Tumkin- Sullivan (VT) 1933 Barry/ Flanders G
[From Flanders; Ancient Ballads, 1961, notes by Coffin follow. Apparently the name should be Tom King, Flanders gives no explanation.
R. Matteson 2015]
Lamkin (Child 93)
Although child printed twenty-six versions of "Lamkin" and although it is still known in British-American tradition, the story of the revengeful mason who murders a woman and child because he has not been paid is much the same wherever it is found. The fact that the crime is so weakly motivated has made scholars suspect much of the plot to be lost. Phillips Barry (see JAF, LII, 70-74) offers an appealing explanation in connection with the "False Linfinn" text (Flanders B) collected in Maine. "The Linfinn" was Irish for "the white man who lives by the Stream," the outcast who was a leper forced to live alone. A cure for leprosy could be had through the blood of an innocent human collected in a silver container, and this fact offers a real motive for the crime. Barry felt that the identification of Linfinn with masonry came later, possibly because Irish masons had a recipe for making cement with blood. However, other scholars have identified the name Lamkin as a Flemish form of Lambert and noted that Flemish masons were well-known in Britain in the Middle Ages. In America, one Virginia informant noted by Arthur K. Davis in his Traditional Ballads of Virginia (Cambridge, Mass., 1929), 357, claimed there had been a love affair between the lady and the mason prior to the opening of the story. Whatever the answer, the crime seems rather extreme as a retaliation for failure to pay a debt.
Flanders A has the false window built by the irate mason (Child E), and A, B, and C contain the offer of the daughter's hand as a bribe (Child F, T, X). In D1, D2, E, and F only gold is proffered. A, B, D1, D2, and F include the basin of blood, and all the Flanders texts find the false nurse or maid executed with Lamkin at the end. These points generally ally the New England tradition printed here with the Child B, C, F group and the material discussed in Barry, British Ballads from Maine, 203-6, although the Flanders H fragment, where the nurse actually lets the murderer in, recalls the Child A story. For other discussions and bibliography, start with Coffin, 94-96 (American); Dean-Smith, 83 (English); and Greig and Keith, 7l-72 (Scottish). The Flanders G text, "Tumkin" (Tom King), with its relationship to Dick Turpin legends, is interesting, if hard to explain.
All of the tunes for Child 93 are members of the same family. The Moses and Delorme tunes are slightly removed from the rest, the Delorme tune being related primarily at the first line. For melodic relationship to the entire group, see FCB4, 74-76 (a11 tunes for Child 93); Sharp 1, 202, 204, 205; EO, 59; DV, 583, No. 26 (B); BES, 201 (especially related to the Delorme tune); and GCM, 313 (distant).
G. Tumkin. On July 7, 1933, Mrs. Ellen M. Sullivan of Springfield, Vermont, sang to Phillips Barry and Mrs. Flanders what she
had called "Tumkin." H. H. F., Collector; July 7, 1933
"Keep your doors well bolted
And your windows well pinned up
For fear William Tom King would come up."
He stole her jewels
And he stole her rings
And he stole her watches
And many precious things.
There was blood in the kitchen
And blood in the hall;
There was blood in the library
And blood on (in) the wall.
[Old notes by H. H. F. found with this text state that Mrs. Sullivan said of Tom King (Lamkin): "Tom King was companion to Dick Turpin. They went to England. They never killed anyone." Then followed:)
There's blood in the kitchen
And blood in the hall;
There's blood in the parlor
And blood on the wall.
[Then Mrs. Sullivan added, "Will Turpin had a noted horse. He used to be arrested for stealing. He painted the fetlocks of the horse. When he was haled into court, Turpin hid 'Black Bess' in an alleyway of a hotel and fed him through a window."]