The Worrisome Woman- Wallin (NC) c.1936 Yates REC
[From: Far in the Mountains: Volume 3; notes by Mike Yates follow. It is possible that the source for this ballad is Jane Hicks Gentry who moved to Madison County in 1875 with her parents when she was 12 years old. The ballad was probably known by Emoline Harmon Hicks, her mother and the daughter of old Counce Harmon of Watauga County, NC.
R. Matteson 2013, 2016]
Vergie Wallin: Vergie, the wife of Cas Wallin, loved to sing, although her tendency to let her songs merge together, coupled with the fact that she would sometimes sing at breakneck speed, meant that it was often difficult to make out quite what she was singing! She knew a large number of ballads, including a fine version of The Merry Golden Tree (Child 286), as well as lyrical songs.
22. The Worrisome Woman (Child 248, Roud 179)
(Sung by Vergie Wallin at her home in Sodom Laurel, Madison County, NC. 24.5.83)
It was all on one summer evening I heard a pretty fair maid
She was mourning she was weeping for her father
And a-grieving for her mother, thinking all on her true-love John
At last John he came he found the doors all shut
He ringed at the (ding?) he ringed so low
The pretty fair maid rose and hurried on her clothes
To make haste to let Johnny come in.
Johnny come in, all around the waist he caught her
And into the bed he brought her
They laid there a-talking awhile.
She said, 'My pretty feathered fowl
You are the prettiest feathered fowl I ever saw
If you won't crow until it's almost day
Your comb will be of the pure ivory
And your wings of the silver grey, the silver grey'.
But him a-being very young
He crowed two hours before it was day
And she sent her love away by the light of the moon
Before it was day.
She sent her love away by the light of the moon
And thought it was almost day.
Says, 'Oh dear Johnny when will you be back to see me again?'
Says, 'When the seventh moon is past and shines on yonders lea
And you know that will never be'.
Said, 'Oh what a foolish girl was I when I thought my love was as true
As the rocks grow to the ground
But since I've found he's altered in mind
It's better to live single than bound'
Spoken: MY: I'm just going to leave the tape on. Can you tell me when you first heard that song.
VW: I heard his brother sing it, Jeeter, oh (h)it bin...he'd stayed with us an he'd sing a lot... and get him a songbook and set down and sing and sing. I'd just wish for him to quit...it worried me, you know. I told Cas; Cas said, told me some time ago when I got to liking to sing, he'd guessed I'd wished he was back here now (so) I'd sing some with him.
MY: How long ago was that?
VW: Oh, it's along when we first married...he stayed with us. We've bin married about, going on 47 years.
A version of the ballad usually known as The Grey Cock or Saw You My Father? In 1916 Cecil Sharp found a single set in the repertoire of Jane Hicks Gentry of Hot Springs, a few miles away from Sodom Laurel. When I first visited the area in 1981 I tried to find the ballad, but without success. Imagine my surprise two years later when Vergie began to sing it one afternoon as I was helping her cut down some weeds behind her home. As she explains on the album, she had heard the piece fifty years before, sung by her brother-in-law, Jeeter Wallin, who had since moved to Kentucky.
Jane Hicks Gentry was originally from Beech Mountain, a good way to the north-east of Hot Springs. The late Frank Proffitt of Vilas, Watauga County, NC, sings a version on Rounder CD 0028. Vilas is next to Beech Mountain and Frank's text is very similar to that sung by Mrs Gentry, as is the version recorded by Hattie Presnell, also of Beech Mountain (Folk-Legacy FSA 22).
Despite being widely collected in the British Isles, it appears that only versions from Cecilia Costello (Rounder CD1776), Nora Cleary (Topic TSCD653) and Róisín White (Veteran VT126CD) can be found on CD.