US & Canada Versions: 56. Dives and Lazarus Appendix
[Here are the "Dives and Lazarus ballads found in the US (there are no know Canadian versions). In the Southern United States there was a ballad known as Dives and Lazarus (or more commonly Lazarus and Dives), that was an independent ballad, a shape-note hymn, related by topic to Child 56 and was written by an unknown author. This ballad was considered a version of Child 56 by some collectors. Five versions have been found (another version in the WPA collection has not been examined) so far. All the different "Dives and Lazarus" ballads (ten versions) will be found here listed as an appendix.
Bronson, echoing Barry, includes US versions of Dives and Lazarus as his Appendix, and says in Child Ballads Traditional in the United States: "At the same time it seems to have travelled with the itinerant Baptist singing-masters through the Southern and Southwestern States, in their Shaped-note hymnals."
US versions of "Dives and Lazarus," the unknown shape-note hymn, are rare. Only five have been found. Davis in 1929, attached the US version to Child 56 and wrote in Traditional Ballads of Virginia that the version in his collection from Sam Pritt in 1924, titled "Lazarus and Dives," was "the only version known to survive in America." However, Pritt's version wasn't the first version. Coates' "Lazarus" collected by Sharp in 1916, which has the same text as I. G. Greer's "The Rich Man and Lazarus" was published in 1917. This shape-note variant that may have been printed as a broadside (see comments by Brown editors below). It usually begins,
"There was a man in olden times,
The scripture doth inform us."
The larger question, not considered by Davis who was happy to find a rare version of a Child ballad, is the relationship with the versions found in the US to the English ballads that comprise Child 56. In BFSSNE Barry commented on Davis' version in Traditional Ballad of Virginia, "Dives and Lazerus, on pages 175-6, is, we regret to say, not a version of the Child Ballad (Child 56). It is too closely scriptural to stamp itself as a genuine antique; moreover, it lacks the incremental repetition in Dives' replies to Lazarus' pleas, the sending by the rich man of first his servants and then his dogs to drive the beggar away, and last, but not least, the folk-lore motifs of the guardian angels guiding Lazarus and the demon jailors in the form of serpents coming for Dives. In brief, the Virginia "Dives and Lazarus" is a modern ballad set to a variant of the air, "Come All Ye Worthy Christians." A somewhat different version of it from Flag Pond, Tennessee, was printed in 1917 in Campbell and Sharp's English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, pp. 253-54. We may ascribe the authorship of the modern ballad to some evangelist with a knack at rhyme. Such use of old ballad material is not an isolated instance. There is a third ballad of "Dives and Lazarus", entitled, "The Beggar and the Rich Man" -- rather more "folksy" but not less scriptural, in a small volume of Hymns (title page and date missing), printed about 1803, in the Barry Collection of Ballad Prints."
The Brown Collection of NC Folklore editors say, "This version of the Biblical story, known also in Virginia (TBV 175-6) and Tennessee (SharpK 11 29, SFLQ li 67-8), is not — as Barry (BFSSNE I 12) pointed out— a text of the old English carol of the same title but a later and independent versifying of the Bible story. Copies so far reported agree so closely as to suggest a printed source, but no such source has been found."
There are only two versions that are actual versions of Child 56 that have been found recently and both version appear, almost certainly, not to be traditional. From A Critical Study of Some Traditional Religious Ballads by Mary Diane (Molly) McCabe in 1980:
"Child 56 has been collected in America only twice[9] and both of these texts may have been learned from books printed in the twentieth century. Since one of these American texts has been adapted, it is, however, included among the traditional texts. Frequently collected in America, however, has been a 'secondary ballad'[10] written in a later, more artificial style, which tells the story of Lazarus and the rich man ('Dives' is not used), but follows the bible narrative much more closely than Child 56. Traditional ballads were often rewritten in a more fashioriable style for the broadside press[11], but there is no textual evidence to prove that the American 'secondary ballad' is a re written version of Child 56 and it has therefore been excluded from this study."
Footnote 9. says, "A version sung by Bud Bush of New Hampshire at a West Virginia folk festival is printed by M. E. J. Bush, Folk Songs of Central West Virginia, 2 vols., Ravenswood, W.Va., 1969 and 1970, I , pp.41-44 and has been excluded from Appendix E, since it almost certainly was not learned from folk tradition; D. L. 14, sung by Aunt Mary Wilson of Gilmer County, W. Va., has been included in Appendix E because of the slight chance that the version has survived in American folk tradition.
If McCabe had studied Gainer's collected works, she would have excluded Gainer's version (purported to be by "Aunt Mary Wilson of Gilmer County") also. Gainer is included in my list of known ballad re-creators that include Niles, Gainer's collecting friend Carey Woofter, The Smith Brothers (More Traditional Ballads- Davis), Aunt Molly Jackson (who sings a version of the US type) and a host of other individuals. In the history of recorded folk music it was quite common to claim authorship of anything recorded to receive royalties. For example, the Governor of Louisiana claimed he wrote "You Are My Sunshine." And remarkably, it's just as common for an informant or recorded "traditional" singer to claim something is traditional that was arranged or composed from an existing traditional song. Perhaps this has been done to avoid copyright infringement but in most cases it was the esteem of presenting a new version of a ballad as traditional. In the latter case, a source for the ballad is made-up-- from my uncle, or my grandfather etc. or any fictitious person.
Bud Bush's version, mentioned by McCabe (see above) is Child A, nearly word for word, so it obviously is not from tradition.
I have all the extant versions except one from the WPA in my collection. There are two ballad recreations (Niles; Gainer), one arrangement of Child A (Bush), five versions of an unknown shape-note hymn (Appendix to 56: Greer, Coates, Jarnigan, Pritt and Jackson), one African-American ballad (Lomax) and one original song (Miller).
R. Matteson 2012]
CONTENTS: (The ballads below may be accessed by clicking on the highlighted title or clicking on the title attached to this page on the left-hand column)
1) The Rich Man and Lazarus- Greer (NC) c.1915 Brown -- From The Brown Collection of NC Folklore; 1952. Sung by Isaac Garfield (I. G. or “Ike”) Greer (1881-1967) who was born in the Zionville community of Watauga County, North Carolina.
2) The Rich Man and Lazarus- Miller (NC) 1915 Brown -- From: Brown Collection of NC Folklore; 1952. Listed as 55. Dives and Lazarus II. This is a different ballad about Dives and Lazarus composed by Miller.
3) Lazarus- Coates (TN) 1916 Sharp -- From Sharp's "English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians;" 1917 edition and 1932 edition. Note that Sharp doesn't include this in the Ballad section but in the Songs. Sung by Mr & Mrs Gabriel Coates at Flag Pond, Tenn., Sept. 1, 1916.
4) Rich Man and Lazarus- Jarnigan (TN) c1917 Kirkland -- From Southern Folklore Quarterly, vol. II, no. 2., pages 65-80; 1938. Music and text from Edwin Capers Kirkland and Mary Neal Kirkland; recorded July 5, 1937, by Mr. J. C. Jarnigan, night watchman at the University of Tennessee, who learned it about twenty years ago from a man at Morristown, Tennessee.
5) Lazarus and Dives- Pritt (Va.) 1924 Davis -- From Davis; Traditional Ballads of Virginia; 1929. Collected by Mr. Ben C. Moomaw Jr, Sung by Mr. Sam Pritt of Barber, Va., Alleghany county. November 24, 1924, with music.
6) Dives and Lazarus- Higgins (KY) 1934 Niles
7) Dives and Laz'us- (African-American) Lomax; 1934
8) Lazarus- Aunt Molly Jackson (KY) 1939 Recording
9) Dives and Lazarus- Bud Bush (NH) 1964 M. E. Bush
10) Diverus and Lazurus- Wilson (WV) pre1975 Gainer
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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
56. DIVES AND LAZARUS
Texts: Davis, Trd Sid Fa, 175 / Jackson, Dozen East Spirituals, 27 / SharpC, EngF-S So Aplchns, 253 / SharpK, Eng F-S So Aplcbns, II, 29 / SFLQ, II, 68 / Va FLS Bull,#iz.
Local Titles: Lazarus, Lazarus and Dives, The Rich Man and Lazarus, The Rich Man Dives.
Story Types: A: Lazarus begs the crumbs from rich Dives' table. The latter scorns him, although the dogs take pity on him and lick his sores. After death, when Dives has gone to Hell and Lazarus to Heaven, the situation is reversed, and Dives begs Abraham to send Lazarus to him with water. Abraham reminds the sinner of his actions while on earth and of the great
gulf between Heaven and Hell. In the complete Virginia text, Dives then repents and requests that Lazarus be sent to warn Dives' brethren who are headed for ruin too.
Examples: Davis.
Discussion: The American texts of this ballad are quite corrupt and, to quote Davis, 3W Sid Va, 175, differ entirely "except in the bald outline of the Biblical story, from the Child versions". Both this text and the SFLQ song are extremely compressed and the Kirklands call their version a derivative. In the Sharp collections Lazarus is not even included among the ballads.
Typical of the changes the story has undergone in its sea-voyage is the incident in wild the dogs figure. In Child Dives sends men with whips and the dogs out to mangle Lazarus, but they find they have no power to hurt him. In America the dogs are restrained by pity alone. In addition the language of the Virginia version is not ballad language and there is almost no rime.
For a discussion of a possible Gaelic introduction of this song into America, see George P. Jackson, Down East Spirituals, 27. His text is reprinted from Davis, loc. cit.
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Missing version:
LAZARUS AND THE RICH MAN
Source WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.295
Performer Robbins, Mrs, Neely
Place collected USA : Virginia : Wise
Collector Hamilton, Emory L.