Identify verse

Subject: RE: Identify verse
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Nov 18 - 04:57 PM

Thanks, Mick
I should have gone to Bronson straight away. I make it 6 versions in Bronson are like this, and I'm finding a few odd others published since Bronson. Apart from the 2 S. English versions it seems to have survived mainly in Nova Scotia with one from Newfoundland. I know there are connections between the south coast and eastern Canada. At least one of Hammond's singers was a fisherman who had fished off Newfoundland/NS and some of his songs are definitely closely related to versions collected from there.

That Kathrine Jaffray verse is interesting, but for me to have recognised it straight away it must be fairly common somewhere. I'll start looking at the murder ballads.

Subject: RE: Identify verse
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 20 Nov 18 - 05:56 PM

From the concordance to Child using he courted her, I found that Katherine Jafray 221E has the 1st 2 lines more or less:

221E.2         He courted her the live-long winter-night,
         Sae has he the simmer’s day;
         He has courted her sae long
         Till he sta her heart away

The last 2 lines are similar to a version another Child 4 in Bronson, version 61:

1. There was a lord in Ambertown
  Courted a lady fair,
And all he wanted of this pretty fair maid
  Was to take her life away.

(Pretty Polly: Mackenzie, 1928, p. 391; text, pp. 7-8. Sung by Mrs. Levi Langille, Pictou County, Nova Scotia.)

And in fact the whole verse is similar to a couple of the versions in Bronson for Child 4:

versions 41:


2. He courted her many a long winter's night
  And many a short winter's day
And he laid in wait both early & late
  To take her sweet life away.

(aring-Gould MSS., CXIV( 2 ); text, (C). Also in Goss, 1937, p. 4(B). sung by Richard Gregory, Moor man, Two Bridges, January 1889. Collected by F. W, Busse)

and 73:

. He courted her a long winter's night,
  And many a long summer's day,
And all he courted his fair lady for
  Was to take her sweet life away.

(the Minnie Payne version from earlier)


apart from Luggs's 90.


Mick

Subject: RE: Identify verse
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 20 Nov 18 - 05:54 PM

Mick,
Mrs Payne has both of the interloper stanzas. I'm now beginning to think broadside here. Lugg was from Launceston, Cornwall. Oh dear, I'm going to have to check every version now to see if there are any others.
Still would like to know where that second stanza is derived from.

Subject: RE: Identify verse
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 20 Nov 18 - 05:07 PM

Brilliant, Mick! I've got Greenleaf. I'll check it out as well as other NF versions. I'm sure it's an interloper from elsewhere though.

Subject: RE: Identify verse
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 20 Nov 18 - 04:43 PM

The verse appears almost identically in a version of Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight collected from Mrs Minnie Payne of Green Point, 1920 in Ballads and Sea-Songs of Newfoundland ( Elizabeth Bristol Greenleaf, Grace Yarrow Mansfield):

He courted her a long winter's night,
  And many a long summer's day,
And all he courted his fair lady for
  Was to take her sweet life away.


See Lady Isabel And the Elf Knight in Ballads ads Sea-Songs of Newfoundland (google books)

Mick

Subject: Identify verse
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 20 Nov 18 - 03:15 PM

Another request. One for Richie or Jon or Mick perhaps.

In William Lugg's version of The Outlandish Knight someone has tagged on 2 stanzas to the beginning from other ballads. Stanza 1 is just a straight first stanza of The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington but stanza 2 I know is common but I can't place it. Can you save me a long search?

He courted her for many long winter nights
And many a long summer day
He courted her both early and late,
For to take her sweet life away.

Perhaps it sounds familiar because it's several cliches put together. the first 2 lines are similar to 'The Foggy Dew' But what about that last line?