The Rich Irish Lady- Fogg (WV) pre1916 Davis F; Richardson JAFL
[From John Harrington Cox; Folk Songs of the South; 1925; Cox does not include the text but it is included in the 1919 JAFL.
Cox has:
F. "The Rich Irish Lady." Communicated by Mrs. Hilary G. Richardson, Clarksburg, Harrison County, March, 1916; obtained from Mrs. Rachel Fogg, originally from Doddridge County, who learned it from her mother. A confused text in five stanzas.
Fogg's text is found in Old Songs from Clarksburg, W. Va., 1918; by Anna Davis Richardson; The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 32, No. 126 (Oct. - Dec., 1919), pp. 497-504. The stanza groups are anyone's guess- I'll leave them as they were published.
This ballad is not to be confused with the popular ballad, Child No. 73 Lord Thomas and Fair Annet, which is commonly known in the US, and Canada as "The Brown Girl."
US and Canada versions are based on the hundreds of late 18th century English broadsides sometimes titled "The Sailor from Dover" or "Sally and her Truelove Billy."
Child's B version of 295, "The Brown, Brown Girl" collected by Rev. S. Baring-Gould, introduced stanzas from the "Sally and her Truelove Billy" songs. In his article "Folk Song Tradition, Revival and Re-Creation" Steve Gardham has shown that Baring-Gould's ballad is a re-creation of two ballads and not traditional.
To put it simply, the versions are not related to "The Brown Girl" but are part of the "The Sailor from Dover" and "Sally and her Truelove Billy" song group. In the US and Canada some common titles are "Pretty Sally," "Sally," and "A Rich Irish Lady." They have been put here following Bronson and others who have attached them to Child 295, not because they belong here.
R. Matteson 2014]
Notes from John Harrington Cox; Folk Songs of the South; 1925.
114. PRETTY SALLY
This is the English song usually known as "Sally and her True-love Billy" or "Sally and Billy"; also as "The Bold Sailor" and "The (Young) Sailor from Dover" (see Journal, xxix, 178, note 1; add De Vaynes, The Kentish Garland, No. 153, 11, 678). For other American texts see Barry, Journal, xxvii, 73 (Kansas; reported from Iowa); Campbell and Sharp, No. 36 (North Carolina,
Virginia, Georgia); Tolman, Journal, xxix, 178 (Indiana); Belden's Missouri collection. The piece, as Barry has noted, is a variety of "The Brown Girl" (Child, No. 295), a ballad known in print in the latter half of the eighteenth century; or rather, as Kittredge suggests, it is mixed with a version of "The Brown Girl" similar to that taken down in Devonshire by Baring-Gould and printed by Child as Version B.
From: Old Songs from Clarksburg, W. Va., 1918 by Anna Davis Richardson
The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 32, No. 126 (Oct. - Dec., 1919), pp. 497-504
3. THE RICH IRISH LADY. (Fragment. Given by Mrs. Rachel Echols Fogg.)
A rich Irish lady from Dublin she came,
Possessing great riches, and Sarah by name,
She was so rich that it scarce can be told
A poor young man came courting this young damsel bold.
But she was so high and lofty,
Upon this poor young man she would scarce cast an eye.
And he said, "Sarah, pretty Sarah, I am afraid
That my love and your love don't agree,
No forcing, for I really don't want you
If you have to be forced."
So at full six months this fair damsel fell sick,
And at last she sent for this young man,
Who she once did deny.
"O Sarah, love!" said he, "am I the doctor, the danco (?),
That you have sent for me?"
"You are the doctor, the danco,
You can kill or cure, that I have sent for you."
"I will neither kill you nor cure you,
But I will dance over you when you are buried in the ground."
She peeled from her fingers gold "diaments" three:
"Here, take these in remembrance of me!
And when you're done dancing, call Sarah your queen,
And flee from your country, no more to be seen."