US & Canada Versions: 272. The Suffolk Miracle
[Of the 20 versions in my collection, only two are of questionable authenticity (Niles; Gainer) and only three extant versions are missing (see below). All the US and Canadian titles, The Suffolk Miracle, are not local titles and have been assigned by the collectors. In Cecil Sharp's case he always used the generic titles given by Child. There are not many traditional versions that clearly tell the story so subsequent covers of this ballad that expanded the storyline have tended to be rewrites or composites.
This is one of my favorite ballad themes. As Child says, "I have printed this ballad because, in a blurred, enfeebled, and disfigured shape, it is the representative in England of one of the most remarkable tales and one of the most impressive and beautiful ballads of the European continent."
The Wood broadside, Child A, was printed in London in 1689 so we can assume the dissemination to The New World to take place after that time. Clearly one primary location this rare ballad was brought was to the the Virginia colony which established it's House of Burgesses by 1619. Although no exact date may be surmised, it would be reasonable to assume the ballad was brought into the Appalachians by the early setters in the late 1700s. Sharp collected 6 versions in Virginia and the Appalachians and several other versions have been found in the region (see Cox, Brown, Morris). The other main areas of dissemination was Maritime Canada (English, Irish) and New England (Maine). Similarly to Appalachia, immigrants from England's West Country and from southeast Ireland moved to the fishing villages of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia in the late 1700s bringing their ballads with them.
R. Matteson 2013, 2016]
CONTENTS: (To access individual versions- click on page attached on left hand column)
1) Lady Fair- Dusenbury (AR) 1870 Randolph
2) There Was a Farmer- Griffin (GA-FL) c.1877 Morris
3) The Suffolk Miracle- Sands (NC) 1916 Sharp A
4) The Suffolk Miracle- Stockton (TN) 1916 Sharp B
5) The Suffolk Miracle- Rice (NC) 1916 Sharp C
6) The Suffolk Miracle- Small (VA) 1918 Sharp D
7) The Suffolk Miracle- Richards (VA) 1918 Sharp E
8) The Suffolk Miracle- Beckett (VA) 1918 Sharp MS
9) A Lady near New York Town- McKinney (WV) 1919 Cox
10) The Suffolk Miracle- Morse (ME) pre1929 Barry
11) The Sad Courtin'- Nuckols (KY) 1932 Niles
12) Holland Handkerchief- Sullivan (VT) 1932 Flanders
13) The Holland Handkerchief- Henderson (MA) pre1932 Flanders
14) Holland Handkerchief- Hayes (ME) 1942 Flanders B
15) Richest Girl in Our Town- Frye (NC) 1945 Brown
16) The Suffolk Miracle- Gilkie (NS) pre1950 Creighton
17) The Lady Lived Near New York Town- Webb(WV) 1954
18) The Suffolk Miracle- Smith (DC-VT) 1957 Flanders C
19) The Suffolk Miracle- Bennett (NL) 1958 Peacock
20) The Farmer's Daughter- Jenkins (OK-AR) pre1964 Moores
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Excerpt from The British Traditional Ballad in North America
by Tristram Coffin 1950, from the section A Critical Biographical Study of the Traditional Ballads of North America
272. THE SUFFOLK MIRACLE
Texts: Barry, Brit Bids Me; 314 / Brown Coll / BFSSNJE, V 7 / Cox, F-S South 152 / Davis, Trd Bid Fa, 482 / Duncan, No Hamilton Cnty, 98 / Flanders, New Gn Mt Sgstr, 86 / Morris, F-S Fla, 470 / Randolph, OzF-S, I, 179 / SharpC, Eng F-S So Aplchns. I / SharpK, Eng F-S So Aplchns, I, 262 / SFLQ, VIII, 162.
Local Titles: A Lady Near New York Town, Jimmy and Nancy, Miss Betsy, The Holland Handkerchief, The Suffolk Miracle, There Was a Farmer.
Story Types: A: A lovely girl who has fallen in love with a young man is sent far away by her father. The young man dies. After awhile he appears at the place where the girl is living. He is mounted on her father's horse and carries her mother's gear, and he says that he has come to take her home. As they ride, he complains of a headache, and she ties a handkerchief about his head. At home, the young man goes to put up the horse while she knocks on the door. The father is amazed to see her, and his amazement is greater when he learns how she arrived. Later, they find the horse alone and in a sweat. It is then decided to open the grave, and, sure enough, the handkerchief is found about the head of the twelve-months corpse.
Examples: Davis (A, B), Flanders, SharpK (A).
Discussion: Child, V, 58 ff. points out that the English text is not truly a popular ballad, but he has included it because it represents, in enfeebled form, a great European story. He summarizes a Cornwall prose tale on the same subject, which he states to be "much nearer to the Continental tale".
The American versions follow the Child story, although they are more compact and leave out the death of the girl. As Morris (SFLQ, VIII, 162) points out, on the whole they show an improvement in the literary style and feeble narrative of Child's text. They also include a number of variations in narrative detail. The Cox, F-S South, 153 West Virginia version has lost the
handkerchief sequence entirely. In the story as told by a Maine woman (Barry, Brit Bids Me, 314) the handkerchief is already around the dead man's head when he arrives at the girl's door. And the Morris (SFLQ, VIII, 162) version has the unique feature of the wound which speaks and requests the lady to unloose the bonds binding it.
SharpK, Eng F-S So Aplchns 9 A version has a moral stanza at the beginning and end, while the Randolph, Oz F-S, A text is quite corrupt.
For a discussion of the superiority of northern American versions and the relation of southern American versions to the "sophisticated Child A" see Barry in SFSSNE, V, 10.
Missing US and Canada versions:
Leo Foran, The Holland Handkerchief, The Edith Fowke Collection, No. 272
Source Edith Fowke Coll. (FO 95)
Performer Foran, Leo
Place collected Canada : Quebec : Quyon
Collector Fowke, Edith
Miss Betsy- A; Source Duncan, Ballads & Folk Songs Collected in Northern Hamilton County (1939) pp.96-100 (version a)
Performer Hughes, Mrs. Rosa
Place collected USA : Tennessee : Flat Top
Collector Ruby Duncan
Miss Betsy- B; Source Duncan, Ballads & Folk Songs Collected in Northern Hamilton County (1939) pp.96-100 (version b)
Performer Gentry, Pearl Green
Place collected USA : Tennessee : Sale Creek
Collector Duncan, Ruby
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Suffolk Miracle (appears to be a compilation of US texts)
Recorded by Peggy Seeger and Ewan MacColl on Blood & Roses I
It's of an old and wealthy man
He had a daughter and her name was Ann
She were handsome, fine and tall
She had a loving face withal.
Sing lady, lady, lady fair
Many a suitor had she there
A widow's son of low degree
Among them all, she fancied he.
Sing courting, courting, courting cane
There's many a courtship all in vain
For when her father came to know
He sent her far, oh far from home
One night as she were lying down
The quiet loosening of her gown
She heard a low and deathly sound
Says, "Loose my bounds, I'm earthly bound"
She looked out of her window clear
She seen her love on her father's mare
"Here's your mother's cloak, here's your father's roan
They sent me here, love, to bring you home"
He's mounted up, she's on behind
And they rode on with contented mind
But all along, complaint he made
"Oh love, oh love, my head do ache"
Her handkerchief from her neck around
She bound it round his head around
He set her down at her father's door
Then her true love she saw no more
"Awake, awake, awake," said she
"Is no one here for to welcome me?"
"You're welcome home, dear child," said he
"But what trusty friend did come for thee?"
"Did you not send one I do adore
That love so dear and must love no more?"
Her father frowned and shook his head
Says, "Your true love been one year dead"
He's summonsed clerk and clergy, too
That grave was opened and him to view
And though he had been a twelvemonth dead
Her handkerchief was bound round his head
So a warning to you old folks still
Don't hinder young ones from their will
The first they love they'll never forget
Though he be dead, she'll love him yet
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The Holland Handkerchief
by Bob Waltz
(Originally published: Inside Bluegrass, September 1997)
Ask almost any ethnomusicologist what makes a ballad a ballad and you're likely to be told "the story."
Tristram Coffin disagrees. Oh, a plot is necessary for a ballad, the same way a foundation is necessary for a house. But a foundation is not what sells a house; it's the external beauty that gives a home its appeal. Coffin argues something similar for ballads: That it is the emotional impact that makes them popular.
So this month, rather than giving a song with a lot of story to it, I decided to go for the song with the most impact in the last line.
Actually, this is #3 on my "emotional impact" list. But the first two -- Sheath and Knife and Bonnie Susie Cleland -- are both Scottish. Whereas this piece -- #272 in the Child catalog, officially titled The Suffolk Miracle -- has been found from the Ozarks to Appalachia to New England.
Given its emotional impact, I'm not going to talk about it at length.
Unfortunately, every recording I've ever heard of this piece was Irish. And the American versions to which I have access (e.g. in Randolph) are all rather defective. So I am here giving you a composite text. The text is from Vermont (except for the three stanzas in brackets, which I inserted to fill out the story. It's not "authentic" -- but you need to know what's going on). Unfortunately, it was printed (in MacEdward Leach's Ballad Book) without a tune. So I transcribed an Irish tune.
This turned out to be a challenge. As sung, it has so many fermatas that I felt the piece -- which is always found in three -- to be in two. There is no good way to represent it in conventional notation (other than Pete Seeger's notion of putting all folk songs in 1/4 time); I just did my best. The tune is also mixolydian, so the chord patterns are a bit different.
Some people may find the key here to be rather high. If so, A is a good key.
And, by the way, this is a great piece for a bass solo. The recording from which I learned the tune -- Connie Dover's If Ever I Return -- has a fine bass part that sounds like it could carry the whole melody.
One last note: "Holland" does not refer to where the handkerchief was made. Rather, it is the way the cloth is woven.
Complete Lyrics:
There was a squire lived in this town,
He was a man of high renown;
He had one daughter, a beauty bright,
And the name he called her was his heart's delight.
[And many a young man to court her came
But none of them could her favor gain
Till there came one of a low degree,
And above them all she did fancy he.
Then when her father came this to know
That she was in love with this young man so,
Full fifty miles he sent her away,
To disappoint her of her wedding day.]
One night as she was for her bed bound,
As she was taking out her gown,
She heard the knock and the deadly sound,
"Loosen those bonds, love, that we have bound.
"I have your horse and your mother's cloak,
And your father's orders to take you home."
She dressed herself in rich attire,
And away she went with her heart's desire.
As she got on, with him behind,
They rode far faster than any wind,
And every mile he would sigh and say
"Oh my jewel, my head it aches."
A Holland handkerchief she then took out
And tied his head with it about;
She kissed his lips and she then did say,
"My love, you're colder than any clay."
When they came to her father's gate,
"Come down, my jewel," this young man said.
"Come down, my darling, and go to bed,
And I'll see your horse in his stable led."
When she came to her father's hall,
"Who's there, who's there?" her father called.
"It is I, dear father; did you send for me
By such a messenger?" naming he.
Her father, knowing this young man being dead,
He tore his grey hair down from his head,
He wrung his hands and he wept full sore,
And this young man's darling cried more and more.
[Then early, early, at the break of day
She found the grave where this young man lay,
Where lay her lover, though nine months dead,
With a Holland handkerchief around his head.]
Bibliography
Although this song, under the title The Suffolk Miracle, is #272 in the Child collection, Child had only one text, and it rather bad. Child had some biting (and unfair) remarks about the poor quality of the piece. A much better source is Bertrand Bronson's Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads, which lists thirteen versions from throughout the eastern United States as well as Ireland and the Maritimes of Canada. The song may well be extinct in Britain.
The text given here is from MacEdward Leach's Ballad Book; compare the version printed in Flanders and Olney's Ballads Migrant in New England. The collated lyrics come from Sam Henry's Songs of the People (H217) and from the singing of Cathal McConnell, who also transmitted the tune here.
In addition to the versions in Bronson and Henry, John Jacob Niles has a version he claims comes from Kentucky. This version is much more heavily Americanized than most of the others cited, and may be authentic, but I will not vouch for it absolutely.