US & Canada Versions: 68. Young Hunting/ Loving Henry
[Young Hunting is not a local title and if it appears as a title it was assigned by a collector (Sharp, Creighton). Usually I change most generic titles unless it makes the song hard to identify. Love Henry is likely derived from Lord Henry and Loving Henry is probably derived from Love Henry. Lady Margaret (Margret) is the most common choice for the name of the murderess. Henry rejects Lady Margret's offer to spend the night for another girl in Arkansas/Cornersville/Old Scotland/Old Scotchee(to name a few of the many places).
This is the synopsis: Lord Henry comes in from the hunt and visits his old love. In the older forms of this ballad Lady Margret hears a hunting horn which alerts her of his arrival. Not knowing who has come, she is excited that it's her old true love, Henry. Lady Margret asks him to stay the night, and offers him the best she has. He says, "No, I have another love in 'Old Scotland' that I love far better that you." Since "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," Henry pays for rejecting her: as he gives her a kiss goodbye, she mortally stabs him with her pen-knife (this knife in the ballads of "Old Scotland" is no toy- it's a dagger). In rare versions she expresses remorse and in others Henry ask Marget how could she stab him when he loves her so. Henry dies and she summons help to dispose of his body. Then he is carried off by his head and feet and summarily dropped in a deep well (or some body of water but not Clyde's Water). A parrot in a tree witnessed the murder and she asks the parrot to come down and she will give it a golden cage with doors of ivory. The parrot "will not come down" and she threatens to shoot it with her bow and arrow but the parrot says he will simply jump to another tree.
This ballad remained active in Southern Appalachians and regions Southwest in the 1900s while it all but disappeared in the British Isles. There have been only two versions (plus a fragment) collected in Canada and almost none in New England. I can only assume that it was brought to the shores of the James River in Virginia by the early settlers until it spread inland to the mountains by the late 1700s. Known primarily as "Love Henry" or "Loving Henry," the ballad moved inland with the settlers. Once again, the Brown Cove area (Albemarle County) of Virginia was a primary repository for this ballad. Although it wasn't transmitted by some of the usual informants (The Shiffetts and Morrises), George Foss did collect an excellent version from Marybird McAllister in 1958. This Virginia region has been immortalized by Foss in his short online book From White Hall to Bacon Hollow written about the ballad people he met there. Here's an excerpt:
"From White Hall to Bacon Hollow is about a place and about its culture and people. I have granted myself the author's indulgence of selecting a title significant in its double meaning. White Hall to Bacon Hollow is a stretch of twisting country road, Virginia route 810, crossing the line between Albemarle and Greene Counties. Heading west from Charlottesville toward Staunton across the mountains in the valley of Virginia and the Shenandoah River, turn north through the small industrial town of Crozet past orchards of apples and peaches and fields of corn and rye to a small country store in the fork of the road which is White Hall. From there the road winds ever closer to the mountains northward some twenty miles to Bacon Hollow. This region is bounded on the west by the southernmost section of the Skyline Drive and nestles into the gaps and coves which reach up to the Shenandoah National Park line near the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The main road is met by many dirt and rocky roads which reach up into the climbing crevices of the Great Blue Ridge on the left and down into the lesser mountains and foot hills back to the east. This is the place and the home of the people I have come to know so well. Whitehall also has a second meaning for me, as the great palace of the Tudor kings and queens of England. It was the cultural center of the English Renaissance at the time the very ballads and songs which I was seeking in the Virginia Blue Ridge originated or were in popular currency. Whitehall is still mentioned in some of the classic ballads sung in that region."(George Foss)
Besides McAllister's ancient ballad, other versions were collected in the region by Sharp, Kyle Davis Jr., Cambiaire, Scarborough and Wilkinson. Davis and the Virginia Folklore Society published 12 variants from the state of Virginia in his 1929 and 1960 books (although four of them are previously published versions: Sharp- the Keeton version twice, Cambiaire, Davis).
From Virginia, the ballad spread to the mountains of North Carolina and on into Kentucky. Love Henry eventually made its way to the Ozarks (Missouri, Arkansas) and Southwest (Texas and Oklahoma).
Because of the similar ballad language and some interchangeable stanzas, comparison to Child 4 "Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight" is obvious although the murderess kills for very different reasons. In both ballads a parrot appears at the end and plays the tattletale role. Certain parallels can be drawn between the murderess and the parrot in each ballad. The parrot of each ballad but in "Young Hunting" the defiant parrot reinforces the diabolical inner nature of the murderess. For parrot lovers, be sure to read Barre Toelken's "What the Parrots Tell Us That Child Did Not: Further Considerations of Ballad Metaphor", in The Folklore Historian, Volume 14.
An amusing arrival of the parrot is found in Barney Scarlee, taken in 1924 from a singer living in a remote tidal area named Chapanoke, NC. After murdering Barney and throwing him in "yonders deep well," we find:
She was sitting out on her porch,
A-playing on her piano;
There came up a pretty little bird
All in the green willow tree.
It has been said (Wimberly, 1928, p. 44-52; Bronson 1962) that the parrot has acquired the soul of the dead man and that he speaking through the parrot threatens to reveal the murder.
One important aspect for determining the quality of the version as well as the age of the ballad is Lady Margret (sic) hearing the bugle horn in the opening stanza. This has been pointed out by Bronson in TTCB.
The plot is complex in the full versions and may divided into 5 main parts: 1) Lord Henry comes in from the hunt 2) Lady Margret asks him to spend the night, he rejects her 3) She stabs him with her pen knife mortally wounding him 4) She summons help and Henry is dumped into the well. 5) A parrot (or bird) watches the murder and threatens to reveal Lady Margret's deed. She says if she had a bow and arrow she would shoot the bird through the heart. The bird says he would just fly out of range.
Coffin has identified seven different plot types. Bronson has five different music groups.
There have been no broadside printed in the US but an edited version of the ballad was included in Delaney's Scotch songbook, No. 7, p. 6. printed in New York about 1910:
"LOVE, HENRY."
1 "Get down, get down, love, Henry," said she,
"And stay all night with me;
There's a chair for you, and a chair for me
And a candle burning free."
This ballad was recorded by early country musicians Dick Justice (Henry Lee, 1929), Jess Young's Tennesse Band (Lovin' Henry, 1929) and Jimmie Tarlton (Lowe Bonnie, 1930). Two of the versions in my collection are based the recordings (the J.E.Mainer version and one Max Hunter version). Its hard to tell how many versions have been based on these influential recordings.
Some versions are mixed with "The False Young Man/False True Love" versions (Lunsford 1929) which are derived from "Young Hunting".
The largest collection of versions is Sharp/Karpeles (1932 edition) with versions A-N plus two supplemental versions from Sharp's MS (see Bronson). Davis has 6 version from Virginia (TBVa, 1929) and 6 in MTBV, 1960. Several of the 1960 versions are reprints.
Of the 80 or so versions in my collection, two are covers of the "Henry Lee" recording, two are ballad recreations (Niles, Gainer) several are fragments of one stanza and one is a print version. Some tell only the tale of the parrot (Tink Tillet; G.A. Griffin) while others are fragmentary. There are a good three dozen or so full versions.
R. Matteson 2014]
CONTENTS: (To access individual versions- click the highlighted title below or the title attached to this page on the left hand column)
1) The Faulse Ladye- Nelson (NB) c.1849 Barry A -- My date, based on information supplied. From British ballads from Maine (Phillips Barry, Fannie Hardy Eckstorm, Mary Winslow Smyth - 1929). Sung by Mr. Thomas Edward Nelson, Union Mills, New Bruinswick, 1927. Text written, received on Feb. 18, 1929. This was learned from his mother who was born in Northern Ireland came to New Brunswick as a child and died there about ten years ago, aged eighty-five years.
2) Love Henry - Wadsworth (IN) c.1866 Kittredge JAFL -- My date. From: Ballads and Songs by G. L. Kittredge; The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 30, No. 117 (Jul. - Sep., 1917), pp. 283-369. Communicated in 1916 by Mr. Wallace C. Wadsworth, as taken down from the singing of his mother and grandmother shortly before. Mr. Wadsworth notes that his grandmother had learned the song when young.
3) Young Henry- Bresnehen (Mo.) c.1875 Kittredge -- From Ballads and Songs by G. L. Kittredge; The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 30, No. 117 (Jul. - Sep., 1917), pp. 283-369. Reprinted by Belden 1940. Written down by Miss Vivian Bresnehen of Brookfield, Mo., from the singing of her father, who learned it from a hired man on the farm when he was a boy, in Linn County, about 1875.
4) Lord Banyan- Dusenbury (Mo.) 1876 Randolph B -- From: Randolph, V, 1982. Ozark Folksongs, Illinois Press, Urbana 1946. Professor F. M. Goodhue, Mena, Ark., contributes the following text, which he obtained from Mrs. Emma L. Dusenbury, also of Mena. Mrs. Dusenbury called the song "Lord Banyan," and said that she learned it near Jefferson City, Mo., in 1876.
5) The Scotland Man- Griffin (GA-FL) pre1877 Morris -- Fragment from: Folksongs of Florida; Morris, 1950. Mrs. (Georgia Civility) Griffin was born in Dooly County, Georgia in 1863. In 1877 she moved to Newberry, Florida. She learned most of her songs and ballads from her father, a fiddler, before 1877.
6) Love Henry- Younger (AR-OK) c1889 Moores A -- From the Moores, Ballads and Folk Songs of the Southwest, 1964. Despite the 1964 date of publication, most of the ballads are old from the early 1900s. If the information supplied by the Moores is correct, then John Younger (the informant) had an outlaw father named Robert Ewing "Bob" Younger (October 29, 1853 – September 16, 1889) the brother of Cole Younger, who both teamed up with Jesse James.
7) Love Henry- Hill (AL) c1898 Arnold -- From: Byron Arnold, Folksongs of Alabama, 1950, p 60 and reproduced in Bronson II, 70-71 (example 68.19). This was "Sung by Lena Hill, Lexington, Alabama, in 1945." Recorded by Bob Dylan, 1993. Hill (b. 1884) wrote the text down when she as a girl.
8) Loving Henry- Pettit (KY) pre1907 Kittredge -- Ballads and Rhymes from Kentucky by G. L. Kittredge; The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 20, No. 79 (Oct. - Dec., 1907), pp. 251-277. From the mountains of Kentucky collected recently by Miss Katherine Pettit of Hindman, Knott County.
9) Love Henry- (NY) 1910 Delaney's Scotch Songbook-- From British ballads from Maine (Phillips Barry, Fannie Hardy Eckstorm, Mary Winslow Smyth - 1929). As printed in Delaney's Scotch songbook, No. 7, p. 6. printed in New York about 1910.
10) Young Hunting- Southerland (NC) 1914 Sharp E --
Young Hunting- Hall (Georgia) 1914 Sharp F
Lord Henry- Hill (WV) 1916 Cox A
Young Hunting- Gentry (NC) 1916 Sharp A
Young Hunting- Chandler (NC) 1916 Sharp B
Young Hunting- Landers (NC) 1916 Sharp C
Lady Margret- Keeton (VA) 1916 Sharp D
Loving Henry- Whitt (KY) pre1916 Kittredge
Love Henry- Carter (KY) 1917 Sharp G
Young Hunting- Dunagan (KY) 1917 Sharp H
Lord Barnet and Fair Eleonder- (VA) 1917 Davis A
Proud Lady Margaret- (VA) 1917 Davis C
Loving Henry- Ray (TN) 1917 Sharp MS
Loving Henry- Howard (KY) 1917 Sharp MS
Loving Henry- girls at Hindman (KY) 1917 Sharp MS
Young Hunting- Deeton (NC) 1918 Sharp N
Sir Henry- Fitzgerald (VA) 1918 Sharp I
O Henery- Small (Va.) 1918 Sharp J
Young Hunting- Jones (NC) 1918 Sharp M
Loving Henry- Bennett (NC) 1918 Sharp L
Young Hunting- Richards (NC) 1918 Sharp K
Love Henry- McKinney (WV) 1919 Cox B
Sir Henry & Lady Margaret- Witt (VA) 1919 Davis B
Young Hunting- Walton (VA) 1919 Davis F
My Love Heneree- Proffitt (NC) c.1920 Paton REC
Lord Henry- (VA) 1922 Davis E
Scotch Laddie- Tink Tillett (NC) 1924 Chappell A
Barney Scarlee- Felton (NC) 1924 Chappell B
Loving Henry- Nimrod Workman (KY-WV) 1925 REC
Little Scotchee- Pierce (SC) 1928 Smith
Lord Henry & Lady Margaret- Whittaker (Mo.) 1928
Lord Henry- Sprague (NB) 1928 Barry (fragment)
Henry Lee- “Dick” Justice (WV) 1929 Recording
Young Hunting- Lunsford (Appalachians) 1929
Lowe Bonnie- Jimmie Tarlton (SC) 1930 Recording
Loving Heneary- Tucker (GA) 1931 Henry
Loving Henry- Kiser (VA) 1932 Cambiaire/Davis
Loving Henry- Crabtree (VA) 1932 Davis BB
Love Henry- Uhis (TX) 1932 Dobie
Lady Margot & Love Henry- Johnson (VA) 1933 Niles
Lord Henry- Grubb (VA) 1933 Davis EE
Lovin' Henry- Ritchie (KY-AR) 1934 Ritchie REC
Love Henry- Whitehead (VA) 1935 Davis AA REC
Loving Henery- (TN) Crabtree 1936
Loving Henery- Johnson (VA) pre1936 Scarborough A
Come In, Loving Henery- Keene(VA) 1936 Scarb B
Loving Henry- Bowerman (VA)1936 Scarborough C
My Heneree- Fitzgerald (VA) 1936 Wilkinson MS
Sir Robin- Swetnam (MS) 1936 Hudson A
Loving Henry- Swetnam (KY) 1936 Hudson B
Young Hunting- Gallagher (NS) 1937 Creighton A
Lord Land- Borusky (WS) 1938 JAFL
The Well Water- Graham (CA) 1938 Robertson REC
Love Henry- Kitchens (TX-AR) pre1938 Owens
Lord Bonnie- York (NC) 1939 Brown Collection
Oh Henery- Trivette (NC) 1939 Brown Collection
Love Henry- Hilton (MO) pre1939 McDonald
Lord of Scotland- Edwards (VT) c.1941 Cazden
Loving Henry- (AR) 1946 Garrison
Lord Banyard- blind woman (AR) 1947 Fletcher
Lovin' Henry- Lamb and Rowe (KY) 1949 Roberts
False Lady- Anderson (NS) pre1950 Creighton B
Love Henery- Grigorief (AR) 1950 Parler A
Loving Henry- Pennington (AR) 1952 Parler B
Loving Henry- O'Bryant (KS) 1958 Max Hunter
Love Henry- McAllister (VA) 1958 Foss
Loving Henry- Majors (KS) c.1959 Max Hunter
Scotland Man- Landers (NC) 1963 REC
Lovely Henry- Hollon (OK) pre1964 Moores B
I Can't Come In- Hobbs (OK) pre1964 Moores C
Lord Barney- Morgan (FL) 1964 Bush vol. 1
Loving Henry Lee- J. E. Mainer (NC) c.1968 REC
Young Henerly- Hammons (WV) 1970 Recording
Lou Bonnie- Gilbert (AR) 1971 Max Hunter
Henry Lee- Krussel (Mo.) 1975 Max Hunter
Lord Barnie- Waldron (FL) 1986 McNeil
_____________
ADD:
Loving Henry- Sung by Bill Bundy, recorded by Alan and Elizabeth Lomax on October 13, 1937 in, Manchester, Clay County, KY with guitar accompaniment.
1 Lie down, lie down, Love Henry,
Stay all night with me,
Your bed'll be made of calico,
Your door[s] of ivory.
2 Oh no, oh no, I can't lie down,
And stay all night with thee,
The little girl in Kansas land
Will know what's become of me.
3 As he leaned against the gate
To give her a kiss or two.
A little knife she held in her hand,
Plunged him through and through.
4 [hesitates, loses his place] . . . Love Henry, she said[1]
Will take an hour or more,
Can't you see my own heart blood
Come trickling to the floor.
5 She picked him up by the curly locks
And-- by the feet,
She carried him down to the riverside
And plunged in so deep.
6 Lie there Love Henry, lay there
Till the blood runs from the bone
The little girl now can't complain
Will know [when] you're not at home.
7 As she was on her highway home
She heard somebody say,
"There you go you true little miss
You're going home to stay."[2]
8 Fly down, fly down, Polly fair,
Fly down, fly down, Polly fair,
And sit upon my knee
Your cage shall be made of calico
Your door of ivory.
9 Oh no, oh no I'll never fly down,
And set upon your knee,
For you just killed your own sweetheart,
And I'm 'fraid you may kill me.
10 I wish I had my little bow
And an arrow with a string;
I'd shoot a dart right through your heart
You'll tell no tales on me.
1. garbled- may be able to reconstruct
2. Polly, the parrot, is talking here.
------------------
From: Ballads and Songs from the Southern Mountains- Campbell 1915
"Lord" or "Love Henry," as he is called, boasts to his old sweetheart of the girl that he left, not at Clydes Water, but in Tennessee or Arkansas, and
"As they was leaning over the fence
Taking kisses all so sweet.
She had in her hand a keen penny knife
And she perched him sharp and deep." (Cf. Child, 68 C.}
Here the singer, who has been rocking her chair gently before the open fire, pauses to remark: "Just like a jealous woman!" It is the truth of the song to elemental human nature that makes it real to her, and it is none the less real because it deals with a social life, with localities, objects, and terms widely remote from anything with which she is familiar.
________________
Harper's Magazine - Volume 130 - Page 909 Lee Foster Hartman, Frederick Lewis Allen - 1915 (Article about mountain songs and ballads- quotes two parts of Loving Henry which was first published in 1907 JAFL by Kittredge in his article, Ballads and Rhymes from Kentucky. Harper's:
"Get down, get down, loving Henry," she said,
And stay all night with me;
But there's another girl in the Urgent Land,
That you love better than me!"
_________________
[Davis; More Traditional Ballad of Virginia, 1960. His notes follow. as usual Davis' notes give a detailed well presented synopsis of the ballad and its significant details. Davis includes a paragraph about not being included in Bronson's TTCB because he waited too long to get his book out (Bronson vol. 1 was 1959, Vol. 2 1962 but deadlines were much earlier). It may be for the best since some of the ballad recreations Davis included by the Smith brothers he should have left out.
YOUNG HUNTING
(Child, No. 68)
A young man, back from hunting. is invited by his mistress to come in and spend the night. He declines, explaining that he loves another better than he loves her. As he stoops to give her a farewell kiss, she stabs him mortally. She attempts, sometimes with help, to conceal the body in a well or other water, but her parrot, who will not be cajoled or threatened, presumably reveals her guilt.
Here Child F and most of the American texts end. Child A and other fuller texts go on to tell of the corning of the king's
duckers, their finding of the body with the help of the bird, the lady's trial by fire (judicium ignis) and burning, while her comparatively innocent bower-woman accomplice escapes unscathed. There are other endings, some of them introduced from other ballads, some of them confused.
Child prints eleven texts of this excellent ballad, most of them of Scottish origin, but, if we may depend upon Margaret Dean-
Smith and Gavin Greig's Last Leaves, it does not survive in print from recent British sources. It is fairly widely known in America, but chiefly in the south. Sharp-Karpeles (I, 101-14) print fourteen texts and tunes from the Southern Appalachians. TBVa presents six of a possible seven texts, with four tunes. More recently the Virginia collection has added nine new items, of which six are here presented, five of them with tunes, the sixth a full and distinctive text. Rather unaccountably, the Brown collection reports no text from North Carolina.
Like those of TBVa, the texts to follow lack the retributive conclusion of the Child collection and terminate before the arrival of
the king's duckers. The temptation to confuse this ballad with "Lady Isabel and the the Knight" (Child, No. 4) natural enough,
as they share the incidents of a lady drowning her false lover and of the talking bird -has generally been resisted in this series. At least the contamination is not so overt as in TBVa E, and the bird stanzas sung here are found also in Child's texts of this ballad. Some contamination from "Sir Hugh" (Child, No. 155) may also be present in the description of the carrying of the corpse to the water.
There are several details of interest here: the moral conclusion of DD is unique in Virginia texts and the retreat to the parlor (BB, FF, and one omitted text) is a curious though not uncommon Americanization. The "other lady" is "in a foreign land" (BB,
FF-, one other), "in the merry green land" (AA, DD), "in merry Green Lee" (CC), or (in one omitted text) "in old Scotland."
The victim is "Henry" in all versions except one (see next paragraph). There appears to be some confusion in the purpose of the ring and in the presence of helpers and confidants.
The three omitted texts all come from the same county as FF, Dickenson County, and there is a temptation to print them as showing the extent of variation within a small geographical compass. But FF is the fullest and most distinctive of the four; the other three overlap in large measure with other texts here printed. A few points in the omitted texts may be noted: in one the name of the hero, also the local title, is Scot Eals, and he has a wife "in Old Scotland" (cf. Sharp-Karpeles A, I, tor-z) ; another, with the more usual title and hero Loving Henry, places the other girl (not wife) "in some Arkansas land" and (like BB and FF ) has the kissing and the murder take place "in some parlor room"; in a third, Margaret "leant herself across the fence" (cf. "face" in AA) to do her kissing and stabbing. All three are slightly compressed texts but tell the full story through the dialogue of the girl and the bird, the bird having the last word.
Interesting folk beliefs found in some Child versions have been lost from Virginia and American texts, along with the king's duckers: the belief that the body of a murdered man will emit blood upon being touched or approached by the murderer; the belief that a candle, floated over water, will detect a dead body; belief in justice via the ordeal by fire; oaths by corn, grass, or thorn. But the possibility that the talking bird represents a transmigration of the murdered man's soul remains in the texts that follow. See Wimberly, passim.
It is with uncommon regret that at this point we must part company with our distinguished companion, fellow-scholar, and
friend, Bertrand Harris Bronson, whose great but as yet incomplete work on The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads (Princeton University Press, 1959) has been drawn upon with such profit in every headnote up to the present one. Unhappily, only the first volume, covering Child ballads 1 to 53, has as yet appeared, and that just before this book's going to press. There is no regret over the eleventh-hour labor involved in these references to him, because they are recognized as a distinct enrichment of this volume. It would have been well, of course, if each of these near contemporaneous publications could have taken full account of the other. That being impossible, it is consoling that the headnotes up to this point have been able to include all relevant material from his first volume, if not from his subsequent ones. There is also some satisfaction in knowing that sooner or later he will have to take into account the highly relevant new material of this book.
__________________________
HENRY LEE- Peggy Seeger; 2003 [Great version, great banjo, not traditional]
Notes: This glorious version of Child Ballad # 68, "Young Hunting." is one of Peggy's favorites. Her text is an amalgam from many sources; the tune is derived from that sung by Jane Gentry to Cecil Sharp at Hot Springs, NC, 1916. This in turn has been printed in Sharp's English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians (1932), vol. 1, p. 101; in Bertrand Harris Bronson's The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads, vol. 2, p. 78; and in Betty Smith's Jane Hicks Gentry: A Singer Among Singers (1998), p. 146. For full notes and sources, see Tristram Potter Coffin and Roger deV. Renwick's The British Traditional Ballad in North America (1977), pp. 66-68. Peggy's version fits their Story Type A. She recorded it previously on Prestige 13005, The Best of Peggy Seeger. For comparative purposes, check out her rendition of the Dick Justice version of this ballad on Prestige 13029, Three Sisters. (Joe Hickerson, August 2003)
5-string BANJO TUNING sung in the key of F#; tuning: high F#, low C#, F#, C#, C#
Light down, light down, love Henry Lee
And stay with me this night.
You will have my candle and coal
And my fire's burning bright,
My fire's burning bright.
I won't light down, I can't light down
Nor stay all night with thee;
There's a lady ten times fairer than you
In Lord Barnet's hall for me, (2)
He's leaned him o'er her soft pillow
For to give her a kiss so sweet;
With her little pen-knife held keen and sharp
She's wounded him full deep, (2)
I will light down, I must light down
I will come in, said he.
There is no lady in Barnet's hall
That I love more better than thee, (2)
O live, my love, Lord Henry, she said
For an hour or two or three -
And all these cards about my waist
I'd freely give to thee, (2)
All them cards about your waist
They'd do no good to me;
Love, don't you see my own heart's blood
Come twinkling at my knee, (2)
She took him by his long yellow hair,
She dragged him by his feet,
She threw him down her cool draw-well
Full fifty fathoms deep, (2)
Lie there, lie there, you Henry Lee
I know you will not swim;
That lady ten times fairer than me
She'll never see you again, (2)
Light down, light down, you pretty little bird
Light down all on my knee.
No, a girl who'd murder her own true love
Would kill a little bird like me, (2)
I wish I had my bending bow
My arrow and my string -
I'd shoot my dart so nigh your heart
That you'd no longer sing, (2)
I wish you had your bending bow
Your arrow and your string -
I'd fly away to Barnet's hall
You'd always hear me sing, (2)
_________________________
Bob Dylan covered the version Lena Hill that she had written down before 1900. It was collected in 1945 by Byron Arnold, Folksongs of Alabama, 1950, p 60 and reproduced in Bronson II, 70-71 (example 68.19). This was "Sung by Lena Hill, Lexington, Alabama. Text written when a girl."
According to John Way's article "World Gone Wrong - More About the Songs" in The Telegraph No. 47 (pp. 34-35), eight (out of nine) verses of Dylan's version and the tune are "from a variant appearing in Bryan Arnold's 'Folksongs of Alabama,"collected from Ms. Lena Hill of Lexington, AL, in 1945.
1. Get down, get down, love Henry, she cried
And stay all night with me.
I have gold chairs and the finest I have
I'll apply them all to thee.
2. I cant get down nor I shant get down
Nor stay all night with you
Some pretty little girl in Cornersville
I love true better than thee.
3. He laid his head on a pillow of down
The kisses she gave him three
With the penny knife that she held in her hand
She murdered mortal he.
4. Get well get well love Henry she cried
Get well, get well said she
Oh don't you see my own hearts blood
A flowing down so free.
5. She took him by his long yellow hair
And also by his feet
She plunged him in well water
Where it runs both cold and deep.
6. Lie there, lie there, Love Henry she cried
Till the flesh rots off your bones
Some pretty little girl in Cornersville
Will mourn for your return.
7. Hush up, hush up, parrot she cried
Don't tell no news on me
All these costly beads around my neck
I'll apply them all to thee.
8. Fly down fly down, pretty parrot she cried
And lie on my right knee
And the doors of your cage shall be decked with gold,
And hung on a willow tree.
_____________________
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
68. YOUNG HUNTING
Texts: American Speech, III, and Barry, Brit Bids Me, I22/ Belden,Mo.F-S, 34/Brewster, Bids Sgs Ind, 166 / Brown Coll / Bull Tenn FLS, VIII, #3, 72 / Bull U SC# 162, #4 / Cambiaire, Ea Tenn Wstn Va Mt Bids, 28 / Chappeil, F-S Enke Alb, 21 / Cox, F-S South, 42 / Crabtree, Overton Cnty, 283 / Davis, Trd Bid Va, 182 / Delaney's Scotch Song Book (N.Y., 1910), 6 / Duncan, No Hamilton Cnty, 44 / Focus, V, 280 / Garrison, Searcy Cnty, 22 / Gordon, F-S Am, 66 / Harpers Mgz (May 1915), 909 / Henry, F-S So Hgblds, 145 / Hudson, F-S Miss, 77 / Hudson, Spec Miss F-L, #9 / Hummel, OK F-S / JAFL, XX, 252; XXX, 2975 XLIV,
67; HI, 30 / Ky Cnties Mss. / Lunsford and Stringfield, 30 & i F-S So Mts, 22 / McDonald, Selctd F-S Mo, 20 / Morris, F-S Fla, 397 / N.T. Times Mgz, 10 9 '27 / Owens, SW Sings / Owens, Studies Tex F-S, 24 / PTFLS, X, 143 / Randolph, Oz F-S, I, 90 / Randolph, Oz Mt Flk, 203 / Sandburg, Am Sgbag, 64 / Scarborough, Sgctchr So Mts, 134; SharpC, EngF-S So dplchns, # 15 / SharpK, EngF-S So Aplchns, I, 101 / Reed Smith, SC Bids, 107 / Smith and Rufty, Am Anth Old WrU Bids, i$\Va FLS Bull, #s 5 7, 10 / William and Mary Literary Mgz, XXIX, 664.
Local Titles: Little Scotchee, Lord Banyan, Lord Barnet, Lord Barnet and Fair Eleonder, Lord Bonnie, Lord Henry, Love Henry (Henery), Pretty Polly, Proud Lady Margaret, Sir (Lord) Henry and Lady Margaret, Sweet William and Fair EUender, The Faulse Lady, The Old Scotch Well, The Scotland Man.
Story Types:
A: Lord Henry returns from a hunt and is invited to spend the night with his mistress Margaret. He refuses, saying a lady he loves far better (in. SharpK, Eng F-S So Aplchns, N it is his wife) is waiting for him. About to depart, he leans over his horse's neck, her pillow, or the fence to kiss Margaret good-bye, and she stabs him. Henry then reveals he loves Lady Margaret and dies. She, with or without the aid of maids, sisters, etc., throws his body in a well. A bird accuses her of the crime; she attempts to bribe him and then threatens him, all to no avail. In most versions, the bird reveals her guilt.
Examples: Belden, Davis (A), SharpK (A).
B: The story is like that of Type A, but the motive for the killing has been obliterated. Henry refuses to stay for the night as he wishes to see his parents. Examples: Barry (B), Randolph, OzF-S (A).
C: A Ky. Miss. version begins with the girl's walking in the garden where she meets her father-in-law. He asks for his son, and she says her husband is out hunting, but is expected soon. The bird then speaks up and reveals that the lover is dead and his body in the well. The girl tries to bribe the bird, but the bird refuses to cease his accusations. Men dig in the well and find the
body, and the girl, as well as her maid, is hung.
Examples: Hudson (A).
D: The usual story is told. However, the girl commits suicide that night. She leaves her ring on Henry's finger in some versions. Examples: Cambiaire, Scarborough.
E: A corrupted version (The Forsaken Girl series) exists. In it Henry gives the girl's faithlessness as an excuse for his leaving her. She then upbraids him for forsaking her, wishes she were dead, and rues her lot of bearing him or child. Examples: Henry.
F: A confused and corrupt version exists in which the murder occurs outside a barroom. The body is thrown in a well, and the girl announces to all what she has done. The bird sequence has lost its purpose.
Examples: SharpK (H).
G: A lyric has developed from the final stanzas of dialogue between the bird and the girl in which the murder is only mentioned. Examples: SFLQ, VIII, 146.
Discussion: The original story of this ballad (Child A, C, H, K) frequently mentions the king's duckers, who find the body after a hint from the bird. The lady then swears she is innocent and tries to blame her maid. However, a trial by fire leaves the maid unscathed, but consumes the guilty one. Such material, except for traces in Type C, is not in America.
In general, the ballad is far more common in the South than in the North. In fact, the song is extremely rare in British North America, though Barry (JAFL, XVIII, 295) gives a melody without text. Belden, Mo F-S, 35 suspects the presence of a stall copy to have perpetuated the song over here. The similarity of the American versions backs up his opinion. As usual, these versions are compressed, and they lack the dressing up of the dead man and the mounting of him on his horse (Child A-D, G, H, J-K), the recovery of the drowned body (Child A-D, G, H, J-K), and the intoxication of the hero before the murder (Child A, J, K). It may be possible, nevertheless (see Belden, loc. cit.) that remnants of the drinking may be in Davis, Trd Bid Va, C, D; SharpK, Eng F-S So Aplcbns, D; JAFL, XXX, 301; Cambiaire, Ea Tenn Wstn Va Mt Bids; and Brewster, Bids Sgs Ind.
The American Type A stories lack the fire ending and the duckers. Type B reveals how a ballad story can change. With some singer's (or publisher's) caprice the motive for the crime has been obliterated (see Bull Tenn FLS, VIII, $3, 72), although Barry, Brit Bids Me, 126 shows, through a later stanza in his B version, that this group is actually the same as Type A. Type C seems to be an adaption of the Child A, C, H, K series, although the lover is more properly married and the father of the youth is present. The revelation of the crime by a bird is in Child J-K.
The song has been subjected to much corruption. (See Zielonko, Some American Variants of Child Ballads, 93 ff.) The parrot stanzas of Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight (Child 4) have attached themselves to it both here and in Great Britain (Child I and Davis, op. cit^ A), while it has also mingled with its own derivative, The False Young Man (SharpC, Eng F-S So Aplchns,
333, note, and # 94) ; Henry, F-S So Hghlds, 146; JAFL, XLIV, 67; and my Type E.) Types D and F are almost self-explanatory. The former is either a rationalization of the antiquated "fire" judgment or a localization, while the latter is one of those hybrids that is certain to occur if any song wanders long enough.
The confusion of the Scarborough, Sgrtchr So Mts, B text should be noted. The parrot and the girl, who are so often both named Polly, become completely confused, and the story vanishes in nonsense. In addition, Brewster, op. cit., 166 prints a version of The Trooper and the Maid, (299) that is about half Young Hunting. See Type C under 299.
See Zielonko, op. cit., 93 ff. for study of selected New World texts.
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Missing versions:
LOVING HENRY
Source Gordon, Folk-Songs of America (1938) pp.66-67
Performer
Place collected USA
Collector Gordon, Robert W
COME IN COME IN
Source Folktrax 907-60 ('Songs of the Southern Appalachians 1')
Performer Lander,
Place collected USA : Tennessee : Jonesboro
Collector Karpeles, Maud
LOVIN' HENRY
Source Kentucky Folklore Record 18:1 (1972) pp.13-14
Performer Lacy, Paul Brooks
Place collected USA : Kentucky : Stacy Forks
YOUNG HUNTING
Source Hodgart, Faber Book of Ballads (1965) pp.54-55
Performer
Place collected USA
Collector
LOVED HENRY
Source Combs, Folk-Songs of the Southern United States (1967) p.203 item 17(a)
Performer
Place collected USA : W. Virginia : Lincoln County
Collector Combs, Josiah H. / Woofter, Carey
LOVIN' HENRY
Source WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.1598 (version b)
Performer Adams, Finley
Place collected USA : Kentucky : Dunham
Collector Adams, John Taylor
LOVING HENRY
Source WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.1598 (version c)
Performer Sexton, Woodrow
Place collected USA : Virginia : Big Laurel
Collector Adams, John Taylor
LOVING HENRY
Source WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.1598 (version d)
Performer Tolliver, Mrs. Vertie
Place collected USA : Virginia : Norton
Collector Hamilton, Emory L.
LOVING HENRY
Source WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.1598 (version e)
Performer Mullins, Mrs. Myrtle
Place collected USA : Virginia : Wise
Collector Hamilton, Emory L.
LOVING HENRY
Source WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.1598 (version f)
Performer Hamilton, Mrs. Goldie
Place collected USA : Virginia : Esserville
Collector Hamilton, Emory L.
LOVING HENRY
Source WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.1598 (version g)
Performer Kilgore, Mrs. Esco
Place collected USA : Virginia : Norton
Collector Hamilton, Emory L.
LOVING HENRY
Source WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.1598 (version h)
Performer Potter, Mrs. Pearl
Place collected USA : Virginia : Coeburn
Collector Hamilton, Emory L.
LOVING HENRY
Source WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.1598 (version i)
Performer Fields, Mrs. Rhoda
Place collected USA : Virginia : Dungannon
Collector Hamilton, Emory L.
LOVING HENRY
Source WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.1598 (version j)
Performer Baker, John
Place collected USA : Virginia : Wise
Collector Hamilton, Emory L.
LOVING HENRY
Source WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.1598 (version k)
Performer Osborne, Mrs. Lizzie
Place collected USA : Virginia : Wise
Collector Hamilton, Emory L.
LOVING HENRY
Source WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.1598 (version l)
Performer Tolliver, Mrs. William
Place collected USA : Virginia : Norton
Collector Sloan, Raymond H.
PARROT OF TWO LOVERS
Source WPA Collection, Univ. of Virginia, Charlotteville, No.1598 (version a)
Performer Bailey, Bill
Place collected USA : Virginia : Lynchburg
Collector Volley, Isaiah?
LOVE HENRY
Source Library of Congress recording 3426 A2
Performer Jones, Mrs. Rebecca
Place collected USA : Virginia : Whitetop 1935
Collector Chase, Richard
LOVING HENRY
Source Library of Congress recording 1511 A
Performer Bundy, Bill
Place collected USA : Kentucky : Manchester
Collector Lomax, Alan & Elizabeth
LOVING HENRY
Source Library of Congress recording 1552 A & B1
Performer Napier, E.H.
Place collected USA : Kentucky : Hazard
Collector Lomax, Alan & Elizabeth
LOVING HENRY
Source Library of Congress recording 1456 B2
Performer Feltner, Edna
Place collected USA : Kentucky : Middlefork
Collector Lomax, Alan & Elizabeth
LOVING HENRY
Source Library of Congress recording 1485 B
Performer Silbert, Florence
Place collected USA : Kentucky : Webb Branch
Collector Lomax, Alan & Elizabeth
LOVING HENRY
Source Library of Congress recording 2832 A1
Performer Kilgore, Mrs. Esco
Place collected USA : Virginia : Hamiltontown
Collector Halpert, Herbert
LOVING HENRY
Source Library of Congress recording 2786 B
Performer Hamilton, Mrs. Goldie
Place collected USA : Virginia : Hamiltontown
Collector Halpert, Herbert
LOVING HENRY
Source Library of Congress recording 2819 B4
Performer Cain, Mrs. Mary Fuller
Place collected USA : Virginia : Clintwood
Collector Halpert, Herbert
LOVING HENRY
Source Library of Congress recording 2805 A1
Performer Harmon, Samuel
Place collected USA : Tennessee : Maryville
Collector Halpert, Herbert
POOR SCOTCHEE, THE
Source Duncan, Ballads & Folk Songs Collected in Northern Hamilton County (1939) pp.42-45
Performer Hughes, Mrs.
Place collected USA : Tennessee : Flat Top
Collector Duncan, Ruby
YOUNG HUNTING
Source Anderson: Tennessee Folklore Soc. Bulletin 8:3 (1942) p.71
Performer Henry, Oronona
Place collected USA : Tennessee : Blount County
POOR SCOTCHEE, THE
Source Pine Breeze 004 ('Skip to My Lou')
Performer Hughes, Ella
LOVIN' HENRY
Source Shelby: Appalachian Heritage 1:1 (1973) pp.34-36
Performer Osborne, Mrs. Thelma / Mrs. Vada Smith Osborne
Place collected USA : Kentucky : Maytown