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Subject: RE: Origins: James Madison Carpenter- Child Ballads 5 From: Richie Date: 13 Mar 19 - 01:09 PM Hi, I'm still here just had some life changes and won't have time to work on Carpenter/Child ballads for a while. Final corrections and suggestions of the earliest version of Child 13, the Swedish "Sohnen i Roosengård," have been made by Per G. L. Ahlander, an independent scholar who is a member of the Swedish Society for Musicology. See his footnote below. The murder of the brother itself is never literally stated but carefully implied through the dialogue beginning with Stanza 8. Here is the complete ballad and translation: Sohnen i Roosengård (my title, dated c. 1640, from Swedish MS, UUB T 144 b, pp. 79-80; Jonsson I, pp. 190-195.) [Son in the Rose Garden/ Son of Roosengård] 1 Alt godt iagh tigh meddeelar, Sohnen i Roosengård Mycket der vthi feelar, Käre Moder wår (vår) - i wänten oss aldrig. ["All good things I tell to you, Son in the rose garden." Many of these things are flawed, Dear mother of ours [lit.: Dear mother ours] - Expect us[me] never." 2 Nåde och frijd aff herran: Sohnen i Roosengårdh: den ware migh ey fierran. Käre moder wår ["Grace and peace of the Lord Son in the rose garden: May it not be far from me. Dear mother of ours."] 3 Kan iagh gott aff digh spöria: Sonen i Roosengård: Nu först det icke börias Käre Moder wår ["Can I ask you of good things, Son in the rosegarden?" "Don’t start that now, Dear mother of ours."] 4 "Annat iagh ey tänker: Sohnen i Roosengårdh, dett werlden migh ihnskänker, Käre moder wår ["I don’t think anything else, Son in the rosegarden. "Whatever the world brings me, Dear mother of ours."] 5 Dageligh du dygdh öfwa: Sohnen i Rosengårdh: effter som dee migh pröfwa: Käre moder wår ["Every day you do good deeds, Son in the rosegarden." "Because they test/challenge me, Dear mother of ours."] 6 Rijkedom effter trachta: Sohnen i Roosengårdh: den iagh lijtet achtar, Kära moder wår ["Coveting riches: Son in the rosegarden." "I have but little desire of that, Dear mother of ours."] 7 Redeligen wandra: Sohnen i Roosengårdh: hoos edher och bland andra: Kära moder vår ["To wander (ie. to conduct myself) decently Son in the rose garden." "With you and among others, Dear mother of ours."] 8 Inthet hörs aff din brodher: Sohnen i Roosengårdh han war migh aldrigh godher Kära Moder wår ["Nothing is heard of your brother, Son in the rose garden." "He was never good to me, Dear mother of ours."] 9 Ey mon han dödher wara, Sohnen i Roosengård: Jo, så plä skalkar fahra Kära moder wår ["Might he be dead? Son in the rose garden." "Indeed, that is often the fate of scoundrels, Dear mother of ours."] 10 Aldrigh du det förgäter, Sohnen i Roosengårdh: Jagh slipper fulle släter: Käre Moder wår ["You will never forget it (his murder), Son in the rosegarden." "I will avoid it completely, Dear mother of ours."] 11 Ney du skall det betaala: Sohnen i Roosengård: Jagh will der medh förhaala Kära Moder wår ["No, you must pay for this (murder): Son in the rosegarden." "I shall delay it, Dear mother of ours."] 12 Sannerligh det ey hielper: Sohnen i Roosengårdh: fögha det migh stielper. Käre Moder wår, ["Truly it will not help: Son in the rosegarden." It will hardly hinder me, Dear mother of ours."] 13 Ey will du migh bedröfwa: Sohnen i Roosengård. här i hielper det fögha. Käre Moder wår, ["You will not cause me sorrow; Son in the rosegarden." "That can hardly be helped. Dear mother of ours."] 14 Rundeligh kan du bööta: Sohnen i Roosengård. Jagh tohl ey dee migh hööta Kära moder wår ["You will pay in full, Son in the rosegarden." "I can’t stand that they (you?) threaten me, Dear mother of ours."] 15 Zeel må du nähr migh wara: Sohnen i Rosengård Jagh blijhr ey vthan fahra. Kära moder wår ["You should be near me, Son in the rosegarden." I will not be without danger, Dear mother of ours."] 16 Annat då hahr iagh med digh mehnt, Sohnen i Rosengård Jagh fruchtar det är nu förseendt. Kära Moder wår [I wanted it to be otherwise for you, Son in the rosegarden." I fear it is now too late, Dear mother of ours."] 17 Jagh hahr digh ähmat trösta: Sohnen i Rosengård Det är ey till det bästa: Kära moder wåhr ["I had thought I would comfort you, Son in the rosegarden. That would not be for the best, Dear mother of ours."] 19 Så will du hedan reesa: Sohnen i Roosengård Ja, dijt iagh rååkar lijsa Käre moder wåhr ["So you want to travel away from here, Son in the rosegarden?" Yes, to wherever I find relief, Dear mother of ours."] 21 Så sägh migh då ditt Näste: Sohnen i Roosengård. Ey det på första Qwisten. Ka ra Moder wår ["So tell me then where your nest will be (lit. So tell me then your nest), Son in the rosegarden?" "Not on the first branch, Dear mother of ours." 22 Då, huadh mehnar din fader: Sohnen i Roosengård på den är iagh ey gladher: Kära moder wår ["Then what will your father think, Son in the rosegarden?" "I am not happy about father's thoughts, Dear mother of ours." 23 Han will digh ighen tagha, Sohnen i Rosengård Jagh skall wäl annars lagha, Kära Moder wår ["He will take you back, Son in the rosegarden." "I suppose it will be otherwise (I will have it otherwise), Dear mother of ours." 24 Din fader digh wäll finner, Sohnen i roosengård. Nappast han migh hinner Kära Moder wår ["I suppose your father will find you, Son in the rosegarden." "He will hardly reach me, Dear mother of ours."] 25 Ähn Konungen i rijket: Sohnen i Roosengård. han finner wäl sihn lijke: Käre Modher wåhr. ["As the king in his realm, Son in the rosegarden." I suppose he will find his kin, Dear mother of ours. 26 Hwart hahr du ähmat lända sohnen i Roosengård Dijt werlden hahr ehn ända Kära moder wår ["Where do you think you will go, Son in the rosegarden?" "To where the world has an end, Dear mother of ours."] 27 Hwad will du dig medh fööda sohnen i Roosengård Medh ahrbethe och möda, Käre moder wår, [How will you earn a living? (lit.: how will you feed yourself) Son in the rosegarden?" By work and weariness, Dear mother of ours."] 28 När kommer du åter Sohnen i Roosengård När Elden blifaer wåter. Kära moder wår ["When will you come back? Son in the rosegarden?" When the fire turns wet, Dear mother of ours."] 29 När will du ighen komma. Sohnen i Roosengård När steenen står i blomma. Kära moder wår ["When will you come back? Son in the rose garden." When the stone is in bloom. Dear mother of ours."] 30 När will du blijfwa hemma Sohnen i Roosengård När stenen böriar simma. Kära moder wår ["When will you be home? Son in the rose garden." "When the stone starts to swim, Dear mother of ours."] 31 När skall iag till digh hinna. Sohnen i Roosengård När watnet böriar brinna Käre moder wår ["When shall I reach you, Son in the rose garden?" "When water starts burning, Dear mother of ours."] 32 När seer iagh digh min bästa Sohnen i Roosengård När som det dagas wästan Käre moder wår [When will I see you again, my dear? Son in the rose garden." When day breaks in the west, Dear mother of ours."] 33 Skall iagh mehr om digh fråga Sohnen i Roosengård der före i nu råda. Kära moder wåhr - i wänten oss aldrig. ["Shall I ask any more about you? Son in the rose garden." That is for you to decide, Dear mother of ours - Expect us (me) never."] The opening stanza of this archaic Swedish ballad establishes the dialogue between the "son in the rose garden" and "Käre Moder wår (vår)" which is literally "dear mother ours." The "ours" refers to the other children and in stanza 8 -- there is a brother, recently deceased. The last line of the opening stanza "- i wänten oss aldrig" translates litarally to: "Expect us never." The "us" apparently referring to the dead brother and the "son in the rose garden." These "plural" references[1] (mother ours/ expect us) make more sense to be singular (mother mine/ expect me) but including the dead brother adds a morbid touch. The way the poem approaches the death in a circular pattern adds suspense to the curious dialogue. The mother suggests the father will forgive him and take him back but the son says he thinks otherwise. The son will leave where the father cannot find him. The "pennace" stanzas begin with stanza 26 and continue to the end (stanza 33). What is made clear by the ending is that: the son (and his brother who is murdered) will not return. No reason is given for the murder of the fallen brother who is called a "scoundrel" by his brother--showing that there was no love between the two and that perhaps he deserved to be murdered. The ballad has been called "semi-comic" but rather seem to be an elabroration of what was an unknown shorter, coarser original version similar to the extant traditional Scandinavian versions. The "blood" of the slain brother is not present. * * * 1. The singular/plural issue remains ambiguous. The plural can of course refer to two people, but in archaic Swedish, it could also be used as a more polite form when referring to one person only. Possibly even when referring back to oneself (cf. in English: “We are not amused”, said Queen Victoria!). |
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Subject: RE: Origins: James Madison Carpenter- Child Ballads 5 From: Anne Neilson Date: 13 Mar 19 - 03:43 PM I first learned Jeannie Robertson's version around 1958/9 in my school in Rutherglen (just outside Glasgow in Scotland): my English teacher Norman Buchan had tapes of Jeannie from Hamish Henderson and I was enthralled by her singing -- and fortunate enough to see her perform live on more than a few occasions. I've been singing Son David ever since, and I thought I was singing the version I first heard, but much later I realised that it had evolved. In some of the versions of Jeannie singing (recordings from School of Scottish Studies from Kist o Riches site), she excuses the blood as coming from 3 sources - horse, hawk, hound - before admitting to it being from the brother; she sometimes includes, but sometimes omits the 'bottomless boat' verse . When I re-examined my own version, I realised that I had done some 'adjusting', probably to suit my notions of ballad format and patterning, so my final version comes out as this:- O what's the blood that's on your sword, My son David, O son David? What's the blood that's on your sword? Come, promise tell me true. O that's the blood of my grey hound, Hi, lady mother, ho, lady mother. That's the blood of my grey hound Because it widna be ruled by me. O that blood it is ower RED... etc. O that's the blood of my grey mare ...etc. O that blood it is ower CLEAR ... etc. O that's the blood of my brother John ... etc. But I'll sail away in a bottomless boat, In a bottomless boat, in a bottomless boat. I'll sail away in a bottomless boat And I'll ne'er come back again. O but when will you come back again? ... etc. When the sun and the moon meet in yon glen, Hi, lady mother, ho, lady mother; When the sun and the moon meet in yon glen Then I'll come back again. SO, my question is -- would my version best be described as merely 'differing slightly' from a previous recording, or as a recreation? (I now know why I must have made my changes, and I'm happy with them -- but, the point is that I didn't know it was happening over that time.) |
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Subject: RE: Origins: James Madison Carpenter- Child Ballads 5 From: Lighter Date: 13 Mar 19 - 03:56 PM Am not sure that the label matters, but if you must choose, "variation" to me sounds less deliberate or extensive than "recreation." |
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Subject: RE: Origins: James Madison Carpenter- Child Ballads 5 From: Steve Gardham Date: 13 Mar 19 - 05:51 PM 'Differing slightly', 'recreation'. the answer must inevitably be both, but it is very unlikely to matter to anyone but yourself, Anne. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: James Madison Carpenter- Child Ballads 5 From: Steve Gardham Date: 13 Mar 19 - 06:02 PM Welcome back, Richie, once again. I too cannot see where the 'semi-comic' element lies, but we must take into account that it comes from a time long ago. We don't need to go back that far to be aware of changing tastes. Many nineteenth century songs that are labeled 'comic' we would be hard put to find any humour in. Also ballads move in and out of burlesque like nobody's business. Just look at Lord Lovell. From about 1750 up to about 1850 the ballad was considered a piece of fun, a burlesque. Some versions were even further exaggerated to promote the comic element. When it was widely printed on broadsides the country people saw it as a serious song and that's how it was collected. Same with William Taylor. The original c1750 broadside had about 20 double stanzas, which came into the 19th century on broadsides in a variety of shorter forms, at least one a burlesque called Billy Taylor. Billy Taylor was taken as a serious ballad eventually and even became the dominant form in oral tradition. What we need to know was at what point was it referred to as 'semi comic'. Could this have been a misprint of 'serio comic' which was a description of nineteenth century actors? |
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Subject: RE: Origins: James Madison Carpenter- Child Ballads 5 From: Steve Gardham Date: 13 Mar 19 - 06:10 PM In the absence of any evidence either way I'd be quite happy to accept the early Swedish version on face value and use it as the earliest known text. It has cohesion and is not overelaborated. It has all the hallmarks of a traditional North European ballad as set down by Child. As we know Scandinavian balladry in general was much much stronger and well-established in the 16th century than here in Britain, I'd be inclined to give it prime status (as with Child's A versions) with the proviso that there were probably earlier versions in Scandinavia. I think things will become clearer when you have all your versions together and can compare all texts. Personally I think Taylor is at most a distraction for reasons I've given earlier. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: James Madison Carpenter- Child Ballads 5 From: Anne Neilson Date: 13 Mar 19 - 06:32 PM Thanks to Steve and Lighter for their responses to my post about 'Son David' -- of course it matters to no-one other than myself. But perhaps in two hundred years someone might come across my text on some obscure website and ponder the patterns.... |
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Subject: RE: Origins: James Madison Carpenter- Child Ballads 5 From: Steve Gardham Date: 13 Mar 19 - 07:18 PM Then they'll have fun trying to work out what occurred, which is what we're doing here. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: James Madison Carpenter- Child Ballads 5 From: Richie Date: 13 Mar 19 - 07:55 PM Steve, By my memory it was Grundtvig, Child's mentor who called the Swedish version Semi-comic without providing text. The text disappeared in the early 1900s and Taylor had no text of it. The version was later found in a collection of pseudo-religious manuscripts. Anne, Son David is a curious addition to the Child 13 variants by Robertson from the tradition of Child A (Motherwell) and it's source (her mother c. 1916) is a bit of a mystery. The bottomless boat stanza is generally Appalachian and Robertson would have access to those texts, which of course were originally British. I'm not sure if Jeannie sang the bottomless boat stanza since it's not on her first recording. Richie |
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Subject: RE: Origins: James Madison Carpenter- Child Ballads 5 From: Anne Neilson Date: 14 Mar 19 - 07:33 AM Jeannie sometimes sang the bottomless boat stanza -- I first heard her version without this verse and that is how I originally learned it; but I distinctly remember being jolted on an occasion when she included the bottomless boat and I suddenly realised that her slow, majestic tune was a variant of the 'Gin I were where the Gadie rins' melody. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: James Madison Carpenter- Child Ballads 5 From: Lighter Date: 14 Mar 19 - 10:36 AM Hi, Richie. Regarding radically changing tastes, consider "Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye" (1867), which was written by J. B. Geoghegan as comic song and was so regarded for many years. There's even a contemporaneous mention of crippled Union Army veterans in an old soldiers' home laughing their heads off at it. Some of the joke may have come from a keen awareness (long since lost) that it was a black-humor parody of Patrick S. Gilmore's immensely popular "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again" (1863). Not the other way around, by the way.... |
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Subject: RE: Origins: James Madison Carpenter- Child Ballads 5 From: Richard Mellish Date: 14 Mar 19 - 10:54 AM I am reluctantly coming around to the view that maybe Archer Taylor got his overall conclusion (transmission from Britain to Scandinavia) wrong, but I still think there is considerable merit in his method. That was to look at various elements of the ballad, list which elements are in which versions, and then surmise whether any given element was more likely to have been in earlier versions and lost later or to have been absent in earlier versions and added later. For example there is the difference between the mother's first noticing blood on the son's clothes or foot and then on the sword, versus noticing it on the sword straight away but being given excuses about hound, mare, etc. Did the mare's blood come first, transmogrifying into the horse or foals than Sven has been tending to, was it the other way round, or are they independent, present in the two different roles only by chance? One feature (not known to Taylor) that I find striking is the consistent rhyming in that very old Swedish version versus a total absence of rhyming in most of the later versions. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: James Madison Carpenter- Child Ballads 5 From: Steve Gardham Date: 14 Mar 19 - 06:13 PM Hi Richard His method was more or less what most of us use when analysing ballads. However even with all of the extant versions it's almost impossible to draw cast-iron conclusions because we don't know how many versions were lost between the first and the last. We are often reduced to looking at possibles and probables. Generally the older the ballad the more it has been reworked. At least with the earliest we have, it has a lot in common with more recent Scandinavian versions. Useful conclusions can be drawn re the evolution of a ballad if in looking at several versions over several centuries it can be shown that the rhyming steadily deteriorated. There are English ballads where this can be demonstrated. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: James Madison Carpenter- Child Ballads 5 From: Richard Mellish Date: 15 Mar 19 - 09:51 AM Fair comment, Steve. Continuing to think about the British and Scandinavian versions, one aspect that strikes me is how much they do or don't have in common. At the top level they are very similar: the overall structure of a dialogue between mother and son, the blood leading to the admission of fratricide, the son's going away, the impossible events attending his return, and in some versions a bit about what happens to his wife and children. But there are major differences in the details. Someone took the plot and did a comprehensive re-write. |
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Subject: RE: Origins: James Madison Carpenter- Child Ballads 5 From: Steve Gardham Date: 15 Mar 19 - 03:36 PM >>>>>Someone took the plot and did a comprehensive re-write.<<<<<< Not sure I agree with that, but further study and evidence may well show that to be the case. I'm convinced it happened with many of the Scandi-Brit ballads. There appears to be 2 types: Those where the plot was recycled in Britain; and those that were a direct translation. There are also examples where both of these occurred with the same ballad, and indeed where some were translated from another language more than once before entering oral tradition here. I strongly suspect the direct translations are in the majority, but all of this can be no more than conjecture as those doing the translating and rewriting were not interested in quoting their sources, for a variety of reasons. I'll not develop this any further just now as some of my theories are political and there's enough strife on these threads at the moment. |
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