Tiranti, my Son- Wesselhoeft (MA-ME) c.1797 Child I a
[From English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Child 1882 Vol. 1. Learned in Maine by Elizabeth Foster, apparently from her father, Justus Soper, when she was a child- since she was born in 1789, I've given a date of c.1797 when she was 10. Child dates it circa 1800, about the time the family relocated in Massachusetts. The stanza order has been changed. It will be noted that it's the grandmother who poisons the boy.
Although this is considered a New England title, versions with this title have been found in NC (Brown) and elsewhere. Phillips Barry claims that the assorted "Tiranti" titles came from a corruption of Tyrannus and not from Randall at all. He says that Tyrannus is rare and is mentioned in New England Genealogical Record.
Both I a and I b are derived from Elizabeth Foster, whose parents, both natives of eastern Massachusetts, settled, after their marriage, in Maine, where she was born in 1789. I a is from her granddaughter and I b from her daughter.
Child lists seven versions of I, all from the US, but doesn't offer individual texts. Instead he gives the text of I a and the changes from I a to make the other versions. For I a he gives changes the order of the verses to conform with standard verses. The changes for other texts are found in the End Notes.
In Volume 2, Additions and Corrections, he adds I h and I i, then he gives the changes for h and k [sic], which should be i. I'm adding the texts, assembled from the End Notes, for all nine below:
I. 'Tiranti, my Son.'
a. Communicated by a lady of Boston,
b. By an aunt of the same.
c. By a lady of New Bedford,
d. By a lady of Cambridge,
e. By ladies of Boston.
f. By ladies of Boston.
g. By ladies of Boston.
h. Communicated by Mr. George M. Richardson.
i. Communicated by Mr. George L. Kittredge.
Child adds the following: I, a version current in eastern Massachusetts, may be carried as far back as any. a, b derive from Elizabeth Foster, whose parents, both natives of eastern Massachusetts, settled, after their marriage, in Maine, where she was born in 1789. Elizabeth Foster's mother is remembered to have sung the ballad, and I am informed that the daughter must have learned it not long after 1789, since she was removed in her childhood from Maine to Massachusetts, and continued there till her death. 'Tiranti' ['Taranti'] may not improbably be a corruption of Lord Randal.
See a detailed account of Child I a from British Ballads from Maine by Barry, Eckstorm, Smyth, 1929 (immediately following).
R. Matteson 2011]
Barry, 1929: The text which follows, representing the Tiranti, or Tyranna-group (Child I), though apparently slight and defective, is important in the history of "Lord Randall." Professor Child says of his I-text (I, 152, 163) that it is "a version current in eastern Massachusetts [which] may be traced back as far as any" [of the English texts], and that it came from Mrs. Elizabeth Foster, who was born in Maine in 1789 and later removed to Massachusetts, who is supposed to have learned it from her mother during the few years that the family resided in Maine.
In examining the manuscripts bequeathed to Harvard University by Professor Child, Mr. Barry came upon an old letter which stated that Elizabeth Foster was the daughter of Justus Soper. With this much known, it was an easy task to trace her. She was an own sister of Mary (Soper) Carr, whose portrait forms the frontispiece of this book, and the grandaunt of Mrs. Susie Carr Young, who has contributed so many texts and airs which had come down in the Soper family. So far from Mrs. Foster's family having lived but a short time in Maine, Samuel Soper came to the Penobscot years before the Revolutionary War and his numerous descendants still occupy the region where he settled.
Samuel Soper and Katharine Ruggles, his wife, had a son Justus, born in 1760, who married Elizabeth Viles of Orland. Their third child, Elizabeth, born in 1789, went when young to Massachusetts, where she was brought up by her aunt Esther Soper; but the family remained in Orland, where her mother died in 1850 and her father in the year following. Elizabeth (Soper) Foster lived in Dorchester and two of her children married into the pope family there. A granddaughter was Mrs. Lily F. Wesselhoeft, who secured the text for Professor Child.
Now while it was possible for Elizabeth Foster to learn her Tiranti text from the Soper, the Viles, or the Ruggles families, it was just as possible for her to learn it from someone in Massachusetts. Mrs. Young searched long and faithfully among the Soper kindred in Maine and Massachusetts to find this form of the song, with the even more desired air and finally located our O-text. The form she learned from Elizabeth Foster's sister is entirely different. The only fragment of the Tiranti-form previously reported from Maine is the following, found by Mr. Barry, which came from a New Brunswick source.
* * * *
We are now able to complete the history of Child's I-text of "Lord Randal," one variant of which, Child I a, was given to Child in 1881 by Mrs. Lily Foster (Pope) Wesselhoeft (referred to by Mr. Turner as Lily Pope), a granddaughter of Elizabeth (Soper) Foster, and a great-granddaughter of Justus Soper. Mr. Turner and Mrs. Susie Carr Young are cousins, both descended through Mary (Soper) Carr, from the same Justus Soper, who married Elizabeth Viles, in Orland, where their third child, Elizabeth, was born in 1789.
There is scarcely any doubt that "Tyranty, My Son" is originally a specifically Maine form of "Lord Randall." We have in our L-text, still earlier stage of its history, with the name Tarannus, only slightly disguised, and the false true-love as the poisoner. "Tyranty" is simply a translation of "Tyrannus." The many versions of the ballad in which the grandmother is found, all go back to this single source as the combined history of text and melody prove beyond a shadow of doubt. The melody, as sung by Mr. Turner, is the original Soper air, long supposed to have been lost. lt is closely related to six other published melodies, all variants of the same air (p. 8., in JAFL, XVIII, 204-205; XXIII,443), four of them sung to texts which have both the grandmother and the name "Tyranty." In the fifth, the name is "Wrentham," but the text is otherwise almost identical with stanzas 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, of Child I a, the earliest recorded variant of the Soper text. The sixth text, from Charlestown, N. H., is a mere fragment-- the child is "Orlando," and the poisoner is not specified. Since, however, the melody is very nearly identical with that to which a Pomfret, Conn., text of "Taranty" (JAFL, XVIII, 203) was sung, it must have belonged to the same group. A Newbury, Vt., text names the child Fileander (Philander), (JAFL, XVIII, 207), and differs from other texts of this type in the bequest of "hell-fire and damnation," to the grandmother. "Tyranty" was sung in Dutchess County, New york, about the middle of the last century, to a variant of the (Vilikins, air, the result, no doubt, of the crossing of the two traditional strains of "Lord Randall."
TIRANTI, MY SON- Child Ia.
a. Communicated by Mrs. L.F. Wesselhoeft, of Boston, as sung to her when a child by her grandmother, Elizabeth Foster, born in Maine, who appears to have learned the ballad of her mother about 1800. [Verses 5. and 8. are as they appear in the original MS]
1. 'O where have you been, Tiranti, my son?
O where have you been, my sweet little one?'
'I have been to my grandmother's; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm sick to my heart, and I'm faint to lie down.'
2. 'What did you have for your supper, Tiranti, my son?
What did you have for your supper, my sweet little one?'
'I had eels fried in butter; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm sick to my heart, and I'm faint to lie down.'
3. 'Where did the eels come from, Tiranti, my son?
Where did the eels come from, my sweet little one?'
'From the corner of the haystack; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm sick to my heart, and I'm faint to lie down.'
4. 'What color were the eels, Tiranti, my son?
What color were the eels, my sweet little one?'
'They were streaked and striped; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm sick to my heart, and I'm faint to lie down.'
5. 'Where'll you have your bed made, Tiranti, my son?
Where'll you have your bed made, my sweet little one?'
'In the corner of the churchyard; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm sick to my heart, and I'm faint to lie down.'
6. 'What'll you give to your mother, Tiranti, my son?
What'll you give to your mother, my sweet little one?'
'A coach and six horses; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm sick to my heart, and I'm faint to lie down.'
7 'What'll you give to your grandmother, Tiranti, my son?
What'll you give to your grandmother, my sweet little one?'
'A halter to hang her; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm sick to my heart, and I'm faint to lie down.'
8 'What'll you give to your father, Tiranti, my son?
What'll you give to your father, my sweet little one?'
'All my gold and my silver; mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm sick to my heart, and I'm faint to lie down.'
Footnotes Child Ia. :
I. a. 1[4], faint to, an obvious corruption of fain to, is found also in b, c; d has fain wad; e, faint or fain; f, fain; g, I faint to.
N. B. 8 stands 5 in the manuscript copy, but is the last stanza in all others which have it.