There Was Three Worms- Bartlett (Dorset) 1905 Hammond
[From: Songs of Love and Country Life by Lucy E. Broadwood, Cecil J. Sharp, Frank Kidson, Clive Carey and A. G. Gilchrist; Journal of the Folk-Song Society, Vol. 5, No. 19 (Jun., 1915), pp. 174-203. Published by: English Folk Dance + Song Society. Their note's follow.
MacColl writes of the "blind worm" motive in association with "Love has Brought Me to Despair." See his version sung by Caroline Hughes- which is different.
Bartlett's version is like Sheffield Park on steroids!!
R. Matteson 2017]
The text of Mr. Hammond's interesting version is obviously old, and, like Miss Broadwood's Herts version, differs from the usual copies. (Cf. also "A Brisk young Sailor" in Mrs. Leather's Folk-Lore of Herefordshire for an unusual last verse.) The three worms, deaf and blind, are, I am inclined to think, the earlier form of the blind bird symbol of other versions, e.g. one in Mr. Kidson's Traditional Tunes. The allusion seems to be to the blindworm (of which "blind bird" may be a corruption), identified by many country people (see Mr. Frank Gibson's Superstitions about Animals) with the deaf adder of the Psalmist, " which refuseth to hear the voice of the charmer" -this legendary deafness being "no mere lack of the hearing faculty "-as Mr. F. E. Hulme says-" but a deliberate turning away from peril." As the Traditional Tunes version runs:
I wish it had been the same with me
Ere my false love deceiv-ed me."
Several English folk-rhymes, however, differentiate these two "worms" (an old English name for any snake, serpent, or creeping thing), for example:
"If I could hear and thou couldst see
There would none live but you and me
As the adder said to the blindworm.
To these popuilar types of deafness and blindness may be added the mole. Northall in his English Folk-Rhymes quotes from Randolph's Muses Looking Glass, 1638:
How happy are the moles that have no eyes,
How blest the adders that have no ears!
-A. G. G.
Mr. Hammond's tune to " The three Worms " is often used by country singers for the ballad of " Barbara Allen," and almost invariably in 5-time.-L. E. B.
THERE WAS THREE WORMS ON YONDER HILL. [A BRISK YOUNG SAILOR.]
SUNG BY MR. BARTLETT,
Noted by the late H. E. D. Hammond. AT WIMBORNE, DORSET, IN 1905.
I. There was three worms on yonder hill,
They neither could not hear nor see;
I wish I'd been but one of them
When first I gained my liberty.
[Repeat last two lines.]
2 Then a brisk young lad came a-courting me,
He stole away my liberty;
He stole it away with a free goodwill,
He've a-got it now, and he'll keep it still.
3 Oh, for once I wore my apron-strings low
My love followed me through frost and snow,
But now they're almost up to my chin
My love pass by and say nothing.
4 Now there is an ale-house in this town,
Where my false love go and sit himself down
And takes strange girls all on his knee-
And don't you think that's a grief to me ?
[Or Because they have more gold than me.]
5 So gold will waste and beauty pass
And she will come like me at last.
That mortal man when he served me so
When I was down where the daisies grow.
6 Now there is a flower, I heard them say,
Would ease my heart both night and day.
I wish to God that flower I could find
That would ease my heart and my troubling mind.
7 Then out in the mead the poor girl run
To call those flowers fast as they sprung;
'Twas some she picked, some she pulled,
Till at length she gained her apron full.
8 On those sweet flowers she made her bed,
A stony pillow for her head;
Then down she lay and never spoke,
And now her tender heart is broke.
9 Now she is dead and her corpse is cold
I met her false-love, and him I told
"A bad misfortune I come to tell."
"I'm glad," said he, " she have done so well."
10 Oh, so now she is dead and her corpse is cold
I met her false lover, and him I told:
"Come and walk after your heart's delight;
She will walk with you both day and night!
11 So dig her a grave long, wide and deep,
And strow it over with flowers sweet;
Lay on her breast a turtle-dove,
That folks may see that she died for love.