Two Sisters- Frankie Armstrong 1972
[This version is included as the Pentangle arrangement with tune and refrain from Riddles Widely Expounded. It is an arrangement credited to Roy Harris and not considered to be traditional,
R. Matteson 2014, 2018]
Frankie Armstrong sang The Two Sisters on her 1972 Topic LP Lovely on the Water. A.L. Lloyd commented in the album's liner notes:
On the continent this ballad was a straightforward realistic lyrical tragedy, but as often happened when it spread to the North it picked up supernatural bits, including the savage notion of the singing bones that reveal a crime. Realistic English versions sometimes called The Berkshire Tragedy, exist side by side with Scots-Scandinavian magical ones. Sundry sets of the ballad carry various refrains, including “Bow down, bow down” (a dance instruction?) and “Binnorie o Binnorie” (said to be the invention of Sir Walter Scott). The present refrain, about swans swimming bonny, probably got attached to the song in Ireland, where they're great on swans. Frankie's version derives mainly from a set noted by Frank Kidson from an Irish singer in Liverpool.
According to Malcolm Douglas: Pentangle recorded a set of Cruel Sister back in the 1970s, which used both the tune and refrain from Riddles Widely Expounded, and which has confused the issue ever since. Frankie Armstrong did, too, and I suspect that she got it (the tune and refrain, that is), as they probably did, from Roy Harris.
TWO SISTERS (Bonnie Broom refrain) by Frankie Armstron of Workington, Cumbria, England
There was a lady lived in York
Lay the bend tae the bonnie broom
Two daughters were the babes she bore
Fa la la la la la la la la la
As one grew bright as is the sun, Lay...
So darker grew the elder one, fa la...
A knight came riding to the lady's door
he traveled far to be the wooer
He courted one with gloves and rings
But he loved the younger above all things
Sister will you go with me
To watch the ships all on the sea
She took her sister by the hand
And led her down to the North Sea strand
Long they stood on the windy shore
The Darker threw her sister o'er
Sometimes she sank, sometimes she swam
Crying, Sister, reach to me your hand
O Sister, Sister, let me live
And all that's mine I'll surely give
It's your own true love that I'll have and more
But thou shalt never come ashore
And there she floated like a swan
The salt sea bore her body on
Some minstrels walked along the strand
And saw the maiden float close to them
They made a harp of her breastbone
Whose sound would melt a heart of stone
They took strands of her yellow hair
And with it strung their harp so fair
They went into her father's hall
To play the harp before them all
But as they laid it on a stone
The harp began to play alone
The first string sang a doleful sound
The brighter, younger sister drownded
The second string did then reply
In terror sits the black-haired bride
The first string sang beneath the bow
And surely now the tears would flow