Three Little Babes- (NC) c1940 Brown 4C1 REC
[From the Brown Collection of NC Folklore, Music of the ballads from Vol. 4, 1957. Their notes follow. Associated with the Brown Collection are the Abrams Collection and the I.G. Greer collection. Greer has nearly a dozen music sheets of this ballad - mostly they are rewrites of one or two versions. Greer and his wife sang a version recorded in 1929 (unissed) and 1941.
R. Matteson 2015]
25. The Wife of Usher's Well (Child 79)
This admirable ballad has lasted better in America, for some reason, and especially in the South, than in the land of its birth. See BSM 55-6, and add to the references there given Florida (SFLQ VIII 152-3), Missouri (OFS I 122-4), Ohio (BSO 46-7), Indiana (BSI 97), and Michigan (BSSM 146). All American texts belong to one version, with a strong religious coloring. The North Carolina collection has nine texts, but not all need be given here.
C(1) 'The Three Little Babes.' Sung by anonymous female singer ; no place or date. Very closely related to 25 J and 25 E (1).
For melodic relationship cf. **SharpK i 151-9. Nos. 22 B, F, G, and P, and most of the basic melodic line also in I, K, M, N. Similarly in BB 17, version E and BT 155; FSF 280; FSKM S; *OFS i 122, No. 19A. Scale: Mode II, plagal. Tonal Center: d. Structure: abb1a1 (2,2,2,2).
There was a lady, a lady gay
And children she had three
She sent them away to a foreign land,
To learn their grammaree.