Hi,

I'm finishing up roughing in the US and Canada versions in my collection and putting them on my site.

Child 295 is the last (since I already did "Trooper and the Maid"). So I stumbled in a version of Child 295A from West Virginia in Singa Hypsy Doodle, even tho I'd seen it and put aside for later I never realized how important and rare it is until now.

Boette wrongly label's this Child 73, her notes follow:


According to Winnifred Brown Scott, who
sang this song in 1969, her aunt, Sarah Brown
Connolly, and her father, Emery Ellsworth Brown
of Ritchie County, sang it too. They said the brothers in the family sang it to tease their sisters. The
song utent back to the family of John Brown who
came to what is now Leutis County in 1784 and
built the old Fort Mongue on White Oak Flats.
Child No. 73 is usually known as "Lord
Thomas and Fair Eleanor," "Fair Ellender" or the
"Brown Girl." Found in many parts of America,
this is a most unusual uersion in that the brown
girl and the pretty fair maid change places.


The Bonny Brown Girl

Collected by Juanita Dawson



1- I am as brown as brown can be, my eyes are black as a sloe,
I am as brisk as a nightingale and as wild as any doe.

2- My love he was so high and proud, his fortune too so high,
He for another fair pretty maid, he left me and passed me by.

3- Me did he send a love letter, he sent it from the town,
Saying no more he loved me for that I was so brown.

4- I sent his letter back again saying his love I valued not;
Whether that he would fancy me, whether that he would not.

5- When a six months were overpassed and gone
Then did my lover, once so bold, lie on his bed and groan.

6- First sent he for the doctor-man; "You, Doctor, me must cure,
These terrible pains do torture me, I can not long endure."

7- Next did he send from out the town, oh next he sent for me.
He sent for me the brown, brown girl who once his wife should be.

8- When I came to my sick love's bedside where he lay so dang'rous sick,
I could not for laughing stand upright upon my feet.

9- The white wand I held in my hand and stroked it on his breast;
"My faith and troth I give back to thee, so may thy soul have rest.

10- I've done as much for my true love as other maidens may,
I'll dance and sing on your grave a whole twelve month and a day."