The Two Sisters- Margot Mayo (Texas/NY/KY) 1948
[From a recording by Dick Greenhaus. Margot Mayo collected ballads and this version is probably from an unknown source. According to Dick Greenhaus: "This version (Version 7 in the DT) is very close to Bronson version #27---Peggy Seeger recorded it in Long Harvest, attributing the tune to Louisa Chisholm, Woodsbridge VA. I'd guess I learned it (oral transmission) from Margot Mayo, ca 1948. It's also version C (Chisholm in Sharp/Karpeles "English Folk Songs in the Southern Appalachians"-1932 edition) Which collection, I should mention, will be re-issued by CAMSCO in the near future."
Miss Margot Mayo and Miss Deska of American Square Dance Group of New York City and Bascom Lamar Lunsford (center), director of the Mountain Music Festival, Asheville, North Carolina.
Margot Mayo, a Texan who pioneered folk music in New York and spearheaded the revival of folk dancing there in the 1940s, was head of the American Square Dance Group (ASDG). Mayo was first cousin to Kentucky banjo player Rufus Crisp, through Lulu Crisp, Rufus Chrisp’s wife. Mayo and Stu Jamieson recorded Crisp and Jamieson learned his banjo style.
THE TWO SISTERS- learned from Margot Mayo c. 1948; her source is unknown. Greenhaus comments: This is how I remember it; it may well be a pastiche of several versions.
There lived an old lord in the North Countree
Bow down
There lived an old lord in the North Countree
Bow and balance to me,
There lived an old lord in the North Countree
And he had daughters, one two and three
That will be true, true to my love
Love and my love will be true to me.
There went a young man a-courting there
He chose the youngest daughter fair
He gave to her a beaver hat
The older she thought much of that.
He gave the youngest a gay gold ring
The older, not a single thing.
O sister, O sister come walk with me
To see the ships upon the sea.
But when they reached the water's brim
The oldest pushed the yougest in.
O sister, O sister, O give me your hand
And you may have my house and land.
I will not give you my hand nor my glove
But I will have your own true-love.
Down she sank and away she swam
And down to the miller's mill-pond she swam.
O miller, O miller, there swims a swan
A-swimming about in your mill-pond.
The miller ran out with his fish-hook
And fished that fair maid out of the brook.
He's robbed her of her gay gold rings
And into the pond he's pushed her again.
The miller was hung at his mill gate
For drowning of his sister, Kate.