUGH, OR THE JEW'S DAUGHTER
(Child, No. 155 )
TBVa prints thirteen of sixteen available texts of this ballad, plus several tunes. Seven items, including four tunes, have been added more recently to the Virginia collection, of which four (or perhaps five, since two of the seven are overlapping items) are here presented, all four with tunes.
The primary theme of the ballad is the "ritual murder" of a Christian child by Jews. The blood of a Christian child was needed ---or so medieval Christians alleged-for the rites of the Jewish Passover. A secondary theme, found only in older versions of the ballad is the miracle of Mary, in which the dead child miraculously reveals his whereabouts, sometimes by singing the Alma Redemptoris Mater, as in Chaucer's literary utilization of the story in his "Prioress's Tale."
The actual episode upon which the ballad is based seems to be the death of Hugh of Lincoln in 1255. The story is recorded in several contemporary or near-contemporary chronicles: a 1255 entry in The Annals of the Monastery of Waverley in the Chronica Majora of Matthew Paris (who died in 1250); and in the Annals of Burton. Child also mentions an Anglo-French ballad of ninety-five stanzas, which also appears to be contemporary with the event. No doubt the English ballad goes back in tradition very close to the original event, but the earliest surviving texts were recorded much later in the eighteenth century.
The story of the ballad, simplified from the more elaborate chronicle forms, is briefly this: A boy, Hugh, is playing ball with his fellows and inadvertently tosses the ball into the Jew's garden. He is afraid to retrieve it, but is lured into the house by the Jew's daughter, who kills him. His body is then disposed of. In earlier versions. the body does miraculous works leading to its recovery by the mother, and is buried in Lincoln Cathedral. In later versions one boy, before his death, gives directions for his burial and sends messages to his playmates, his mother, his true love. This somewhat commonplace ending is shared by most versions of "The Two Brothers" (Child, No. 49), from which it may have been borrowed.
Child prints twenty-one texts of "Sir Hugh," three of them from America. He devotes much of his elaborate eleven-page headnote to the condemnation of alleged instances of Jewish cruelty to Christian children and the savage Christian "reprisals'" The number of recent reprisals, even before the time of Hitler and World War II, is appalling. It is interesting to note that even before our time instances are most numerous in Germany. But Belden (p. 69) mentions a charge of ritual murder in New York, as late as 1928. Although Friedrian (pp. 62 ff.) still classifies this ballad among his "Religious Ballads," it seems clear that the song as sung today is scarcely a vehicle of racial hatred or religious intolerance but rather a tale of the pathetic death of a little schoolboy. Child reports no traditional counterparts of this ballad from Continental Europe.
Since the time of Child, versions have been collected in England in Hampshire, Lincolnshire, Somerset, and possibly another county or two. No recent version Seems to have been found in Scotland. In the Western Hemisphere, texts have appeared in the Bahamas and Nova Scotia, and in the United States, in addition to the usual states of the Atlantic seaboard and the Southern Appalachians, survivals have been reported from Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The moderate popularity of the ballad in America is all the more surprising in that the story originally dealt with themes which are no longer of interest to the folk: the miracles of the Virgin and ritual murder by the Jews. But these themes have been blurred or omitted in most recent versions.
A sampling from a few representative American collections yields the following statistical results: Sharp-Karpeles, ten texts or partial texts and ten tunes; Cox, six texts printed of an available fourteen texts, with no tune; Barry, no text or tune; Brown, four texts and two tunes; Belden, three texts, no tune; Henry, two texts, one tune; Reed Smith, one text, one tune; Randolph, four texts, one tune; Eddy, one text, one tune; and so on.
In the present series, vestiges of the ritual murder theme may be recognized in such details as the decking of the victim, the description of the altar, the basin for the blood, and the imagery of the sacrificial animal. AA and CC preserve the reference to the well in which the body is concealed, "Our Lady's deep draw-well" of Child A-possibly also a vestige of the miracle of Our Lady theme.
The ballad's opening report of foul weather is fairly normal both in England and in America; the rain of AA, BB, and DD has changed to snow in CC. The presence of the boy's nurse in the kitchen of the Jew's house (again in CC) seems odd. Miss Broadwood suggests, in JFSS, V (1914-17), 256, that the boy actually sees a vision of his nurse as a part of the enticement practiced by the Jew's daughter. CC has the rare "picking of a chicken" phrase found also in a few English texts also in a few other American texts. The "true love" of AA 12 seems inconsistent with the boy's apparent age.
The two texts collected near Petersburg by Foster B. Gresham and contributed to the Virginia collection (see FSva, p. 25) are not reproduced here because they were printed and discussed by Mr. Gresham in JAFL, XLVII (October-December 1934). The four tunes here presented are of considerable musical interest, especially the less usual tunes to CC and DD. More detailed comments will be found in the headnotes of the respective variants.
AA. "The Jew's Daughter." Collected by Fred F. Knobloch, John Powell, Hilton Rufty, and A. K. Davis, Jr. Sung by Mrs. Martha Elizabeth Gibson, of Crozet, Va. Albemarle county. May 17, 1931. Tune noted by Mr. Powell. Ionian on C. There is apparently some confusion of order as well as some confused repetition between stanzas 4 and 8. Note also "entoss" in stanza 3 but "entice" in stanza 7, "rement" for "lament" in stanza 9, and "For were" in stanza 13.
1. It rained, it rained, it rained a mist,
It rained all over the land,
And all the boys came out of town
To toss their ball again.
2 First they tossed the ball too high,
And again too low,
And then over in the Jew's gar-din,
Where none was dared to go.
3 He hankered fur. he hankered near,
Till the Jew's daughter came down,
when she tame down she was dressed in swine,
To entoss[1] this young man in.
4 "I won't come in, I shan't come in,
I've heard of You before,
For those who goes in the Jew's gar-din,
Don't never come out no more."
5 "Come in, come in, you nice young man,
"You shall have your ball again."
. . .
. . .
6. "I won't come in, I shan't come in,
I've heard of you before,
For those who goes in the Jew's gar-din,
Don't never come out no more."
7 First she offered him a mellowed apple,
And then a gay gold ring,
Then a cherry as red as blood,
To entice this Young lad in.
8 "I won't come in, I shan't come in,
I've heard of you before,
For those who goes in the Jew's gar-din,
Don't never come out no more."
9 Takened him by his lily-white hand,
And through the castle she went,
She carried him down in the cellar below
Whar no one could hear him rement[1].
10 She pinned him down, she pinned him down,
She Pinned him to the floor;
She called for a basin as bright as gold
To ketch his heart's blood in.
11 "Pray lay my prayer book at my head,
My Bible at my feet,
If my school mates come call for me
Just tell them that I'm asleep."
12 "Pray lay my prayer book at my feet.
My Bible at my head,
If my true love calls for me
Fray tell her that I'm dead."
13 Some takened him by his yellow, brown hair.
Some by his hand and feet,
They tossed him over in the wide water,
For were both cold and deep.
1. entice
2. lament