Michele, I think this is what you're looking for....I hope!!

Suffolk Miracle (click)

best wishes, Yvonne

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"The Suffolk Miracle"

(Child 272)

This ballad is, in a blurred, enfeebled, and disfigured shape, the representative in England of one of the most remarkable tales and one of the most impressive and beautiful ballads of the European continent. The relationship is put beyond doubt by the existence of a story in Cornwall which comes much nearer to the Continental tale.

Long, long ago, Frank, a farmer's son, was in love with Nancy, a very attractive girl, who lived in the condition of a superior servant in his mother's house. Frank's parents opposed their matching, and sent the girl home to her mother; but the young pair continued to meet, and they bound themselves to each other for life or for death. To part them effectually, Frank was shipped for an India voyage. He could not write, and nothing was heard of him for nearly three years. On All-hallows-Eve Nancy went out with two companions to sow hemp-seed. Nancy began the rite, saying

Hemp-seed, I sow thee,
Hemp-seed, grow thee!
And he who will my true-love be
Come after me
And shaw thee.

This she said three times, and then, looking back over her left shoulder, she saw Frank indeed, but he looked so angry that she shrieked, and so broke the spell. One night in November a ship was wrecked on the coast, and Frank was cast ashore, with just enough life in him to ask that he might be married to Nancy before he died, a wish which was not to be fulfilled. On the night of his funeral, as Nancy was about to lock the house-door, a horseman rode up. His face was deadly pale, but Nancy knew him to be her lover. He told her that he had just arrived home, and had come to fetch her and make her his bride. Nancy was easily induced to spring on the horse behind him. When she clasped Frank's waist, her arm became stiff as ice. The horse went at a furious pace; the moon came out in full splendor. Nancy saw that the rider was in grave-clothes. She had lost the power of speech, but, passing a blacksmith's shop, where the smith was still at work, she recovered voice and cried, Save me! with all her might. The smith ran out with a hot iron in his hand, and, as the horse was rushing by, caught the girl's dress and pulled her to the ground. But the rider held on to the gown, and both Nancy and the smith were dragged on till they came to the churchyard. There the horse stopped for a moment, and the smith seized his chance to burn away the gown with his iron and free the girl. The horseman passed over the wall of the churchyard, and vanished at the grace in which the young man had been laid a few hours before. A piece of Nancy's dress was found on the grave. Nancy died before morning. It was said that one or two of the sailors who survived the wreck testified that Frank, on Halloween, was like one mad, and, after great excitement, lay for hours as if dead, and that when he came to himself he declared that if he ever married the woman who had cast the spell, he would make her suffer for drawing his soul out of his body. (Popular Romances of the West of England, collected and edited by Robert Hunt, First Series, pp. 265-72, dating from about 1830.) A tale of a dead man coming on horseback to his inconsolable love, and carrying her to his grace, is widely spread among the Slavic people and the Austrian Germans, was well known a century ago among the northern Germans, and has lately been recovered in the Netherlands, Denmark, Iceland, and Brittany. Besides the tale in its integrity, certain verses which occur in it, and which are of a kind sure to impress the memory, are very frequent, and these give evidence of a very extensive distribution. The verses are to this effect:

The moon shines bright in the lift,
The dead, they ride so swift,
Love, art thou not afraid?

to which the lovelorn maid answers,

How fear, when I am with thee?

A portion (or portions) of a Low German tale of this class, the verses and a little more, was the basis of Bürger's 'Lenore,' composed in 1773. There are also ballads with the same story, one in German, several in Slavic, but these have not so original a stamp as the tale, and have perhaps sprung from it.

In marked and pleasing contrast with most of the versions of this tale, in so many copies grotesque and ferocious, is a dignified and tender ballad, in which the lovers are replaced by brother and sister. This ballad is found among the Servians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Albanians, and Roumanians. . . .




A wonder stranger ne'r was known
Then what I now shall treat upon.
In Suffolk there did lately dwell
A farmer rich and known full well.


He had a daughter fair and bright,
On whom he plac'd his chief delight.
Her beauty was beyond compare,
She was both virtuous and fair.


A young man there was living by,
Who was so charmëd with her eye
That he could never be at rest,
He was with love so much possest.


He made address to her, and she
Did grant him love immediately;
Which when her father came to hear,
He parted her and her poor dear.


Forty miles distant she was sent,
Unto his brother's, with intent
That she should there so long remain
Till she had chang'd her mind again.


Hereat this young man sadly grieved,
But knew not how to be relievd;
He sighd and sobd continually
That his true love he could not see.


She by no means to him could send
Who was her heart's espousëd friend;
He sighd, she grievd, but all in vain,
For she confin'd must still remain.


He mourned so much that doctor's art
Could give no ease unto his heart;
Who was so strangely terrified,
That in short time for love he dyed.


She that from him was sent away
Knew nothing of his dying-day,
But constant still she did remain;
To love the dead was then in vain.


After he had in grave been laid
A month or more, unto this maid
He comes about middle of the night,
Who joyd to see her heart's delight.


Her father's horse, which well she knew,
Her mother's hood and safeguard too,
He brought with him to testifie
Her parent's orders he came by.


Which when her unckle understood,
He hop't it would be for her good,
And gave consent to her straightaway
That with him she should come away.


When she was got her love behind,
They pasd as swift as any wind,
That in two hours, or little more,
He brought her to her father's door.


But as they did this great haste make,
He did complain his head did ake;
Her handkerchief she then took out,
And tyed the same his head about.


And unto him she thus did say:
'Thou art as cold as any clay;
When we come home, a fire wee'l have;'
But little dream he went to grave.


Soon were they at her father's door,
And after she ne'er see him more;
'I'le set the horse up,' then he said,
And there he left this harmless maid.


She knockt, and strait a man he cryed,
'Who's there?' 'T is I,' she then replyed;
Who wondred much her voice to hear,
And was possest with dread and fear.


Her father he did tell, and then
He stared like an affrighted man:
Down stairs he ran, and when he see her,
Cry'd out, My child, how cam'st thou here?


'Pray, sir, did you not send for me,
By such a messenger?' said she:
Which made his hair stare on his head,
As knowing well that he was dead.


'Where is he?' then to her he said;
'He's in the stable,' quoth the maid.
'Go in,' said he, 'and go to bed;
I'le see the horse well littered.'


He stared about, and there could hee
No shape of any mankind see,
But found his horse all on a sweat;
Which made him in a deadly fret.


His daughter he said nothing to,
Nor no one else, though well they knew
That he was dead a month before,
For fear of grieving her full sore.


Her father to his father went
Who was deceased, with this intent,
To tell him what his daughter said;
So both came back unto this maid.


They askd her, and she still did say
'T was he that then brought her away;
Which when they heard they were amaz'd,
And on each other strangely gaz'd.


A handkerchief she said she tyed
About his head, and that they tryed;
The sexton they did speak unto,
That he the grave would then undo.


Affrighted then they did behold
His body turning into mould,
And though he had a month been dead,
This kerchief was about his head.


This thing unto her then they told,
And the whole truth they did unfold;
She was thereat so terrified
And grievd, she quickly after dyed.


Part not true love, you rich men, then;
But, if they be right honest men
Your daughters love, give them their way,
For force oft breeds their lives' decay.