Three Little Babies- Stephens (MO) 1929 Randolph A
[From Vance Randolph's Ozark Folksongs, Vol. 1, 1946. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2015]
THE THREE LITTLE BABES
This is an abbreviated version of "The Wife of Usher's Well" (Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballad's, 1882-1898, No. 79). For American references see Campbell and sharp (English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, 1917, No. 19), JAFL 30, 1917,p. 305, Pound (American Ballads and Songs, 1922, p. 18), Cox (Folk-Songs of the South, 1925, p. 99), and Davis (Traditional Ballads of Virginia, 1929, pp. 218-289). Buell Kazee has made a very good phonograph record (Brunswick 212). Compare the two Missouri texts reported by Belden (Ballad's and Songs, 1940, pp. 55-57). Also see Eddy (Ballads and Songs from Ohio, 1939, pp. 46-47), Brewster (Ballads and Songs of Indiana, 1940, pp. 97-99), Morris (Southern Folklore Quarterly 8, 1944, p. 152), and the forthcoming Brown (North Carolina Folk-Lore Society) collectlon.
A. [Three Little Babies] Sung by Mrs. Lee Stephens, White Rock, Mo., Aug. 30, 1929. Mrs. Stephens says that it is sometimes known as "Lady Gay."
A lady lived in the west country,
An' she had children three,
An' she sent them, away to th' north country
For to learn their grammarie.
They hadn't been gone but a month or two,
I'm sure it wasn't three;
Till death come an' spread all over the land,
An' swept her babies away.
It bein' close on to Christmas time,
An' the nights bein' long an' cold,
She looked an' she seen her three little babes
Come a-runnin' down her mother's hall.
She made 'em a bed in the uppermost room,
Spread over with a clean white sheet,
Come, oh come my three little babes,
An' sleep in your mother's hall.
Rise you up, rise you up, says the oldest one,
Oh mother, we caint sleep here;
For three long hours before daylight
We must join our Saviour dear.
A marble stone lays at our heads, mother,
An' cold clods lays at our feet,
An' the tears that you will shed, mother,
Will wet our windin' sheet.