US & Canadian Versions: Child 14. Babylon- Bonnie Banks o Fordie
[This rare ballad is known traditional in the Maritime Providences of Canada and also somewhat in New England. The best representative versions are from Newfoundland, one of the first was collected by Maud Karpeles in September 1929 and given the Child title, Bonny Banks of Vergie-O . This version was reprinted by Lomax as Three Young Ladies in 1960. Karpeles collected three additional variants with music and a single stanza of text (like Sharp) in October of 1929 (Karpeles B, C, and D). David Gregory (Athabasca University) wrote about Karpeles A version in Song Collecting in Newfoundland: Maud Karpeles, 1929: "Kenneth Monks was another King’s Cove informant. He sang “Go From My Window,” and on the afternoon of the 24th September gave Maud a “wonderful ballad” called “The Bonny Banks of Virgie-O,” a variant of “Babylon” (Child #14)." During October 1929 in the North River, Conception Bay area, she collected three additional versions in two days-- but provided only one verse of text. Apparently Karpeles did not consider the additional texts she collected so important and the ballad so rare.
Curiously, at the same time, Greenleaf, who had visited Newfoundland as early as 1920, began the Vassar College folklore expedition to Newfoundland in the summer of 1929 with Mansfield- two month before Karpeles. Greenleaf also collected a version of "Bonny Banks of Vergie, O" in 1929 from the White sisters in Sandy Cove.
The ballad seems to have been distributed primarily in the North East coast including version from New England. Flanders has four versions in her 1960 Ancient Ballads (A-D) and Karpeles four but only one text. Ken Peacock collected two versions from Newfoundland, the first in the early 1950s.
Fowke and Johnson reprinted the first version of Peacock's in Folk Songs of Canada, 1954. Anna Kearney Guigné reports in Folksongs and Folk Revival: the cultural politics of Kenneth Peacock's songs from the Newfoundland Outports:
Other songs incorporated into this publication appear to have been edited, probably by Fowke, to make them more singable. For "The Bonny Banks of Virgie-O," Fowke drew mainly from Peacock's manuscript; but she appears to have taken taken the refrain, "Too re lee, and a lonely O," from the variant published in Greenleaf and Mansfield's Ballads and Sea Songs.
What Guigné doesn't point out is: Peacock took his version from an elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs. Monks, in the early 1950s, the same informants who first gave their version to Karpeles in 1929. Fowke's text and melody and are from Peacock (his B version)- the same text and melody as Karpeles A. She is right that Fowke took the first chorus from Greenleaf's version- without documenting it. Curiously Fowke mentions Peacock's version in her 1954 book, but not Karpeles. The small changes in text prove however it is from Peacock, who recorded this version for Folkways in 1956, Songs and Ballads from Newfoundland- Sung by Ken Peacock. Peacock, not wanting anyone to know the source of his version, does not even mention the Monks names! Whether this was a copyright infringement issue or one of a collector revisiting another collectors informants, is unknown. In 1960 Alan Lomax included the Monks version in his book, Folk Songs of North America. Lomax, who probably learned about the version from Peacock's 1956 recording, attributed it to Peacock, also naming the Monks as informants.
Other versions found outside Maritime Providences in Canada and New England (there are several from Appalachia and one from Arkansas) are very rare and several of these are not authentic. In my opinion, the three ballad recreations are John Jacob Niles, (KY) Bonny Farday; The Smith brothers (VA) Three Sisters; and Patrick Gainer's (WV) Fair Flowers in the Valley. I am missing and trying to locate the versions from Tennessee: Geneva Anderson's Babylon text by Miss Clyde Gibbs; and also Edwin Kirkland's text. The version found in the Brown Collection (NC) is probably authentic and resembles Smiths' Virginia version- they have no refrains.
The lone version from Arkansas which has been recorded and appears in the Max Hunter Collection, seems to be the only legitimate version to cross the Mississippi.
R. Matteson 2012, 2014]
CONTENTS: (To open individual texts click on the title attached to this page on the left hand column or simply click on the title below)
1) Three Sisters- Yarber/Smiths (VA) 1869 Davis AA--From More Traditional Ballads; Kyle Davis Jr., 1960. A ballad recreation by Thomas P. Smith and R. E. Lee Smith sent in to Davis in 1932.
2) Bonny Banks of the Airdrie- Emery (ME) 1927 Barry--One stanza fragment from British Ballads from Maine; by Barry, Eckstorm, Smyth 1929. This is the first printed version, taken from Mrs. Robert Emery, born in Scotland, a resident of Eastport for the last twenty-six years. Recorded October, 1927.
3) Bonny Banks of the Virgie O- White (NL) 1929 Greenleaf--From Ballads and Sea-Songs of Newfoundland by Elizabeth Bristol Greenleaf, Grace Yarrow Mansfield - 1933. Karpeles versions and this one from Greenleaf are dated 1929.
4) Three Young Ladies- Monks (NL) 1929 Karpeles A--Lomax's title- he attributes this to Peacock, who also collected this ballad from the Monks c. 1952 (Peacock B). “The Bonny Banks of Virgie-O” was first collected from Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Monks of King’s Cove Newfoundland by Maud Karpeles in September, 1929. This is Bronson No. 3 and his text has "Vergeo" instead of "Vergie-O." It's the second or third text of Child No. 14 collected in North America (Greenleaf collected a version in summer or fall of 1929- no day or month was given; Barry collected a fragment in 1927). Alan Lomax titled the ballad, Three Young Ladies, and reprinted it in his Folk-Songs of North America.
5) Bonny Banks of the Virgie O- Snow (NL)1929 Karpeles B
Three Fair Maids- Hall (NL) 1929 Karpeles C
Bonny Banks of Batt'ry O- Snow (NL)1929 Karpeles D
Bonny Farday- Preston Little (KY) 1932 Niles
Heckey-Hi Si Bernio- Porter (NY) 1933 Flanders A
Baby Lon- Vaught (NC) 1935 Brown Collection
Banks of the Barbry-O: Ladeau (VT) 1939 Flanders D
The Burly Burly Banks- Moses (NH) 1941 Flanders B
The Burly Burly Banks- Barton (VT) 1942 Flanders C
Bonny Banks Of Ardrie O- Osborne (NL) 1960 Peacock A
Fair Flowers in the Valley- Gainer(WV) 1968 Gainer
Three Sisters- Engler (AR) 1969 Hunter
Rocky Banks of the Buffalo- Johnson (WS) 1997 REC
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[Fragment from British Ballads from Maine; by Barry, Eckstorm, Smyth 1929. This is the first printed version, a one stanza fragment. Following are Barry and all's notes.
BABYLON
(child 14)
From Mrs. Robert Emery, born in Scotland, a resident of Eastport for the last twenty-six years. Recorded October, 1927.
"What is this that I have done?
Killed my sisters all but one,
On the bonnie bonny banks
Of the Airdrie O.
This interesting fragment, the first known record of the ballad in America, belongs with Child F (III, 500) and Gavin Greig's fragment (Last Leaves, pp. 15, 25L). Miss Bell Robertson, New Pitsligo, from whom Greig received the fragment, said she learned it from a tinker boy. "They used to camp beside my mother's house, and the children came to beg, and my brothers, who were boys at the time, used to ask them to sing." (Last Leaves, p. 251.) Child F was first printed in 1880, by Francis H. Groome (In Gypsg Tents, pp. f43-145), with the comment: "from Sinfi (the English wife of Willy Faa) this Scottish ballad, which she had learned of Jocky Neilson's wife." The common feature of Maine A, Greig's fragment, and Child F, is the name "Airdrie," instead of "Fordie," found in Child A, the version published by Motherwell (Minstrelsy, p. 88). As Child F has been transmitted by gypsies, and Greig's fragment by tinkers, it seems likely that both together with Maine A, belong to a distinct form of the ballad, preserved through the singing of gypsies or tinkers,-- nomads of similar mode of life, and often confounded by the uninitiate.
An excellent text, "Down by the Bonny Banks o' Airdrie, O," with the melody, from Kingarth, is in the Miscellanea of the Rymour Club (Edinburgh), II, 77 -79.
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Peacock B version, c. 1952. Liner notes (excerpt with song text) for Ken Peacock's Folkways (FG3505) recording, Songs and Ballads from Newfoundland; sung by Ken Peacock, released in 1956. Notice that although this version was taken from Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Monk- their names were not mention- probably because it was collected in 1929 and published by Karpeles in 1934. There are is a spelling error "wipped" that I have left:
The elderly King's Cove couple who sang it for me had a wonderful time arguing about the order of the verses. Neither would let the other give his or her complete version without breaking in to insist upon a correction.
Bonnie Banks of the Virgie-o
1. Three young ladies went out for a walk,
All a-lee, and a-lone-ee-oh,
They met a robber on way,
On the bonny bonny banks of the Virgie-o.
2. He took the first one by the hand,
He wipped he 'round till he made her stand.
3. Saying, "Will you be a robber's wife,
Or will you die by my pen-knife?"
4. "I will not be a robber's wife,
I'd rather die by your pen-knife."
5. He took in his hand his own pen-knife,
And then he took her own sweet life.
6. He took the second by the hand,
He wipped her 'round till he made her stand.
7. Saying, "Will you be a robber's wife,
Or will you die by my pen-knife?"
8. "I will not be a robber's wife,
I'd rather die by your pen-knife."
9. He took in his hand his own pen - knife,
And then he took her own sweet life.
10. He took the third one by the hand,
He wipped her 'round till he made her stand.
11. Saying, "Will you be a robber's wife,
Or will you die by my pen-knife?"
12 "I will not be a robber's wife,
Now will I die by your pen-knife."
13 "If my brothers were here to-night,
You would not have killed my sisters bright."
14 "Where are your brothers I pray you tell?"
"One of them is a minister. "
15 "What's the other I pray you tell?"
"He's out to robbing just like yourself."
16 "The lord have mercy! Look what I've done!
I've killed my sisters, all but one!
17 He then picked up his own pen-knife,
And there he took his own sweet life.