Three Sisters- Yarber/Smiths (VA) 1869; collected 1914 Davis AA
[From More Traditional Ballads; Kyle Davis Jr., 1960.
What do we know about the informants, the Smiths? Thomas P. Smith, one of the informants, collected songs and ballads for the Brown Collection when he lived in Zionville, NC from about 1914 onward. Almost 20 years later he and his brother "contributed" this version to Kyle Davis Jr. By then Smith had moved to Palmyra, Virginia within Davis' collecting region. Smith is well aware of the Child ballads and I'm sure had access to or had a copy of Child's ESPB. Smith also knew some of the Brown Collection ballads.
With his brother R.E. Lee Smith, both living in Virginia in the early 1930s, he sent in a version of Child 10, Twa Sisters to Abrams (a collector also for the Brown Collection, labeled Variant 5 in that collection) that they copied from Child A. Unfortunately it was so close to Child A that when the manuscript was reviewed, it was apparent to any collector that it was copied from Child A and not traditional. Then they rewrote Twa Sisters, titled it "Fair Sisters" and changed the parts that were directly copied from Child A. The Smiths sent it to Davis and Davis accepted it. This is provable by comparing the manuscripts.
Davis, who naturally wanted rare version of ballads, was only too eager to accept their submissions. Unfortunately, even though Davis rejected a few of the Smiths offerings, he published a number of them which are clearly-- ballad recreations. One manuscript that the Smiths sent in included the name King Orpheo, which, for a time, Davis trumpeted as the lone version found in North America.
So is this version traditional or a ballad recreation? This ballad is extremely rare, with only three versions found in the entire Appalachian region- one is "Baby Lon" in the Brown Collection, the collection Thomas Smith worked closely with for many years. Here's what Smith wrote on the MS he sent Davis:
Mr. Yarber heard this song sung over 45 years before by his father John Yarber. Bennett Smith, my father, recalled hearing part of this song over 40 years before the above date 1914, and he said the last verse: "And that was (wur) the last of Baby Lon," instead of little Lon, but I thought it was best to use it as Mr. Yarber sang it, as he knowed more of the song than my father.
Not only did they collect this extremely rare specimen, but his father Bennett Smith just happened to know it, and he knew the name of the version as found in Child A. In the Smiths' submission, the Baby Lon of Child A was now Little Lon. It's also clear to me that this is a ballad recreation based on Child A with possibly the additional knowledge of the Brown Collection version (it follows the same form as the Brown Collection version- there are no refrains). For me the reasons this is a recreation are obvious: 1) if the ballad was so well known (i.e. by two informants, Yarber and Bennett Smith) by the Smiths why was it only found three times in that whole region; and 2) if Smith collected this in 1914 why didn't he submit it to the Brown Collection- they would have gladly printed such a rare ballad.
Davis' note follow.
R. Matteson 2014]
BABYLON; OR, THE, BONNIE BANKS O FORDIE
(Child, No. 14)
Child prints six texts of this ballad which tell substantially the following story: Three maidens go out together or singly to a wood, when up starts a robber or banished man. One by one he turns them around and makes them stand, demanding that they wed him or die by his wee pen knife. The first and second refuse, and die. The third warns him of her brother who is in the wood, and who will avenge them. He realizes that he is the brother, and now aware of having killed his two sisters, he commits suicide. Sometimes there are the brothers, and their occupations are given. In Child E, the third sister is saved by a deus ex machina brother, John. Child F has two brothers, among other changes, but is closely related to Child A. Child apparently considered this ballad, by structure, to be one of the older ballads. It preserves such interesting folklore as the idea of a tabooed sacred wood or glove; here the maidens summon an outlaw by picking flowers, leaves, etc. (see Wimberly, pp. 314-20).
The ballad has not been widely collected in tradition. Greig-Keith publish a two-stanza fragment and Barry reports that there is an excellent text with tune in the Miscellanea of the Rymour Club. These seem to be the only British survivals. In North America, version of this ballad have been printed from Newfoundland (Greenleaf and Mansfield; Karpeles; Fowke), Maine (Barry stanza fragment), Vermont (Flanders : Ballads Migrant in New England); New York (BFSSNE, No. 7): Tennessee (TFSB, VIII) and North Carolina (Brown). In the only texts which name the robber, he it called Baby Lon in the North Carolina and Tennessee versions, Robey in the New York version, and Little Lon in the present Virginia version. In addition to preserving a name for the robber, these are the only four texts which preserve the talisman of pulling the flowers. The robber is named in only two child versions. In Child F he is either John or James; in Child A he is Baby Lon. It is curious that Child should combine the two names into one, Babylon, in his title, when the only time this name-appears in a text (Child A, 15) it is given as two words. He evidently follows the title as given in Motherwell's Minstrelsy and risks confusion with the ancient city. The Virginia version of this ballad was contributed October 20, 1932, by R. E. Lee Smith, then of Bumpass, Va., as he and his brother Thomas P. Smith collected it from Moses A. Yarber, of Mast, N.C., February 11, 1914. Mr. Smith writes on the manuscript:
Mr. Yarber heard this song sung over 45 years before by his father John Yarber. Bennett Smith, my father, recalled hearing part of this song over 40 years before the above date 1914, and he said the last verse: "And that was (wur) the last of Baby Lon," instead of Little Lon, but I thought it was best to use it as Mr. Yarber sang it, as he knowed more of the song than my father.
The Virginia text follows Child A closely, with some abridgement. It preserves much of the best of Child's version, such as "to bear the fair rose company," while adding a vigor and color from its American oral tradition. The "rank robber" of Child has become a "bloody robber" with a "keen sharp knife" instead of a "wee penknife." Child's "banished man" is replaced by a "mean looking man," and in the sixteenth stanza "he fell to the ground dead" has an immediacy which we do not find in Child, whose villain "twyned himsel o his ain sweet life." The final stanza, with its retrospect and termination of the story, seems to be in the tradition of this ballad. The local title "Three Sisters" is also unique for this ballad, though it is a very natural extraction from the first line of this and other versions.
Bronson (I, 248-52) can muster only eight tunes (with texts) of this rare ballad, six in Group A and two "by courtesy" in a separate Group B. No version appeared in TBVa. The present text, even without a tune, is a great rarity.
AA. "Three Sisters." Collected by R. E. Lee Smith, of Palmyra, Va. Sung by his brother, Thomas P. Smith, of Palmyra, Ya., and himself. Fluvanna County. October 20, 1932. They learned the ballad from Moses A. Yarber, of Mast, N. C., on February 11, 1914. The state of the manuscript leaves much to be desired, but there is clear indication that the stanzaic division Mr. Smith favored was a two-line stanza as given below. The only other text of North Carolina origin (Brown Collection, pp. 44-45) also is made up of two-line stanzas and has no refrain. There is no indication of a refrain in the Virginia text, but the manuscript leaves the possibility that the second line of stanza one, and the second line of stanza two, might have been interpolated as refrain lines throughout, though this seems unlikely.
In the absence of music, the twoline stanzaic rendering of the ballad and the present stanzaic division seem to have best manuscript authority, even if they lack absolute finality. The possibility of certain refrain lines femains: "They was handsome to behold" is a not impossible parallel to Child A's "Eh vow bonnie," and "On ye banks of ye river Mordie" is even closer to Child A's "On the bonnie banks o Fordie," and is echoed with a some-what refrain-like effect in the final line, "The robber of river Mordie." But it would be a greater liberty to present these lines as refrain lines than to print the text as it follows, in closer conformity to the (admittedly difficult) manuscript.
1 There was three ladies that lived in a town,
They was handsome to behold.
2. And one day they went out to pick some flowers
On ye banks of ye river Mordie.
3. They had picked but a very few flowers,
When up come a mean looking man.
4 He took the oldest sister by the hand,
And he turned her around and made her stand.
5 Saying, "Will you be a bloody robber's wife,
Or will you die by my keen sharp knife?"
6 "I will not be a bloody robber's wife,
I had ruther die by your keen sharp knife."
7 He killed this lady and laid her down
For to bear the fair rose company.
8 He took the second sister by the hand,
And turned her round and made her stand.
9 He said, "Will you be a bloody robber's wife,
Or will you die by my keen sharp knife ?"
10 "I will never be a bloody robber's wife,
I had ruther die by your keen sharp knife."
11 He killed this lady and laid her down
For to bear the fair rose company.
12 He took the youngest sister by the hand,
And turned her round and made her stand.
13 "Will you be a bloody robber's wife,
Or will you die by my keen sharp knife?"
14 "I will not be a bloody robber's wife,
I had a brother that lived in the woods.
15 "They called him Little Lon,
And if he sees you your days will be few."
16 He turned his knife to his heart,
And he fell to the ground dead.
17 And that was the last of Little Lon,
The robber of river Mordie.