Hi,

After thinking about it I'm convinced that child A is not traditional, i.e. it's not taken from a traditional singer but is in fact two versions sewn together.

In stanza 6. the repeated last line changes to: "For I'm sick at the heart," whereas the first 5 stanzas it was "For I'm wearied wi huntin,". In my experience a singer will not change a refrain after 5 stanzas and then keep it changed-- it simple doesn't happen. Since there is no documentation about the source of A and it's in a "later hand" it appears that it's not traditional, it's two two versions sewn together.

There's a version from the WPA collection in Virginia that is a copy of child A and not traditional. Apparently the collector Hylton was not familiar with Child A- but the reason I noted it was a copy was that in Stanza 6 the last line changed --just as in Child A-- showing definitively that it was a copy.

This alerted me to the apparent combining two versions in Child A.

I have two questions- any info about the French-Canadian versions of Lord Randal (sung in French)? Any texts?


Is the Croodin Doo traditional in the US?

Richie