The Two Sisters- Maud Long (NC) 1955 Rec. Moser
[From North Carolina Ballads by Artus Moser, Folkways recording FA 2112, 1955. Compare this to: The Two Sisters- Mrs. Jane Gentry (NC) 1916 Sharp Version A.
Maud Long learned her version from her mother Jane Gentry but Long claimed that Sharp did not get the text exactly the way Gentry sang it in 1916.
Moser's version can be heard on Digital Appalachia:
http://dla.acaweb.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/Warren/id/2145/rec/8
R. Matteson 2011, 2014]
Song Notes: Folkways FA 2112; Recorded 1955
Artus M. Moser has been collecting, singing and teaching the ballads and folksongs of his native state for more than 25 years and is a recognized authority in this field. Born and reared in the Swannanoa Valley, near the base of some of the loftiest mountains in Eastern America, Moser did not become interested in the native folklore of his state until he was a student at the University of North Carolina. His interest, however, did not take definite form until several years later when he became a professor at Lincoln Memorial University at Harrogate, Tennessee. It was here that his students protested that they knew better versions of the ballads their professor was trying to teach them from textbooks . This started Moser on his recording and collecting in the Great Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge in North Carolina. The Library of Congress soon heard of his work and upon examination found it so valuable they supplied him with a new recording machine to continue his collecting. He contributed more than 300 versions of authentic traditional tunes, ballads and folksongs to the Archive of American Folk Song and has received the highest praise and commendntion from his important work.
Professor Moser has one of the largest and most interesting collections of folk material in this country and has been at work editing and arranging his material with a view toward ultimate publication. Professor Moser has not only supplied the-voice and
instrumentation for this recording of North Carolina Ballads but also supplied the editor of this album with some excellent background and source information on each of the songs included.
INTRODUCTION TO NORTH CAROLINA BALLADS
By ARTUS N. MOSER
It is difficult to find ballads and songs entirely native to the state of North Carolina. Many of the songs were brought in by the srune Scottish and English forebears who migrated from North Carolina to other states, or who came from other states into North Carolina. These songs and ballads refuse to be fenced in and seem to have a life and vitality all their own.
When scholars and collectors think they are dying out or have disappeared, they suddenly make themselves known in some prominent or obscure place, and there is a sudden revival of interest in them. It is a point of pride with the people in Western North Carolina that this region was probably the sprouting place for the great impetus given to the spread of interest in folklore, folk dancing, folk festivals and similar interest in the United States within recent years. It has been especially due, it may be claimed, to the annual folk festival held at Asheville, North Carolina , each August, where more than twenty-five years ago Bascom Lamar Lunsford sought to bring together and perpetuate the traditional balladry, folk dancing, and folk fun or the Appalachian region. These festivals have continued through the years and have brought together not only the people from these mountains and valleys who know how to enjoy themselves but also people from every state and section of the Union.
So, it follows, that a collection of North Carolina folk songs is really a collection to be identified with all the states. We here in the mountains cannot claim by any means that we have a monopoly on this element of our culture. It is true that most of the songs I sing are to be found, or have been found until recently, among the people in these hills and valleys, but versions of the same songs have been found in Maine, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland , Pennsylvania, Vermont, Ohio, Indiana. Michigan, and the Ozarks--to mention only a fee examples of the places in which excellent collections have been made. But the ballads given here are strongly flavored with the traditions, language, and point of view and feeling of the people of the North Carolina mountains. The pioneers brought them here. They came singing, fighting, and loving - conquering the wilderness and driving the Indians before them with a Bible under one arm and a long rifle under the other. They needed land and freedom and entertainment. They had to survive. They had few thoughts about building a great country or of founding any special system of government. When it came time to settle down and found homes, they knew what it took to accomplish this and they went about it with a fine spirit of cooperation and neighborly good will. They used the memory of their culture to found a great country and they adapted it very well indeed to the new environment.
Most of the ballads collected in North Carolina are still sung by -the mountain farmer and woodsman as he goes to his work, by the tobacco farmer during the nights when he cures his crop for the market, by the mother who lulls her children to sleep following her daily routine of work. All are probably unaware that these songs were the centuries-old expression of the emotional life of their ancestors across the sea, but all realized that these traditional melodies appeal to their primal passions and still cling from generation to generation about the family circle or at family reunions, folk festivals, and at school.
SIDE 1, Band 5 THE TWO SISTERS (Child #10):
One of the most widely distributed British traditional ballads found in America, this ballad has proven to be excellent material for detailed study. Paul G. Brewster has made an intensive study of this ballad, and believes that it is definitely Scandinavian by origin, from where it spread to Scotland, England and America.
Two elements of the ballad tale have especially come up for a great deal of discussion. The first of these concerns the miller who finds the body, robs it and is made to suffer severely (usually with his life) for this petty crime, with the far more criminal culprit, the older sister, usually sharing the same fate but occasionally Getting away with the crime, as in this version. The second element is one which occurs rarely in American variants - the making of a musical instrument from the drowned sister's body, the instrument in turn revealing the identity of the murderer. The elimination of this gruesome supernatural motif is consistent with the practice of American folk singers generally.
Also of considerable interest to students of the ballad are the refrains which seem to occur in almost every variant. The version sung here is of special interest on this account, the "Jury flower, Gensee, the rosemary" refrain undoubtedly being an oral corruption of the "Juniper, Gentian and rosemary" refrain found in various other traditional ballads. At one time this ballad was one of the most frequently sung in Eastern North Carolina, though at present it is more often heard in Tennessee and Kentucky. The version Professor Moser sings here was learned from Mrs. Maud Long of Hot Springs, North Carolina. Mrs. Long had the ballad from her mother, Mrs. Jane Gentry, from whom Cecil Sharp had collected "no less than 64" traditional songs and ballads on his trip through Western North Carolina in 1916. Mrs. Long informed Professor Moser that Sharp failed to take this ballad down exactly as her mother and father sang it, and made notations in Professor Moser's copy of Sharps 's English Folk- Songs From the Southern Appalachians, correcting it wherever she believed Sharp was in error.
There lived an old lord by the Northern Sea
And he had daughters one, two, three.
Jury flower, Gensee, the rosemary,
The jury hangs over the rosemary.
A young man came a-courting there
And he made choice of the youngest fair.
Jury flower, ..... and so forth.
He gave the youngest a beaver hat
And the oldest sister didn't like that.
Jury flower, ..... and so forth.
"O, sister, O, sister, come and go with me,
Go with me down to the sea.
Jury flower, ..... and so forth.
O, as they walked down to the water's brim
The oldest pushed the youngest in.
Jury flower, ..... and so forth.
"O, sister, O, sister, please lend me your hand,
And you may have my home and land.
Jury flower, ..... and so forth.
"O, sister, O, Sister, please lend me your glove,
And you may have my own true love."
Jury flower, ..... and so forth.
"O, I'll not lend to you my glove
And I will have your own true love."
Jury flower, ..... and so forth.
The farmer's wife was sitting on a rock
A-tying and a-sewing of a black slit knot.
Jury flower, ..... and so forth.
"O, farmer, O farmer, run here and see
What's this a-floating down by me."
Jury flower, ..... and so forth.
She floated down to the miller's dam,
And the miller drew her safe to land.
Jury flower, ..... and so forth.
And off her fingers took five gold rings,
And into the water he plunged her again.
Jury flower, ..... and so forth.
The miller was hanged on the gallows so high,
And the oldest sister was standing close by.
Jury flower, ..... and so forth.