Origins: Fair Margaret and Sweet William

Subject: Origins: Fair Magaret and Sweet William
From: Mary Humphreys
Date: 30 Jul 03 - 02:21 PM

Has anyone anything to add to the current information on the DT website?
I have a version that I got from a book many years ago - I think it might be CJ Sharp ( prepared to be shot down in flames for wrong attribution ) which starts with Margaret seeing her lover Sweet Wm taking his brde home and then the groom having nightmares etc
Mary Humphreys

Subject: RE: Origins: Fair Magaret and Sweet William
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jul 03 - 02:40 PM

It's first found on a early 18th century broadside printed by Sarah Bates.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fair Margaret and Sweet William
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jul 03 - 02:52 PM

I forgot to note that you can see that earliest copy on the Bodleian Ballads website. Browse on title 'Fair Margarets' and it's the first of two copies there.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fair Margaret and Sweet William
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Jul 03 - 03:11 PM

Gee Mary, yolu've opened a can of worms, I think. If you use our Advanced Search and search for both Margaret and William, you get a number of songs. Has your version been posted?
I gather you're talking about Child #74 - we have this version in the Digital Tradition.
What about Sweet William's Ghost? does that fit into the mix somehow?
-Joe Offer, lost and confused-

Subject: Lyr Add: FAIR MARGARET AND SWEET WILLIAM
From: Mary Humphreys
Date: 30 Jul 03 - 04:31 PM

Your version of Child 74 in the DT is quite different from mine, though the story line is essentially the same. My song is definitely not Sweet William's Ghost. I think mine was collected by CJ Sharp. I would really like more information on its origins. Unfortunately I didn't make any notes on it when I first found it in a book of English Folk Songs over 30 years ago. I have been singing it over all these years, with a consequent attrition of information as the old memory declines!

My version goes :

Fair Margaret stood at her bower window a-combing of her hair
She saw Sweet William and his bride as they came riding there.
Then down she threw her ivory comb and up she bound her hair
& forth she went from her chamber & never more came there.

Sweet William had such dreams that night , such dreams they were not good
He dreamed his bower was full of white swine & his bride-bed full of blood
So up he called his merry men by 1 by 2 by 3
Now ride we to Fair Margaret's bower by leave of my lady

When he came to Fair Margaret's door he knocked at the ring
So ready were her 7 brothers to let Sweet William in.
O let me see the dead, he cried O she looks wondrous wan
He oft-times kissed those lily white cheeks where the cherry red had flown.

Then up spoke Margaret's 7 brothers all in a piteous tone
Go you & kiss your nut-brown bride & leave our kin alone.
And if I kiss my nut-brown bride I do but what I may
I swore no vow to your sister & I have no debt to pay.

But we will give & give like share of wheat bread & of wine
To deal on this her burial day, to deal the morn on mine.
Fair Margaret died today, today, Sweet Wiliiam died the morrow
Fair Margaret died for pure true love, Sweet Willam died of sorrow.

Subject: Tune Add: FAIR MARGARET AND SWEET WILLIAM
From: treewind
Date: 30 Jul 03 - 04:49 PM

In case anyone wanted the tune to go with that...

X: 0
  T: Fair Margaret and Sweet William
  N: Tune for the song as sung by Mary Humphreys
  N: Origin of this version unknown
  Z: Anahata [e-mail]
  M: 4/4
  L: 1/8
  K: Dmin
  FG | A2 A2 A2 F2 | G2 G2 G2 GA | B2 A2 G2 F2 | E6 G2 |
  F2 E2 D2 C2 | D2 B2 A2 G2 | F2 D2 E2 E2 | D6 ||
  

To see the dots, paste into the box on http://www.concertina.net/tunes_convert.html

Anahata

Subject: RE: Origins: Fair Margaret and Sweet William
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jul 03 - 05:10 PM

The question was ORIGINS. There are over 250 traditional versions listed in Steve Roud's folk song index, and many late broadside copies in his broadside ballad index. [Many with tunes in Bronson's 'The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads'.]

Prof Child took the Douce collection copy to be of the late 17th century, but Sarah Bates was the widow of Charles Bates, and Charles was still active in 1702.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fair Margaret and Sweet William
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 30 Jul 03 - 10:57 PM

The Bodleian copy, Douce Ballads 1(72a), S. Bates, London (Giltspur street) is dated by them as ca. 1720. It is identical with the Ballad 74A, Fair Margaret and Sweet William, in Child. In the Bodleian Collection, the title on the broadside is "Fair Margaret's Misfortune, Sweet William's Frightful Dreams on his Wedding Night: With the sudden Death and Burial of thise Noble Lovers. To an Excellent New Tune (inserted in ink, not readable by me)." Easily seen at the Univ. Hawai'i website or in vol. 2 of the new edition of Child (The on line text lacks the appended American version from Massachusetts, which is in the printed Child).
The Bodleian has another version, similar to the Bates broadside, with the same title, also in an 18th c. type font (Douce Ballads 3(27a).

Other versions are in Bronson and most North American folk song collections.
The American version in the DT is quite different from the original English ballad.

Sweet William's Ghost (Child 77) is a different song, but one reminds of the other.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fair Margaret and Sweet William
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 30 Jul 03 - 11:13 PM

Mary Humphries- The bad dreams, of red swine (not white), and the bride's bed full of blood, are in Child 74A and the broadsides at the Bodleian.
Sharp's version (white swine) is in Branson, but it is otherwise quite different from the text of your version. The brothers are mentioned in Bodleian and Child 74A texts, but not in the Sharp text in Branson.

Subject: Lyr Add: FAIR MARGARET AND SWEET WILLIAM
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 31 Jul 03 - 01:30 PM

FAIR MARGARET AND SWEET WILLIAM
(Sharp MSS)

Sweet William rose one morning in May
And dressed himself in blue.
Pray tell us this long, long love, said they,
Between Lady Margaret and you.

I know no harm of Lady Margaret,
And she knows none of me;
This day before twelve o'clock shall come
Lady Margaret my bride shall see.

Lady Margaret was standing in her own hall door,
Combing her long yellow hair;
Sweet William came along with his bride;
She was ne'er seen again there.

I dreamed a dream last night, mother,
I know it was no good.
I dreamed my hall was filled with white swine
And washed away in blood.

Is Lady Margaret at home,
Or is she at her bower,
Or is she in her own dining-room
Among her merry maids all?

Yes, Lady Margaret's at home,
But she's not in her bower;
Lady Margaret is dead and in her coffin
That stands against yonders cold wall.

Throw down, throw down those white winding sheets,
My soul doth her entwine.
O may I kiss Lady Margaret's sweet lips,
For I know she will never kiss mine.

With music, from Bronson, "The Singing Tradition of Child's Popular ballads, 74, Fair Margaret and Sweet William, group cb, 47. Sharp MSS, 4596/3215. Also Sharp and Karpeles, 1932, I. Sung by Mrs. Virginia Bennett, Burnsville, N. C., 1918.
The 'white swine' is in the song as sung by Mary Humphrey (above), the 'bride-bed full of blood' in the Bodleian broadsides, and the food and wine from a version collected by Karpeles, 1934, from Newfoundland. The last has the lady entangled with a swan in her bed, no swine.
The many versions differ in details.

For I dreamed a terrible drean,
I'm afraid it's not for our good.
I dreamed that my love was entangled with a swan
And my bride's bed flowing with bread.

This version from Karpeles has the briar and rose entwined in a knot, of the old broadsides.

A long version, sung by Jean Ritchie, Kentucky, and reproduced in Bronson, has 'wild swine' filling William's hall. (Riverside LP, RLP2-620, Ritchie family).

Subject: Tune Add: FAIR MARGARET AND SWEET WILLIAM
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Jul 03 - 01:48 PM

X:1
T:Fair Margaret and Sweet William
C:Sung by Virginia Bennett
I:abc2nwc
M:3/2
L:1/8
K:C
z4z4z2C2|C2E E G6F2| (3A2E2D2C6"^|"G2|c6G2c2G2|
w:Sweet Will-iam a-rose one morn-ing in May And dressed him-self in
[M:2/2]E6"^|"G4|
w:blue Pray
[M:3/2] (3e2d2c2c6A2|G2c2G6"^|"C2|G4E E (3G2E2D2|C6z6
w:tell us this long, long love, said they,Be-tween lad-y Mar-gret and you.

Subject: RE: Origins: Fair Margaret and Sweet William
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 31 Jul 03 - 03:30 PM

Ballad # 11 on CD, "Jean Ritchie, Ballads fro her Appalachian Family Tradition." Smithsonian Folkways, a new release (combining the two original ballad albums, Folkways. This version was sung to us by our neighbor, Justice Begley of Hazard, KY. He was High Sheriff of Perry Co. for awhile, and used to electioneer by playing his banjo and singing, after his political speech at gatherings.