What Is That On the End Of Your Sword? (VA) 1913 Davis C
[Davis used this abbreviated title, What's on Your Sword? - 1960, version CC. From Davis- Traditional Ballads of Virginia, 1929. His notes follow. From the singing of Mrs. Archibald Cummings; Berryville, Va.; 1913, Davis C.
R. Matteson 2014]
EDWARD
(Child, No. 13)
This ballad, like the preceding, is a colloquy between mother and son. The son has killed some one, usually a father or brother, and the mother by persistent questioning extracts the truth from him. The final stanza in Child usually implicates the mother. All the Virginia texts, however, are strikingly filial: the mother is never cursed or implicated in the murder, nor is the father ever
the victim. The tragedy is always fratricidal, with the "little brother" as victim. They are more closely related to Child A than to B, in form, in language, and in the identity of the victim, but the absence of the mother-cursing stanza and her implication in the guilt distinguishes them sharply from all the Child versions. Whether this change is the result of American filial sentimentality or of an unconscious rationalization of a somewhat unnatural conversation, there is some loss of dramatic force at the close. For a man to say that he will be back
When the sun and moon set on yonder hill,
And that will never be
is an inadequate substitute for the compressed meaning when he tells his "ain mither deir" what he will leave her:
The curse of hell frae me sall ye beir,
Sic counceils ye gave to me O.
In Virginia the ballad is usually known by its repeated first line, as " What Is That on the End of Your Sword?" "What Is That on Your Sword So Red?" and "How Come That Red Blood on Your Coat?" American texts are few. See Bulletin, Nos. 2-4, 6, 9; In Campbell and Sharp, No. 7 (North Carolina); Hudson, No. 5 (and Journal, xxxlx, 93; Mississippi); Pound, Ballads, No. 9; Sharp, Songs, I, No. 1 (Tennessee); Shearin, p. 4; Shearin and Combs, p. 7; Perrow reported the ballad from Kentucky in a letter to Kittredge (1914).
C. "What Is That on the End of Your Sword?" Collected by Miss Martha M. Davis. Sung by Mrs. Archibald Cummins, of Berryville, Va. Clark County. April 23, 1913- With music. "Mrs. Cummins was formerly of Lynchburg (Campbell County), Va. The ballad has been traditional in her family for several generations as a nursery song" (Miss Davis, April 23, 1913).
"What is that on the end of your sword,
My dear son, tell to me?"
"'T is the blood of an English crow
And I wish it had never been."
"Crow's blood was ne'er so red as that,
My dear son, tell to me."
" 'T is the blood of my dear little brother,
And I wish it had never been."
"How did it happen,
My dear son, tell to me?"
" 'T was digging round the hollow tree,
And I wish it had never been."
"What will you do with your dear little son,
My dear son, tell to me?"
"I will leave him with his grandpapa
To make him think of me."
"What will you do with your dear little daughter,
My dear son, tell to me?"
"I will leave her with her grandmama
To make her think of me."
"What will you do with your dear little wife,
My dear son, tell to me?"
"She will put her foot on yonder boat
And sail away with me."
"When will you come back,
My dear son, tell to me?"
"When the sun and moon set on yonder hill
And that will never be."