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User Name Thread Name Subject Posted
Richie Origins: Child Ballads in Ireland (80* d) Lyr Add: THREE LADIES PLAYING AT BALL 19 Jun 18


Hi Jim,

I think you are looking for recorded Irish versions of Child Ballads, sorry. Child 10J is also from Ireland, here's the text from Notes & Queries:

"Three Ladies Playing At Ball" (4th S. iv. 517.)—I was familiar in childhood in the north of Ireland with this ballad: now, alas! quite forgotten, except a line or two and its refrain, which diners from those recorded in "N. & Q.": —

"There were two ladies playing ball,
Hey, ho, my Nannie O!
A great lord came to court them all:
The swan she does swim bonnie O!

"He gave to the first a golden ring,
Hey, ho, my Nannie O!
He gave to the second a far better thing,
The swan she does swim bonnie, O!"

The drowning of the sister occurs in the millstream; and the finding of the body by—whom I know not—a harper or the true knight: —

"He made a harp of her breast bone,
Hey, ho, my Nannie O!"

The harper takes it to court, and —

"He set it down upon a stone,
Hey, ho, my Nannie O!
And it began to play its lone [alone],
The swan she does swim bonnie, O!"

Cietera daunt.

* * * *


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