Hi,

Great news!!! I finally got the Leach ballad, Beam of Oak. His book, "Folk Ballads and Songs of the Lower Labrador Coast" (by MacEdward Leach) came in the mail today. Beam of Oak was mentioned in the Died for Love first thread (see link above- closed thread). It is an excellent traditional version of B, similar to the broadside-- "Cruel Father or Deceived Maid." This is one of only three extant traditional versions that are reasonably close to the original.

Beam of Oak - Sung by Stuart Letto of Lance au Clair, Labrador in July, 1960.

1. A farmer's daughter, you may understand,
She fell in love with a servant man.
And when her father came this to hear,
He separated her from her dear.

2. We haven't been scarce three days at sea,
When they fell into a bloody fray.
It was this young man's lot to fall;
He lost his life by a cannon ball.

3. Scarce three days after, this young man was seen;
His deathly ghost to her father came,
With his deadly wounds by his bedside stood,
With his arms and shoulders all covered with blood.

4. So when this lady came this to hear,
How she had lost her own true dear,
That very night to the beam of oak
She hung herself with her own bed rope.

5. Her father he came home late that night,
Inquiring for his own heart's delight,
He went upstairs and the door he broke;
He found her hanging to the beam of oak.

6. The servants, they all gathered round,
All for to cut this fair maiden down,
And in her bosom there was concealed
A written note of true loves revealed.

7. It was wrote with blood by a woman's hand.
She wrote these words, as you may understand.
Saying, "Father father the worst of men,
Twas you that brought me to this untimely end.

8. "You sent my Willie away from me,
Which caused my ruin and his destiny."
Her father, he did speechless remain,
And the tears ran down his cheeks like rain.

9. Her father, so we are told, went mad;
Her mother being almost as bad;
May this sad tale now a warning be
Of this sad, doleful sad, tragedy.

This is the title of The Traditional Ballad Index entry which gives Roud 18830 as the Roud number. According to Steve Gardham, Roud 18830 is Rambling Boy, a different ballad with the same ending (suicide). If you look at Roud 18830 only two versions are Cruel Father (Beam of Oak and Rambling Boy- the cowboy song of c. 1916). Apparently Rambling Boy and Cruel Father have not been separated yet, or some confusion exists, which is typical of the Died for Love ballads. As far as I know, I have every version of "Cruel Father"-- all 19 versions-- except most of them are very corrupt. If you remember in the Died for Love II thread (link above- closed) I posted an old Hicks/Harmon version from Rebecca Harmon that could date back to the 1700s in Virginia. Harmon's version is typical of most US versions- it's very corrupt. There is not actually a Roud number for Beam of Oak (assuming Roud 18830 is Rambling Boy) but Steve Gardham told me to use Roud 23272. So I'm petitioning the brilliant Steves (Gardham and Roud) to get this str8ened out!!!!

The "beam of oak" is what the daughter ties the rope upon which she uses to hang herself. The suicide by hanging and the similar opening is what ties this variant to Rambling Boy and some other Died for Love songs. The suicide, for example, is also found in Foolish Young Girl. The plot of Cruel Father is this: A father finds out his daughter has fallen in love with an apprentice and presses the young man to become a sailor aboard a man-o'-war. Soon after going to sea, the sailor is killed in battle by a cannonball. That very night the sailor's ghost haunts the father. Shortly thereafter the father comes home and finds his daughter "hanging from a rope." After he cuts her down he finds a note on her breast calling him the worst of all men. Only the Queen of Hearts shares this plot, but in the Queen of Hearts the plot is only two stanzas added at the end- as an afterthought.

It seems possible that Cruel Father is the progenitor of the Rambling Boy which is the same ballad without a distinct plot and uses floating Died for Love stanzas. In Rambling Boy the girl's suicide is the result of her unrequited love.

Richie