Two Sisters- Barhight (PA-NY) pre1920 Stekert REC
[From the recording by Stekert, Songs of a New York Lumberjack 1958. Liner notes by Stekert follow. This is a rare older version similar to Child C, N, or I in that the name(s) of the sisters makes up the first refrain. It's also rare (one of 5 US versions) because the murdered sisters breastbone is made into a harp. The second chorus, "Down where the waters is a-rolling" is unusual and it resembles the versions from Florida, one from the 1800s by Griffin.
R. Matteson 2014]
The eighteen songs in this album are from the repertoire of one man, Mr. Ezra ("Fuzzy") Barhight, age eighty-one, of Cohocton, New York. He learned most of these songs in his younger years from his mother and from the lumbermen he worked with in his travels across Northern Pennsylvania and southern New York State. Of the nearly one hundred songs Fuzzy sang for me, there were only about ten that he could comment on as to where and when he had learned them and most of these he learned from his mother. But while his memory of how he learned his songs is vague, his feeling about them certainly is not. After I had pestered him awhile about the origin of a song, he leaned forward in his chair and said to me in a loud voice, "These are all real songs. These ain't none of your old humbug, hop-and-go-fetch-it dancing songs." He seldom listens to his radio and vows that he never learned a song from a book, just from people who sing. It was in 1920, he says, that he learned his last new song.
Fuzzy was born in Galalee, Wayne County, Pennsylvania. His mother was born in the same town of German parents and his father, whom he never saw, was also American born. He traveled across northern Pennsylvania with his mother and step-father, Thomas Clark. They were always quite poor, his step-father taking odd jobs, hauling lumber, logs and bark, and
then moving on. Fuzzy worked, as he says, ever since he· was old enough to hold onto a line, and everywhere he went he sang and learned new songs. Most of his sentimental songs were learned from semiprofessional performers. Of one of these songs he says, "I learned that when I used to go over there to sing and play second rhythm. They was always singing to these dances, you know. Old fashion days, the old fashion dances, they used to sing and dance. We had a helluva time." Most of his tall tales and lumbermen and sailor songs he learned "evenings, just singing evenings in the lobby of the camp (lumber camp). We used to get together, thirty, forty of us and sing songs till midnight." Of other songs he would say, "I learned that when I was on my mother's knee. "
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SIDE I, Band 4: THE TWO SISTERS (Child #10)
One of the nost widely distributed of all British traditional ballads, "The Two Sisters" has proved excellent material for detailed study. Paul G. Brewster, who has made an extensive study of the ballad, believes it is definitely Scandinavian in origin, having started in Norway prior to the 17th oentury, spreading fron there to other Scandinavian countries and then to Scotland, England and America. Child considered the heart of the ballad to be the making of a musical instrument from the drowned sisters body, the instrument in turn revealing the identity of the murderer. Most recently collected texts have eliminated this supernatural motif entirely. No so with the version recorded here. Fuzzy's version is one of the few American texts in which the "singing breastbone" motif is even partly found. This text is also a rare one on another ground, for in only one other reported version does the younger sister drown the older sister. In terms of social history, this point is entirely believeable, for according to popular social convention the younger sister would not have been allowed to marry until the elder was already wed, or dead.
Also of considerable interest to scholars have been the various refrains employed in this ballad. The ''bineely and binoly" refrain of this version relates it to considerably older texts. Fuzzy reported having learned this version from his mother.
There was two sisters lived in the West,
Bincely and binoly,
Was two sisters lived in the West,
Down where the waters is a-rolling.
There came a young lord and he courted them both,
There came a young lord and he courted them both.
To the youngest he gave her his heart and hand,
To the eldest he gave her a gay gold ring.
As these two sisters was crossing a bridge,
The youngest she pushed her sister in.
Oh, sister, oh, sister, give me your hand,
You can have the young lord and all of his land.
But she floated down to the miller's dam,
And the miller with his hook, well, he pulled her in.
Of her breastbone they made a harp,
Bineely and binoly,
Of her breastbone they made a harp,
Down where the waters is a-rolling.