US & Canada Versions: 52. King's Dochter Lady Jean
[The only known traditional US version of this ballad titled "Queen Jane" was sung by Sara Cleveland. It was recorded by Sandy Patton in the early 1960s. The title "Queen Jane" is usually associated with the ballad, "The Death of Queen Jane"- a different ballad entirely.]
CONTENTS:
1) Queen Jane- Sara Cleveland; recorded 1962
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Sara Cleveland (1905-1992) has been called one of America’s most important ballad singers. Born in the southeastern Adirondack region, she started learning the old songs and ballads of her Scotch and Irish parents and relatives at a young age, all the while collecting scores more from friends, neighbors and extended family in the Adirondacks. Around the age of sixteen, Sara and her mother started to compile a notebook of these pieces. With the later help of a cousin, the collection eventually grew to include over 900 regional, American and British Isles songs, and remains a cherished family heirloom to this day.
For most of her life Sara was a domestic singer who “thought nothing much of it.” Singing was just something to help make the daily work of dish washing a bit more pleasant, to pass the time on lengthy trips, or to entertain family and friends between stories in the evening.
It wasn’t until the late 1950s that she was “discovered” as a tradition bearer and ballad singer of the highest caliber, something that Sara herself found “amusing” according to granddaughter Colleen Cleveland. Sara’s son Jim, who was frequenting legendary coffeehouse Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs during these early years of the Folk Music Revival, mentioned one night that his mother knew some old songs and had written them down. The notebooks were soon in the hands of folksong collectors and record producers Sandy and Caroline Paton, who found therein a goldmine of old British Isles, Irish, and American songs and ballads.
QUEEN JANE (KING'S DAUGHTER JANE) [Listen: Sara Cleveland]
Queen Jane sat at her window one day
A sewing a silken seam
She looked out at the merry green woods
And saw the green nut tree
And saw the green nut tree
She dropped her thimble at her heal
And her needle at her toe
And away she ran to the merry green woods
To gather nuts and so
To gather nuts and so
She scarce had reached the merry green woods
Scarce had pulled nuts two or three
When a proud forester came striding by
Saying, "Fair maid, let those be"
Saying, "Fair maid, let those be"
"Why do you pull the nuts," he said
"And why do you break the tree?
And why do you come to this merry green wood
Without the leave of me?
Without the leave of me?"
"Oh, I will pull the nuts," she said
"And I will break the tree
And I will come to this merry green wood
I'll ask no leave of thee
I'll ask no leave of thee"
He took her by the middle so small
And he gently laid her down
And when he took what he longed for
He raised her from the ground
He raised her from the ground
"Oh woe to you, proud forester
And an ill death may yours be
Since I am the King's youngest daughter," she cried
"You will pay for wronging me
You will pay for wronging me"
"If you're the King's youngest daughter," he said
"Then I'm his eldest son
And woe unto this unhappy hour
And the wrong that I have done
And the wrong that I have done"
"The very first time I came from sea
Jane you were unborn
And I wish my gallant ship had sunk
And I'd been left forlorn
And I'd been left forlorn"
"The very next time I came from sea
You were on your nurse's knee
And the very next time I came from sea
You were in this wood with me
You were in this wood with me"
"I wish I ne'er had seen your face
Or that you had ne'er seen mine
That we ne'er had met in this merry green wood
And this wrong could be undone
And this wrong could be undone"
"I wish to God my babe was born
And on it's nurse's knee
And as for me, I was dead and gone
And the green grass growing over me
And the green grass growing over me"