Part VII

There is another group of four versions plus a fragment that I want to consider. They are from Elmer George VT, Lena Bourne Fish NH, Allen Johnson ME, and Mrs. Cornwright NY, along with the fragment from Mrs. Wales VT, learned from her grandmother, Mrs. Bissell. The four complete versions have an amazing number of things in common, which are not in the Andrews/De Marsan broadside, definitely suggesting some other source.

Setting aside the Wales fragment for moment, the other four all begin with almost identically the same verse:

"Well met, well met, my pretty fair maid,"
"No so very well met," said she,
"For I am married to a house carpenter,
And a very fine man is he;

Fish has "a ship carpenter" instead of "a house carpenter." What is interesting about this is not only that they all have the same wording, but that this is a conflation of the opening two verses from the broadside. They also use "pretty fair maid" instead of "my own true love."

Three of the four versions, from Cornwright, Johnson, and George use a repetition of the last two lines of each verse as a refrain, which is somewhat unusual in ballad singing. This is also true for the versions by Reynolds ME/NH, Luther NH, and Mancour VT.

All four versions have "the grass grows GREEN, On the banks of a sweet VALLEY." Three of them (Johnson, George, and Fish) use the word "entertain" in the third verse, "What have you there to ENTERTAIN me on/with?" And three of them (George, Fish, and Cornwright) use the word "slavery" instead of "misery". Johnson has "And keep me company." Three (George, Fish and Johnson) have almost identical fourth verses:

"Oh, I have ships all in the bay [Johnson has "a thousand ships"]
And plenty more upon land,
Five hundred and ten of as fine young men.
They are all at your command."          [all four agree on these last two lines]

There is strong agreement from all four versions on the next verse about "kisses three." Then two of the versions (George and Johnson) have almost identical versions of the "riches" verse that they insert at this point:

She went upstairs to dress herself
Most beautiful to behold.
'Twas then she walk-ed the streets all along,
And she shone like the glittering gold.

All four versions have almost identical accounts of the lady mourning most bitterly (Fish has "most pitifully"). They all agree on the "six weeks at sea":

She had not sailed six weeks on the sea,
Oh, no, not more than three,
Before this fair lady began for to mourn
And she mourned most bitterlee.

And the fragment from Wales has almost the same thing:

They had not sailed a month or more,
A month or scarcely three,
When she began to weep and lament
And to mourn most bitterlie.

All four versions and the fragment agree on the next verse about "weeping for gold':

"O do you weep for gold, " he said,
"Or do you weep for me,
Or do you weep for your house carpenter
That you left to come with me?"

And then, all five of these versions agree that she is weeping FOR the House Carpenter, "But I do weep for my house carpenter..." The four main versions add the baby.

All five versions have the strange line in the last verse about a hole in the ship springing a leak:

When a hole in the ship, and the ship sprang a leak   (Wales)

When a hole in the ship it sprang a leak,    (Johnson)

At the bottom of the ship there sprang a leak    (Fish)

Before that hole in the ship sprang a leak   (George)

When a hole in the ship caught a leak,    (Cornwright)

And finally, none of these five versions have a curse verse. They all end with the ship going down.

When you put these five versions along side of each other they clearly look like they have a common source. All four of the main versions agree on six points that are not in the broadside version. And there is some agreement on up to ten points that are not in the broadside. It seems to me that these five versions are the strongest and most coherent evidence we have for an alternate source different from the Andrews/De Marsan broadside for this ballad in the Northeast.