"typing in John Rae in the S.O.S.S.site brings up no results"

My mistake: it's Joe Rae and the ballad is listed as 'Daemon Lover'.


"this ballad was first published in 1657 (as a broadside?)"

Yes, John - with a very lengthy title beginning 'A Warning for Married Women', and initialled by Lawrence Price, rhymester of the day. This is the same text as Child 243 A.

But there's no reason to suppose that this version ever went to Massachsetts. You should look at Clinton Heylin's 'Dylan's Daemon Lover' a somewhat rambling and shambolically edited account that nonetheless contains some good research and gems of information.

According to Child, he next known copy after the 1657 broadside is his version B, from 'The Rambler's Garland' (1785). However Heylin found the same version, titled 'The Ship Carpenter's Wife', in 'A Collection of Diverting Songs' ca. 1737, and he speculates that the author of this volume used a pre-existing broadside as the source, possibly pushing it back to the early 18th or even late 17th C. However this version is considerably different from the A text.

I've pasted Heylin's transcription of the De Marsan broadside below. This is printed in the Journal of American Folklore v18 p207, but I can't access that. De Marsan was a reissue of an earlier copy attributed to J. Andrews of New York, supposedly in the Harris collection at Brown University, but not appearing in their online list.

I'll get back to the discussion tomorrw.


De Marsan broadside:

Well met, well met, my own true love
Long time have I been seeking thee
I'm lately come from the Salt Seas
And all for the sake, love, of thee

I might have married a king's daughter
You might have married her, cried she
For I am married to a house-carpenter
And a fine young man is he!

If you will forsake your House-Carpenter
And go along with me
I will take you to where the grass grows high
On the banks of old Tennessee!

If I forsake my House-Carpenter
And go along with thee
What have you got to keep me upon
And keep me from misery?

Says he, I've got six ships at sea
All sailing to dry land
One hundred & ten of your own countrymen
Love, they shall be at your command

She took her babe upon her knee
And kissed it one, two and three
Saying, Stay at home, my darling sweet babe
And keep your father's company!

They had not sailed four weeks or more
Four weeks, or scarcely three
When she thought of her darling sweet babe at home
And she wept most bitterly

Says he, "Are you weeping for gold, my love
Or are you weeping for fear
Or are you weeping for your House-Carpenter
That you left and followed me?

I am not weeping for gold she replied
Nor am I weeping for fear
But I am weeping alone for my sweet little babe
That I left with my house-carpenter

Oh, dry up your tears, my own true love
And cease your weeping, cried he
For soon you'll see your own happy home
On the banks of old Tennessee!

They had not sailed five weeks or more
Five weeks or scarcely four
When the ship struck a rock and sprang a leak
And they were never seen any more

A curse be on the sea-faring men
Oh cursed be their lives
For while they are robbing the House-Carpenter
And coaxing away their wives