Young Beham- Buna Hicks (NC) c1910 Burton collected 1966
[My date (Ref. Buna Hicks- Burton 1966), learned from her husband, Roby Monroe Hicks. From: Buton & Manning; Ballads II- an interview follows. Her version is sung by her husband Roby on: Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still, The Warner Collection, Volume I. [Listen: Roby Monroe Hicks- Young Beeham]
This is the Hicks/Harmon version. More complete texts of this family version have been taken from Samuel Harmon (Tennessee, 1928 Henry) and Aunt Betty Hicks of Rich Mountain, NC and her daughter Nora Hicks (Brown collection, REC, and text made by Walker c. 1939). A fuller version of Roby Monroe's ballad was collected from his wife Buna in 1966 (see her text which she learned from him).
Young Beeham, also spelled Beham in this title, was learned "when he was a child" (Burton 1966) by Roby Monroe Hicks of Beech Mountain, NC who was born in 1882. He was the son of Samuel and Rebecca Hicks and probably learned this from his mother (Becca).
Buna Vesta (b. Nov. 11, 1888) Presnell's father was Andrew Presnell, and her mother was Sarah Jane Eggers. Buna married Roby by the time she was 17 (1905) in Watauga County, North Carolina. She died in 1984 at the age of 95.
R. Matteson 2014]
Burton (Some Ballad Folks): Another "interestin' song" to Mrs. Buna is "Young Beham" ("Young Beichan," Child 53). she doesn't necessarily accept everything in this song as factual either. "I don't understand hardly all of it; I thought it over, thought them songs over, how they sounded, what might be so and what might not be that way." For example, she questions the way Beham was bound. "'Through and through they put a key, and bound him to a trusty tree'; now that's something to think about. I wonder if there's ever been anything like that. I just don't know." The "ninety thousand pound" paid for Beham's liberty poses Mrs. Buna another problem. "Course silver's pretty heavy, but that looks unreasonable"; also she says, "I think that seems mighty strange that he waited till the time was up and married that 'n'; that was a mighty strange thing." There are other matters, however, about which she is confident. "I think he should have stuck to his contract a little better than that; that's what I think. If she done all of that, helped him out like that, I think that's the one he should've looked to. That's what I think about it. well now they could have a-been maybe somethin', we don't know of course, it could have been somethin' that they've added, maybe when they made that song, somethin' they took away; might not be plumb length like that, but seems it goes like it might be so. It does." "The biggest thing" that catches her interest is "him a-goin, there and a-gettin, in such times as that." She says, "I don't know hardly what he went for. He must have got deceived. He went up where he isn't treated as well as he thought he would or something. Must have been. sometimes people does get into things like that, don't they? It's like the boy here: he signed up hisself; he didn't have to go to this army, but he did. He's my kinfolks. When he cam back on a visit he said, 'Well, said, 'I didn't know what I was a-gettin' into.' "
Young Beham: Sung by Buna Hicks, December 9, 1966; learned from her husband, Roby Monroe Hicks, who learned it as a child. [Clearly her recollections of this ballad are wanting (or her husband never learned it well- his version is also wanting) and the ballad has deteriorated somewhat. From Burton/Manning- Folksongs II where the quatrains are divided in half, making the rhyme scheme (lines 2 and 4) confusing. R. Matteson 2014]
Young Beham, from Glasgow town,
The Turkish nation for to see.
The Turks took him as a prisonee
And bound him to a trusty tree.
Through his right shoulder they bored a hole,
And through and through they got a key.
They throwed him in a dark dungeonee [dungeon deep]
Where daylight he never could see.
The jailer lad a beautiful daughter,
A beautiful daughter, oh, was she.
"Have you any house or land?
Have you any buildings free.
"That you would give to a pretty girl
That set you at your liberty
"The Glasgow town, it is all mine,
Besides other buildin's two or three;
"That I would give to a pretty girl
That'd set me at my liberty.
"Give to me your faith and honor,
Your right hand, you'll marry me. "
He give to her his faith and honor, [1]
In seven years he'd marry her.
She paid down ninety thousand pounds
And set him at his liberty.
Miss Suzie Price thought the time very long
When seven years come rollin' on.
Her old father built her a boat
And over the ocean she did float.
She went till she came to Young Beham's gate;
There she rung the silver bell.
No one was willing to rise and let her come in
As Young Beham was himself. [2]
"Here, old woman, take back your daughter;
I'm sure I'm none the wust [worst] of her."
"Such work, such work a-going on,
Such work, such work I never did see.
"Marry one in the mornin' soon,
And marry the other one in the afternoon. "
1. Changes to third person narrative- with poor result
2. After at this point the story becomes lost, as it's unclear that Beham has married another girl.