The Silver Dagger- Eva Case (MO) 1916 JAF
[My title. From Ballads and Songs by G. L. Kittredge; The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 30, No. 117 (Jul. - Sep., 1917), pp. 283-369. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2016]
THE SILVER DAGGER.
Miss Pettit's Kentucky version ("The Green Field and Meadows") was printed in this Journal (20:267). A West Virginia text communicated by Professor Cox (from Mr. Edward C. Smith) corresponds to this ("The Warning Deaths"). Compare Shearin and Coombs, p. 27 ("Lovely Julia");[1] Belden, No. 22 (cf. JAFL 25: 12-13)[2]; Barry (JAFL 25 : 282, tune); Pound, pp. 17-18. For the occasional contamination of "The Silver Dagger" with "The Drowsy Sleeper" see pp. 342-343, above. The text printed below has three stanzas more than Miss Pettit's.
The Silver Dagger. -Communicated by Professor Belden, as received from Mrs. Eva Warner Case, Harrison County, Missouri.
[music]
1. Come young and old, and pay attention
To these few lines I'm going to write.
They are as true as ever was written
Concerning a young and beautiful maid.
2. A young man courted a handsome lady;
He loved her as he loved his life,
And ofttimes he would make his vowings
To make her his long and wedded wife.
3. Now when his parents came to know this,
They strove to part them day and night,
Saying, "Son, O son, don't be so foolish,
For she's too poor to be your wife."
4. Young William down on his knees pleading,
Saying, "Father, father, pity me.
Don't keep me from my dearest Julia,
For she is all this world to me."
5. Now when this lady came to know this,
She soon resolved what she would do,
To wander forth and leave the city,
In the pleasant groves no more to roam.
6. She wandered down by the lonely river,
And there for death she did prepare,
Saying, "Here am I a youth come mourning,
And soon shall sink in deep despair."
7. She then picked up a silver dagger,
And pierced it through her snow-white breast.
At first she reeled and then she staggered,
Saying, "Fare you well, I'm going to rest."
8. Young William down by the roadside near by,
He thought he heard his true love's voice.
He ran, he ran like one distracted,
Saying, "Love, 0 love, I fear you're lost."
9. Her cold dark eyes like diamonds opened,
Saying, "Love, O love, you've come too late,
Prepare to meet me on Mount Zion,
Where all our joys will be complete."
10. He then picked up this bloody dagger
And pierced it through his own true heart,
Saying, "Let this be a woful warning
That lovers here should never part."
1 Compare p. 12 ("Rosanna"); Sewanee Review, July, 1911.
2 Belden now has six variants.
Shearin: In Rosanna, a fragment, as I have it, is told the tragedy of two loves. Rosanna renounces Silimentary, her true-love, to make a marriage of convenience with the squire. The love-lorn hero goes to sea, and is drowned ; the conscience-stricken maiden, upon hearing this, stabs herself in most approved style with her silver dagger.