The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #14534   Message #125503
Posted By: Judy Cook
19-Oct-99 - 10:15 AM
Thread Name: Origins: The Silk Merchant's Daughter
Subject: RE: The Silk Merchant's Daughter
This is wonderful. Thank you all! I have versions from Gardner(MI), Brewster(IN), Brown(NC), Cox(just a few lines from WV), Doerflinger(ON), Hudson(MS), Morris(FL), Randlolph(MO), Sharp(NC), and the Journal of American Folklore(NC), a few I have here, but mostly the result of a lovely afternoon at the Library of Congress.

After reading John Moulden's message I ran to vol.1 of Greig Duncan (sure enough, there it is!) and to Walter Pardon's recording "Our Side of the Baulk" (we won it at the raffle at the Bodmin Folk Club in 1987). Couldn't find the song on the record - I skimmed the lyrics in case it was under a different title.

This interest came up because Kathy Westra, another mudcatter, asked me to sing a broken token ballad at her workshop at NOMAD next month. Not all the versions have the broken token - I guess maybe that's an accrual as well? So far the one I like best is in Sharp, so I'll probably learn that one.

Again, thanks! I'm new to the mudcat, though I have been hearing about it from friends for a long time.

Judy Cook