The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #9556   Message #510047
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
18-Jul-01 - 09:16 PM
Thread Name: The Four Marys - who were they really?
Subject: RE: The Four Mary's - who were they really?
As has already been mentioned, this is Professor Child's number #173 (English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 1884-98).   At this point, I'd best just indicate some of what's already available online at some of the more reliable sites:

In the Digital Tradition:

THE FOUR MARIES  Text and tune from the Grieg-Duncan Collection; no original source is named, but Bruce Olson has mentioned elsewhere that this one came from Susan and Mary Strachan in 1916.

MARY MILD  Another text and tune from the Grieg-Duncan Collection; no original source named.

MARY HAMILTON (2)  From a record by Jean Redpath; no tune given or previous source named. The text appears to be a cut-down version of Child's #173:I, which was taken from Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Borders, and was itself a collation of several texts. Jean doesn't name her source for either text or tune in the notes to her recording.

MARY HAMILTON  Text and tune from the Joan Baez Songbook, with no indication given as to source.

In the Forum:

lyrics req: Four Mary's  Contains an unformatted text taken from a 1960s book with no original source named; it's actually Child's version A, which was largely taken from C.K. Sharpe's Ballad Book (1824),

There is an entry at  The Traditional Ballad Index:

Mary Hamilton [Child 173]

At Lesley Nelson's  Folk Music  site:

The Four Marys  Text and tune from Jerry Silberman's Songs of the British Isles; no original source source named.

There are two American variants with soundfiles, both of which use the best-known tune, at  The Max Hunter Folk Song Collection:

Mary Hamilton  As sung by Jane Robinson, Fayetteville, Arkansas on June 21, 1958

Four Mary's  As sung by Almeda Riddle, Heber Springs, Arkansas on October 23, 1965 ^^