The Silver Dagger- Frances Barbour (MO) 1936 JAF
[From: Some Fusions in Missouri Ballads by Frances M. Barbour; The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 49, No. 193 (Jul. - Sep., 1936), pp. 207-214. Her notes follow.
This is the composed ballad, from the early 1800s in the US.
R. Matteson 2016]
THE SILVER DAGGER
Come all ye young people, come circle round me,
Listen to these few lines I'm going to write;
They're just as true as ever were written,
Concerning a fair and beautiful bride.
He courted her for his true love,
And he loved her dearly as he loved his own life,
And he ofttimes said while in her presence
He'd make her his lawful and wedded wife.
But when his parents came to know this,
They strove to part them night and day,
Saying, "Son, 0 son, she's a poor orphant girl;
O do not have her," they would sometimes say.
Then he knelt down before his father,
Saying, "Father, father, pity her,
And do not keep me from my true love,
For she is all the world to me."
But when his true love came to know this,
She resolved what she would do;
She rambled forth and left her village,
No more her present groups to view.
She stole away a silver dagger
And concealed it near her heart,
He who was standing near
Heard and knew his true love's voice;
He ran like somebody distracted,
Saying, "O, my love, I fear you're lost."
Then he picked up the bloody body
And rolled it over in his arms,
Saying, "Gold, no gold nor friends can save you;
You're bound to die with all your charms."
Then her two black eyes she opened,
Saying, "O, my love, you've come too late.
Prepare to meet me on Mount Zion,
Where all our joys will be complete."
Then he picked up the bloody dagger
And thrust it quickly through his heart,
Saying, "This may prove an awful warning
To those who would true lovers part."
"The Silver Dagger," according to Cecil Sharp,[9] is commonly confused with an English ballad, "Awake, Awake," and Professor Kittredge has assembled the original and confused versions.[10] In this case, the stanzas have been shifted from "The Silver Dagger" to the English ballad. "Awake, Awake" (or "The Drowsy Sleeper"), in comparison with "The Silver Dagger," is flat and tasteless to the palate. A girl simply refuses to arouse her sleeping parents to ask their permission to marry her lover, of whom they disapprove. Apparently the ballad singer found in the closing stanzas of "The Silver Dagger" the spice lacking in the quiet indecisive story of "Awake, Awake"; and in consequence the gentle English ballad commonly occurs in America highly flavored
with tragic violence:
Then Willie drew a silver dagger
And pierced it through his aching heart,
Saying, "Farewell to my own true lover,
Farewell, farewell, I am at rest."
Then Mary drew the bloody dagger
And pierced it through her snow-white breast,
Saying, "Farewell, dear father, mother;
Farewell, farewell, we're both at rest."[11]
Here again the situations are sufficiently similar that material from one ballad fits almost equally well in the other.