Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?

Subject: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 02:10 PM

I'm looking for versions of Child #243, "The Demon Lover"/"The House Carpenter" that have been found in the New England region. The "literature" suggests that this was a wide-spread and popular ballad, but I am not turning up very much at all. What am I missing? I am looking for as much detail as possible, so I'm interested in specific collections, particular versions (with singer identification, location and date), literary references, and recorded editions of this ballad, and of course, lyrics. I am aware that there are a number of Canadian collections, but I am limiting my search at this point to the U.S. I'm especially interested in finding a version from Massachusetts. I'm guessing that the documentation on this ballad for New England is not as extensive as one might imagine. Thanks for your help.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 06 Dec 11 - 05:21 PM

Andy Irvine put the words of the Child Ballad to a tune of his own on his CD Abocurragh, as the song seems to have died out in Britain and Ireland. It was one of the nominations for Best Traditional Track in the BBC Folk Awards 2011. In the sixties, Andy says, he sang the words to the House Carpenter tune.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 07 Dec 11 - 06:37 AM

John, do you have access to Bronson? In case you don't, that lists only two versions from New England:
#53 (four verses), from Mrs. Susie Carr Young, Brewer, Me, recorded by George Hertzog in 1928 and published in Barry, Eckstrom & Smith 'British Ballds from Maine' (1929).
#92 (11 verses) from Orlon Melville, Charlestown NH, recorded by Helen Hartness Flanders and published in 'The New Green Mountain Songster' (1939).

Of Bronson's 145 versions from oral tradition, the vast majority are from the Appalachians, with Virginia very strongly represented. There are also a few from the Midwest (WI, MI, MO, AR) and a tiny number from the West (CA, OR). I don't see any at all from the Canadian maritimes, in contrast to many old British ballads.

I think you have to put this distribution down to immigration patterns. The ballad was pretty much extinct in the British Isles by the 20th century (give or take an example each from Southwest England, Ireland and Scotland), but most of the earlier versions listed in Child were from Lowland Scotland - although Child's oldest examples are English broadsides. Since the most prominent immigrant group to have carried ballads into the Appalachians were the 'Scotch-Irish' (people of lowland Scots and Northern English origin who had settled in Ulster and then crossed the Atlantic), it isn't too surprising to find the 'Housecarpenter' / 'Demon Lover' most prevalent there, although its new lease of life is still pretty amazing. New England (as far as my limited knowledge extends) was settled originally by English puritans, with most of its English population having East Anglian roots - a region where there is no history of the ballad having been recorded.

I understand that the popularity of the 'House Carpenter' version of the ballad owes much to a broadside published by De Marsan in New York in the 1850s - you could speculate that this broadside must have been distributed mostly in the Appalachian states where the ballad was already well known.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Dec 11 - 07:29 AM

a Scottish version of the Demon Lover can be heard on the School of Scottish Studies website--Tobar an Dualchais

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 07 Dec 11 - 07:55 AM

"a Scottish version of the Demon Lover can be heard on the School of Scottish Studies website--Tobar an Dualchais"

Two, actually - although it sounds as if John Rae's version may owe something to Child. Thanks for that link.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Dec 11 - 08:31 AM

Brian--- typing in John Rae in the S.O.S.S.site brings up no results. The one result gives Andrew Stewart when the ballad title is typed in.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 07 Dec 11 - 08:48 AM

It's good to hear from you, Brian. I was just going through the recorded versions I have of this ballad and had just finished listening to your fine rendition on "Songs of Trial and Triumph." I do have access to Bronson, thanks to Dick Greenhaus at CAMSCO, and I had noticed the same thing that you have pointed out, that out of 145 versions that he had found by 1966, only the two you mention above were from the New England area. I did find a possible third example as I went back over this material. It is the very last example that he gives, #145, from a Library of Congress recording sung by Allen Johnson in Portland (?), Oregon, and collected by William L. Alderson. It says that he learned this ballad in Calais, Maine. There is no date. This is actually a fairly complete version, with ten verses.

Also, in his "Addendum" in Vol. IV, Bronson lists six additional examples all taken from Helen Hartness Flanders' ANCIENT BALLADS TRADITIONALLY SUNG IN NEW ENGLAND, III (I, B, K, E, H, & J.) However, no information is given on any of these, probably because of copyright issues. This book is not online, is out of print, very expensive in used form and currently unavailable to me from the library. I would welcome additional information on these six examples, including the lyrics.

Brian, I found particularly helpful your discussion of the immigrant patterns and the areas from which these folks came. You mention in the liner notes to your album that this ballad was first published in 1657 (as a broadside?). That means it would have been current during the early settlement of Massachusetts. But as you point out, the people who settled the Massachusetts Bay Colony were not likely ballad singers. I wonder about the sailors who brought them over as a source. What happened to this ballad between 1657 and it's reappearance in print 200 years later in New York in the 1850's?

Can anyone post a copy of the De Marsan (New York) broadside? I understand that it might be available in a journal article somewhere. This would be very helpful.

So, what, if anything, has been discovered about this ballad in the New England area in the forty-five years since Bronson's publication? I'll be interested to see what we can turn up.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 07 Dec 11 - 03:45 PM

"typing in John Rae in the S.O.S.S.site brings up no results"

My mistake: it's Joe Rae and the ballad is listed as 'Daemon Lover'.


"this ballad was first published in 1657 (as a broadside?)"

Yes, John - with a very lengthy title beginning 'A Warning for Married Women', and initialled by Lawrence Price, rhymester of the day. This is the same text as Child 243 A.

But there's no reason to suppose that this version ever went to Massachsetts. You should look at Clinton Heylin's 'Dylan's Daemon Lover' a somewhat rambling and shambolically edited account that nonetheless contains some good research and gems of information.

According to Child, he next known copy after the 1657 broadside is his version B, from 'The Rambler's Garland' (1785). However Heylin found the same version, titled 'The Ship Carpenter's Wife', in 'A Collection of Diverting Songs' ca. 1737, and he speculates that the author of this volume used a pre-existing broadside as the source, possibly pushing it back to the early 18th or even late 17th C. However this version is considerably different from the A text.

I've pasted Heylin's transcription of the De Marsan broadside below. This is printed in the Journal of American Folklore v18 p207, but I can't access that. De Marsan was a reissue of an earlier copy attributed to J. Andrews of New York, supposedly in the Harris collection at Brown University, but not appearing in their online list.

I'll get back to the discussion tomorrw.


De Marsan broadside:

Well met, well met, my own true love
Long time have I been seeking thee
I'm lately come from the Salt Seas
And all for the sake, love, of thee

I might have married a king's daughter
You might have married her, cried she
For I am married to a house-carpenter
And a fine young man is he!

If you will forsake your House-Carpenter
And go along with me
I will take you to where the grass grows high
On the banks of old Tennessee!

If I forsake my House-Carpenter
And go along with thee
What have you got to keep me upon
And keep me from misery?

Says he, I've got six ships at sea
All sailing to dry land
One hundred & ten of your own countrymen
Love, they shall be at your command

She took her babe upon her knee
And kissed it one, two and three
Saying, Stay at home, my darling sweet babe
And keep your father's company!

They had not sailed four weeks or more
Four weeks, or scarcely three
When she thought of her darling sweet babe at home
And she wept most bitterly

Says he, "Are you weeping for gold, my love
Or are you weeping for fear
Or are you weeping for your House-Carpenter
That you left and followed me?

I am not weeping for gold she replied
Nor am I weeping for fear
But I am weeping alone for my sweet little babe
That I left with my house-carpenter

Oh, dry up your tears, my own true love
And cease your weeping, cried he
For soon you'll see your own happy home
On the banks of old Tennessee!

They had not sailed five weeks or more
Five weeks or scarcely four
When the ship struck a rock and sprang a leak
And they were never seen any more

A curse be on the sea-faring men
Oh cursed be their lives
For while they are robbing the House-Carpenter
And coaxing away their wives

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 07 Dec 11 - 04:46 PM

"On the banks of the old Tennessee"! Where did that come from? Thanks for putting up De Marsan's broadside for us, Brian. Is there any information on where the earlier "Andrews" copy came from? When did the "Scots-Irish" immigration begin? If they brought their ballads with them, would this predate these broadside publications?

Is Heylin's work on line by any chance?

I have found out a bit more information on the Flanders' collection, thanks to this very comprehensive site:

http://members.chello.nl/r.vandijk2/ChildBallads240-249.html

This site gave me the names of the singers who sang "The House Carpenter" for Flanders, but it does not give any information on where they were from or any dates or background information.

Apparently she collected this song (several different times or in several different versions in some cases from the same person?) from the following people:

Belle Luther Richards, Edward Ballinger Price, Elmer George (3), Maynard Raynolds, Mrs. Alice Mancour (2), Mrs. Myra Daniels, Mrs. Wales, Oscar Degreenia, and Lena Bourne Fish (3). I would be very interested to know where these people lived.

In fact, I do have further information on Lena Bourne Fish. Frank and Anne Warner also collected "The House Carpenter" from her. They published this in their book TRADITIONAL AMERICAN FOLK SONGS (1984), with music. There is also a snippet recording of this (the first several verses) on "Lena Bourne Fish" (Folktrax 922) - thanks again to CAMSCO. She was recorded by the Warners in East Jeffrey, New Hampshire. I will have some more to say about this version soon.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE SHIP CARPENTER (Lena Bourne Fish)
From: John Minear
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 10:20 AM

Here is Lena Bourne Fish's version of "The Ship Carpenter" (C #243) from the Anne and Frank Warner Collection TRADITIONAL AMERICAN FOLK SONGS (1984).

"Well met, well met, my pretty fair maid."
"Not so very well met," said she.
"For I am married to a ship carpenter,
And a very fine man is he."

"If you will forsake your ship carpenter
And go along with me,
I will teak you where the grass grows green
On the banks of a sweet valee."

"If I forsake my ship carpenter,
And go along with thee,
What have you there to entertain me on,
To keep me from slavery?"

"I have ships all in the bay,
And plenty more upon land,
Five hundred and ten of as fine young men,
They are all at your command."

She took her babe all in her arms,
And gave him kisses three.
"Stay at home, stay at home with your father dear,
For he is good company."

She had not sailed six weeks on the sea,
I know not more than three,
Before this fair lady began for to mourn,
And she mourned most pitifully.

"Now do you mourn for gold," he said,
"Or do you mourn for me?
Or do you mourn for your ship carpenter
That you left to follow me?"

"I do not mourn for gold," she cries,
"Nor do I mourn for thee!
But I do mourn for my ship carpenter
And my pretty sweet babee"

In the heavens there rose a big storm cloud,
And how the waves did roar!
At the bottom of the ship there sprang a leak
And her mourning was heard no more.

The music for this song is in the Warner book. It was recorded in East Jaffrey, New Hampshire, in July of 1940. Mrs. Fish did not give any specific information on where she got her version of this ballad. She was born in 1873 in Black Brook, in the Adirondacks of New York. Her father's family came from Scotland in the early 1700's and settled in Rhode Island and then moved to Cape Cod. Her mother's family were of English origin and her mother's grandfather was a colonel in the British Army. She probably learned songs from her father, especially her Irish songs, and perhaps some from her Uncle Butler, and perhaps some from the men who worked with her father. (Information from the Warners' book)

While it is impossible to be specific about exactly where this version "came from", it seems clear that it is a New England version of "The Demon Lover."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 11:12 AM

I've done a multiple field search on Roud for child 243 and that show up the following:

Vermont: 16
Connecticut: 3
NH: 17
RI: 2

(May not be exact for NH; I had to skip a few other New... in the list while counting).

Many come from Flanders: Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung In New England.

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 12:18 PM

Thanks Mick. That gives us a sense of how these were spread out. If anybody has Flanders' book, I'd welcome additional information. J.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 01:15 PM

If it helps to locate the copies, these are the entries I pulled out from Roud. I have the one from Warner's Traditional American Folk Songs and I can post that later if you want. Sadly I don't have the (4-vols) Flanders collection, but it's quite likely that someone here does.

Mick

---

Roud #14 (=Child #243) In New England

Vermont


BANKS OF CLAUDY, THE
Source        Bulletin of the Folksong Society of the Northeast 7 (1934) p.11        
Performer        Sullivan, Mrs. E.M.        
Place collected        USA : Vermont : Springfield        
Collector        Barry, Phillips        
----
BANKS OF CLAUDY, THE
Source        Bulletin of the Folksong Society of the Northeast 6 (1933) pp.7-8        
Performer        Sullivan, Mrs. E.M.        
Place collected        USA : Vermont : Springfield        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
BANKS OF CLADY, THE
Source        Flanders, Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England 3 pp.287-321 (version n1)        
Performer        Sullivan, Ellen M.        
Place collected        USA : Vermont : Springfield        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
BANKS OF CLADY, THE
Source        Flanders, Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England 3 pp.287-321 (version n2)        
Performer        Sullivan, Ellen M.        
Place collected        USA : Vermont : Springfield        
Collector        Barry, Phillips        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER, THE
Source        Flanders, Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England 3 pp.287-321 (version d)        
Performer        George, Elmer        
Place collected        USA : Vermont : East Calais        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER, THE
Source        Flanders, Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England 3 pp.287-321 (version j)        
Performer        Mancour, Mrs. Alice        
Place collected        USA : Vermont : Bellows Falls        
Collector        Olney, Marguerite        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER, THE
Source        Flanders, Garland of Green Mountain Song (1934) pp.80-82        
Performer        George, Elmer        
Place collected        USA : Vermont : East Calais        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER, THE
Source        Library of Congress AAFS recording 3713 B        
Performer        George, Elmer        
Place collected        USA : Vermont : East Calais        
Collector        Lomax, Alan & Helen Hartness Flanders        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER
Source        Helen Hartness Flanders Collection (Middlebury College, Vermont) C4 A 04        
Performer        Daniels, Mrs. Myra        
Place collected        USA : Vermont : East Calais        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER
Source        Helen Hartness Flanders Collection (Middlebury College, Vermont) C4 A 04        
Performer        George, Elmer        
Place collected        USA : Vermont : West Montpelier        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER
Source        Helen Hartness Flanders Collection (Middlebury College, Vermont) D8 B 02        
Performer        George, Elmer        
Place collected        USA : Vermont : North Montpelier        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER
Source        Helen Hartness Flanders Collection (Middlebury College, Vermont) D53 A 19        
Performer        George, Elmer        
Place collected        USA : Vermont : North Montpelier        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER
Source        Helen Hartness Flanders Collection (Middlebury College, Vermont) D34 A 13        
Performer        Mancour, Mrs. Alice        
Place collected        USA : Vermont : Bellows Falls        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER
Source        Helen Hartness Flanders Collection (Middlebury College, Vermont) T12 A 18        
Performer        Mancour, Mrs. Alice        
Place collected        USA : Vermont : Bellows Falls        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER
Source        Helen Hartness Flanders Collection (Middlebury College, Vermont) C6 A 09        
Performer        Moses, Ruth        
Place collected        USA : Vermont : North Woodstock        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER
Source        Helen Hartness Flanders Collection (Middlebury College, Vermont) C1 B 03        
Performer        Wales, Mrs.        
Place collected        USA : Vermont : Burlington        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----

Connecticut
HOUSE CARPENTER, THE
Source        Flanders, Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England 3 pp.287-321 (version h)        
Performer        Degreenia, Oscar        
Place collected        USA : Connecticut : West Cornwall        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER
Source        Helen Hartness Flanders Collection (Middlebury College, Vermont) T1 A 02        
Performer        Degreenia, Oscar        
Place collected        USA : Connecticut : West Cornwall        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER
Source        Helen Hartness Flanders Collection (Middlebury College, Vermont) T1 A 09        
Performer        Degreenia, Oscar        
Place collected        USA : Connecticut : West Cornwall        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----


New Hampshire
HOUSE CARPENTER, THE
Source        Flanders etc., New Green Mountain Songster (1939) pp.95-97        
Performer        Merrill, Orlon        
Place collected        USA : New Hampshire : Charlestown        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
SHIP CARPENTER, THE
Source        Warner, Traditional American Folk Songs (1980) pp.137-138        
Performer        Fish, Lena Bourne        
Place collected        USA : New Hampshire : East Jaffrey        
Collector        Warner, Anne & Frank        
----
YOUNG TURTLE DOVE
Source        Flanders & Olney, Ballads Migrant in New England pp.132-133        
Performer                
Place collected        USA : New Hampshire : Pittsburg        
Collector        Olney, Marguerite        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER, THE
Source        Flanders, Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England 3 pp.287-321 (version a)        
Performer        Merrill, Orlon        
Place collected        USA : New Hampshire : Charlestown        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER, THE
Source        Flanders, Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England 3 pp.287-321 (version e2)        
Performer        Fish, Mrs. Lena Bourne        
Place collected        USA : New Hampshire : East Jaffrey        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER, THE
Source        Flanders, Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England 3 pp.287-321 (version f)        
Performer        Luther, Sidney        
Place collected        USA : New Hampshire : Pittsburg        
Collector        Olney, Marguerite        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER, THE
Source        Flanders, Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England 3 pp.287-321 (version i)        
Performer        Richards, Mrs. Belle        
Place collected        USA : New Hampshire : Colebrook        
Collector        Olney, Marguerite        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER, THE
Source        Flanders, Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England 3 pp.287-321 (version k)        
Performer        Reynolds, Maynard        
Place collected        USA : New Hampshire : Pittsburg        
Collector        Olney, Marguerite        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER, THE
Source        Flanders, Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England 3 pp.287-321 (version l)        
Performer        Wales, Mrs.        
Place collected        USA : New Hampshire : Pittsburg        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
SHIP CARPENTER, THE
Source        Flanders, Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England 3 pp.287-321 (version e1)        
Performer        Fish, Mrs. Lena Bourne        
Place collected        USA : New Hampshire : East Jaffrey        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness / Marguerite Olney        
----
SHIP CARPENTER, THE
Source        Folktracks 922-90 (`Whisky in the Jar')        
Performer        Fish, Lena Bourne        
Place collected        USA : New Hampshire : East Jaffrey        
Collector        Warner, Anne & Frank        
----
YOUNG TURTLE DOVE, THE
Source        Flanders, Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England 3 pp.287-321 (version g)        
Performer                
Place collected        USA : New Hampshire        
Collector                
----
SHIP CARPENTER
Source        Helen Hartness Flanders Collection (Middlebury College, Vermont) D58 B 07        
Performer        Fish, Lena Bourne        
Place collected        USA : New Hampshire : East Jaffrey        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
SHIP CARPENTER
Source        Helen Hartness Flanders Collection (Middlebury College, Vermont) D59 B 10        
Performer        Fish, Lena Bourne        
Place collected        USA : New Hampshire : East Jaffrey        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
SHIP CARPENTER
Source        Helen Hartness Flanders Collection (Middlebury College, Vermont) D19 A 23        
Performer        Fish, Lena Bourne        
Place collected        USA : New Hampshire : East Jaffrey        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER
Source        Helen Hartness Flanders Collection (Middlebury College, Vermont) C2 A 07        
Performer        Merrill, Orlon        
Place collected        USA : New Hampshire : Charlestown        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER
Source        Helen Hartness Flanders Collection (Middlebury College, Vermont) D13 A 07        
Performer        Raynolds, Maynard        
Place collected        USA : New Hampshire : Pittsburg        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER
Source        Helen Hartness Flanders Collection (Middlebury College, Vermont) D23 B 05        
Performer        Richards, Belle Luther        
Place collected        USA : New Hampshire : Colebrook        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----


Rhode Island
DAEMON LOVER, THE
Source        Flanders, Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England 3 pp.287-321 (version m)        
Performer        Price, Edith Ballenger        
Place collected        USA : Rhode Island : Newport        
Collector        Olney, Marguerite        
----
DAEMON LOVER
Source        Helen Hartness Flanders Collection (Middlebury College, Vermont) D46 A 13        
Performer        Price, Edward Ballinger        
Place collected        USA : Rhode Island : Newport        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 02:18 PM

Thanks a lot, Mick. I am assuming that there are repeats here rather than different versions by the same person. If somebody finds out that this is not the case, let us know. J.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Bettynh
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 02:44 PM

From the Wikipedia article on Scotch-irish:

"The first trickle of Scotch-Irish settlers arrived in New England. Valued for their fighting prowess as well as for their Protestant dogma, they were invited by Cotton Mather and other leaders to come over to help settle and secure the frontier. In this capacity, many of the first permanent settlements in Maine and New Hampshire, especially after 1718, were Scotch-Irish and many place names as well as the character of Northern New Englanders reflect this fact. The Scotch-Irish brought the potato with them from Ireland (although the potato originated in South America, it was not known in North America until brought over from Europe). In Maine it became a staple crop as well as an economic base.[28]"

Jaffrey and Charlestown would fit the "Indian frontier" description at the time. But Pittsburgh and Colebrook are so far north, they'd be frontiers of Montreal more than of anything that later became American.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 03:03 PM

John - repeats certainly. The index lists the contents of sources. So for example the versions in the published Ancient Ballads..., are duplicates of those in the archive at Middlebury. And the repeats of performer are probably versions collected at different times.

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 03:29 PM

Right, John, back to the fray after a couple of hours spent with Bronson...

"On the banks of the old Tennessee"! Where did that come from?"

This looks like a regional amendment to "the banks of Italy" found in all of Child's Scots texts. That there are no such banks, or comparable locations, in the older English texts (Child 243 A & B) suggests that De Marsan is not derived directly from the latter.

Looking through all of Bronson's North American copies, this is one of the features susceptible more than any other to variation. The promised banks may be those of 'Sweet liberty'. 'Dundee', 'the low country', or the 'salt salt sea', as well as many more or less nonsensical substitutions like 'sweet Marie', 'sweet Vallee', 'Aloe Dee', 'Daiee', 'Otie', 'Murree' and 'Lacolee'. The 'Banks of Claudy', mentioned in Mrs. Sullivan's version from VT, were presumably imported from another song. The most common is the 'Banks of Sweet Willie', with over twenty examples. I counted just four 'Banks of Tennessee', which suggests that the influence of the De Marsan broadside was limited or distant in time, but there are at least a dozen 'Banks of Italy', harking back to early 19th century Scots oral tradition.

Other features of the ballad very common in North American variants but absent from de Marsan are the 'Hills of Heaven / Hell' (at least 32 examples), which are first sighted in the version from Scott's 'Minstrelsy' (Child F), and the scene where the eloping woman dresses herself in finery, frequently being seen to "shine like glittering gold", which isn't an exact match for any of the Scots copies, but recalls the 'glamour' cast over her in Child E, v8 (Motherwell's MS).

On the other hand the incremental repetitions of De Marsan are matched in over seventy different American versions, usually as:
'They had not been on the sea two (three) weeks,
I'm sure it was not three (four)',
which is slightly different from the De Marsan formulation.

Last verses following De Marsan's, along the lines of: 'A curse be on the sea-faring men' (the 'sea-going train' in two versions!), are reasonably common but by no means universal.

Other American variants include archaisms that may go back to older British tradition, such as sailing for two leagues, rather than weeks (Bronson #18), the 'dark and dreary eye' in Bronson #102 (recalling 'dark, dark grew his eerie looks' in Child G), and the name 'George Alliss' (suggestive of 'James Harris?') in Bronson #141 - the aforementioned version from Springfield VT.

All of which supports the idea that the De Marsan broadside, although it may have contributed to the ballad's popularity in America, was not the only means by which it was spread. There may have been other broadsides, of course, but some of those variations look a lot more like the result of oral transmission over generations. In that context, it's interesting that Lena Bourne Fish's father was a Scot - and thanks for posting her text.

"Is Heylin's work on line by any chance?"

Not that I know of.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 03:47 PM

"The first trickle of Scotch-Irish settlers arrived in New England... many of the first permanent settlements in Maine and New Hampshire, especially after 1718, were Scotch-Irish"

That might help to explain those Maine and NH versions in Flanders. However the English Puritans were already well established in Massachusetts by that point. Meanwhile, most of the Scotch-Irish went further South (same wiki article):

"From 1710 to 1775, over 200,000 people emigrated from Ulster to the 13 Colonies, from Maine to Georgia. The largest numbers went to Pennsylvania. From that base some went south into Virginia, the Carolinas and across the South, with a large concentration in the Appalachian region; others headed west to western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and the Midwest...

The Scotch-Irish moved up the Delaware River to Bucks County, and then up the Susquehanna and Cumberland valleys, finding flat lands along the rivers and creeks to set up their log cabins, their grist mills, and their Presbyterian churches... With large numbers of children who needed their own inexpensive farms, the Scotch-Irish avoided areas already settled by Germans and Quakers and moved south, down the Shenandoah Valley, and through the Blue Ridge Mountains into Virginia. These migrants followed the Great Wagon Road from Lancaster, through Gettysburg, and down through Staunton, Virginia, to Big Lick (now Roanoke), Virginia. Here the pathway split, with the Wilderness Road taking settlers west into Tennessee and Kentucky, while the main road continued south into the Carolinas."

Subject: Tune Add: THE SHIP CARPENTER (Lena Bourne Fish)
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 04:40 PM

John - sorry didn't notice you'd the version you'd already posted was Lena Bourne Fish one when I suggested I post it! Here's the tune for completeness anyway.

Mick

---

X:1
T:The Ship Carpenter
B:Warner: Traditional American Folk Songs pp137-138, 1984
S:Collected by the Warners from Lena Bourne Fish, 1941
O:East Jeffrey, New Hampshire, USA
M:C
L:1/4
K:G
D/|G> D G A|c/c/(B/A/) G
w:"Well met, well met, my pret-ty fair_ maid."
D/D/|G/G/ A B (A/G/)|d2 z
w:"Not so ve-ry well met," said_ she.
(B/c/)|d d c/B/A/G/|c B/A/ (F/D/)
w:"For_ I am mar-ried to a ship car-pen-ter,_
F/G/|A/B/(A/F/) D (E/F/)|D2 z|]
w:And a ve-ry fine_ man is_ he."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 08 Dec 11 - 10:36 PM

Mick, thanks for the tune for Lena Bourne Fish's version. I don't know how to do that kind of stuff. And thanks, Betty and Brian for the information on the Scots-Irish migrations. I hadn't realized that they were up in the Northeast as well as down here (I'm in Central Virginia) in the southern Appalachians. I'll take a look at the Wikipedia article. Also, our senator from VA, Jim Webb, wrote a pretty good book on the Scots-Irish called BORN FIGHTING - HOW THE SCOTS IRISH SHAPED AMERICA (2004).

Brian, I used to live not all that far from "the banks of the Tennessee" River, but it is pretty far inland. Does this phrase show up in some other songs? I haven't had time to check this, but it sounded familiar. It's curious how this might have gotten attached to this ballad. It sounds good and the banks of the Tennessee are lovely if you like TVA lakes!

Betty, your mention of the frontiers of Montreal raises the question of the relationship of the New England versions of this ballad to those further north in the Maritimes and the rest of eastern Canada. My wife's family was from Maine but I don't know much at all about the northeast, and what influenced what. Perhaps it is somewhat arbitrary to draw too clear a line between the U.S. and Canada with regard to these ballads.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 09 Dec 11 - 05:16 AM

Isn't Google wonderful!

Fiddlin' John Carson sings Banks of the old Tennessee

And while we're at it, Fiddlin' John sings Sunny Tennessee

I also found a version - possibly minstrel? - on traditionalmusic.co.uk, with the chorus:

"Ho, ho, ho, them banjos,
It would fill your heart with glee,
On a moonlight night, when the stars are shining bright,
'Way down upon the banks of Tennessee."

In the case of 'The Housecarpenter' I suspect that the Tennessee was chosen for its rhymability (is that a word?) rather than the merits of the waterway itself.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 09 Dec 11 - 11:47 AM

Fiddlin' John Carson certainly brings back my sense of living near the banks of the Tennessee in Roane County, TN! Thanks, Brian. The "Ho, ho" song has an 1889 copyright on it by a D.A. Crane, with words and music by James J. Mulcahy. It may be based on an earlier minstrel tune but I was not able to find either the original of this or anything earlier. This comes considerably after the broadside.

I found the GRAHAM'S ILLUSTRATED magazine (Vol 53) that Child referred to and in which he found the two verses he quotes from the broadside. It is here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Ba3PAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA277&dq=On+the+banks+of+the+old+Tennessee&hl=en&ei=rA_iTs2xFsP00gGGnYGFBg&sa=X

And here is Barry's note about this:

http://books.google.com/books?id=pR1hFqzIfGAC&pg=PA238&dq=On+the+banks+of+the+old+Tennessee&hl=en&ei=4RLiTsOGNebi0QG0xsDdBQ&sa=X

Here is another song that uses the phrase "on the banks of the old Tennessee", from the George Boswell collection of FOLK SONGS OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE. It is called "Take Me Home."

http://books.google.com/books?id=QB2Dc9zeoWwC&pg=PA146&dq=On+the+banks+of+the+old+Tennessee&hl=en&ei=0gviTrznOObf0QH5h9DwBQ&sa=X

Here are two examples of early usage of the phrase "on the banks of the (old) Tennessee." First a nice short story from Vol 56 of Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine from Sept. 1844:

http://books.google.com/books?id=2fZFAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA278&dq=On+the+banks+of+the+old+Tennessee&hl=en&ei=rA_iTs2xFsP00gGGnYGFBg&sa=X

And then a story about Sam Houston moving to Maryville, Tennessee, from Vol 28 of THE CENTURY magazine from 1884. (Maryville happens to be my own hometown.)

http://books.google.com/books?id=EMdZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA495&dq=On+the+banks+of+the+old+Tennessee&hl=en&ei=dBTiTpi9Iajc0QGqkd3cBQ&sa=X

And finally, a fascinating Cajun French version of "The House Carpenter" which also contains this "Tennessee" line:

http://books.google.com/books?id=y51Pcgyqj14C&pg=PA155&dq=On+the+banks+of+the+old+Tennessee&hl=en&ei=dBTiTpi9Iajc0QGqkd3cBQ&sa=X

Google Books sure is fun!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Bettynh
Date: 09 Dec 11 - 02:00 PM

We tend to forget that Britain was fighting France over North America at the same time it was fighting the newly named Americans. This map (from the Wikipedia article on French and Indian War) shows the status as of 1783. Pittsburgh and Colebrook, NH are right on that line between "always British" and "recently aquired by the British." If Scotch-Irish settlers were of use to the British authorities as the holders of the outlying settlements, those would be the places they'd settle. The American Revolutionary War battles over Quebec and Montreal went through Vermont and pretty much bypassed the areas noted in the list of ballad sources in NH. I can't speak for the Vermont sources. There were naval movements from the St. Lawrence and Lake Champlain, so certainly sailors could have been involved there.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 10 Dec 11 - 11:30 AM

According to my calculations, so far we have noted versions of "The House Carpenter" collected in the following NE states from these people:

MAINE
Mrs. Susie Carr Young, of Brewer, ME
Allen Johnson, learned in Calais, ME

VERMONT
Elmer George, East Calais, VT
Mrs. Alice Mancour, Bellows Falls, VT
Mrs. Myra Daniels, East Calais, VT
Ruth Moses, North Woodstock, VT
Mrs. Wales, Burlington, VT

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Bell Luther Richards, Colebrook, NH
Maynard Reynolds, Pittsburg, NH
Sidney Luther, Pittsburg, NH
Mrs. Lena Bourne Fish, East Jaffrey, NH
Orion Merrill, Charlestown, NH

CONNECTICUT
Oscar Degreenia, West Cornwall, CONN

RHODE ISLAND
Edith Ballenger Price, Newport, RI
Edward Ballinger Price (?)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: GUEST,julia L
Date: 10 Dec 11 - 05:22 PM

Regarding the line between Maine and the Maritimes, it is very fuzzy. Both woodsmen and mariners crossed the border with regularity, some even had families on both sides! Songs and folkways traveled back and forth.
Also, remember, Maine did not become a state until 1820. Until that time it was under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, so all the older records refer to the area under that name.

I just came across a version of the demon Lover from Cape Breton if you are interested.

best- Julia

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 10 Dec 11 - 09:54 PM

Thanks for the information on Maine and the Maritimes, Julia. And yes, tell us about he version from Cape Breton. In fact, lets expand our search north and also south to at least include New York state.

I made it to the UVA library today and was able to get hold of one of the Flanders books. I'll have more to say about it tomorrow. I'll have a little more information on the singers, a few recording dates, and some observations on the songs themselves. One that I can share now is that most of these versions are very similar to each other. I can't tell that much about the tunes because I don't read music. Perhaps someone else will be able to get hold of this material (Flanders) and help us with the music.

What I got today is Volume III of ANCIENT BALLADS TRADITIONALLY SUNG IN NEW ENGLAND (1963). I think that this contains the most comprehensive collection made by Flanders and most of what she had published in previous books. Please correct me on this if I am mistaken.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 11 Dec 11 - 07:23 AM

Here's what the Roud index has to say about New York and New Brunswick. It looks like 4 added from NY and 1 from NB.

Mick

---

New York

SHIP'S CARPENTER, THE
Source        Cazden, Abelard Folk Song Book pt.1 (1958) pp.82-83        
Performer        Edwards, George        
Place collected        USA : New York : Catskill mountains        
Collector                
----
SHIP'S CARPENTER, THE
Source        Cazden, Folk Songs of the Catskills pp.271-275        
Performer        Edwards, George        
Place collected        USA : New York : Grahamsville        
Collector                
----
HOUSE CARPENTER, THE
Source        Flanders, Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England 3 pp.287-321 (version b)        
Performer        Moses, Mr.        
Place collected        USA : New York : Woodstock        
Collector        Flanders, Helen Hartness        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER
Source        Library of Congress AAFS recording 3667 A2 & B1        
Performer        Montonyea, Mort        
Place collected        USA : New York : Sloatsburg        
Collector        Halpert, Herbert        
----
HOUSE-CARPENTER, THE
Source        Cutting, Lore of an Adirondack County (1944) pp.69-71        
Performer        Cornwright, Mrs. Esther        
Place collected        USA : New York : Lewis        
Collector        Cutting, Edith E.        

Also included was a version by Aunt Molly Jackson recorded in NY, but I've excluded that

New Brunswick
HOUSE CARPENTER, THE
Source        Creighton, Folksongs from Southern New Brunswick pp.14-16        
Performer        Ireland, William        
Place collected        Canada : New Brunswick : Elgin        
Collector        Creighton, Helen        
----
HOUSE CARPENTER, THE
Source        Helen Creighton collection (Nova Scotia Archives) AR 5742 / AC 2343 /        
Performer        Ireland, W.E.        
Place collected        Canada : New Brunswick : Elgin        
Collector        Creighton, Helen

Subject: Lyr Add: THE HOUSE CARPENTER (trad Vermont)
From: John Minear
Date: 11 Dec 11 - 09:33 AM

Mick, thanks for keeping us up to date with Roud. That is very helpful.

I'm going to start with the versions that Flanders collected in Vermont. Here is the one she got from Elmer George of East Calais, Vermont (no date).

The House Carpenter

"Well met, well met, my pretty fair maid,"
"No so very well met," said she,
"For I am married to a house carpenter,
And a very fine man is he;
For I am married to a house carpenter,
And a very fine man is he."

"If you forsake your house carpenter
And go along with me,
I will take you there where the grass grows green
On the banks of the sweet vallee."
(Repeat last two lines of each verse.)

"If I forsake my house carpenter
And go along with thee,
What have you there to entertain me on,
To keep me from slavery?"

"Oh, I have ships all in the bay
And plenty more upon land,
Five hundred and ten of as fine young men.
They are all at your command."

She took her babe all in her arms
And gave him kisses three.
"Stay at home, stay at home with your own father dear,
For he's good companee."

She went upstairs to dress herself
Most beautiful to behold.
'Twas then she walk-ed the streets all along,
And she shone like the glittering gold.

She had not sailed six weeks on the sea,
Oh, no, not more than three,
Before this fair lady began for to mourn
And she mourned most bitterlee.

"What, do you mourn for gold," he said,
"Or do you mourn for me,
Or do you mourn for your house carpenter
That you left to follow me?"

"I do not mourn for gold," she cries;
"I do not mourn for thee
But I do mourn for my house carpenter
And likewise my fair babee."

She had not sailed eight weeks on the sea,
Oh, no, not more than four,
Before that hole in the ship sprang a leak
And this mourner was heard no more.

Flanders says that when Mr. George began to sing this song for her, "different members of his family within doors joined in and were echoed by the little child playing on the lawn outside..." (A GARLAND OF GREEN MOUNTAIN SONG, 80)

Subject: Lyr Add: THE HOUSE CARPENTER (trad Vermont)
From: John Minear
Date: 11 Dec 11 - 10:41 AM

Sung by Mrs. Alice Mancour of Bellows Falls, Vermont, October 17, 1942

The House Carpenter

"Well met, well met, my pretty fair maid
Well met, well met," said he,
"For I have come from the sea, salt sea,
And it's all for the sake of thee."

"If you have come from the sea, salt sea,
You are very much to blame,
For I am married to a house carpenter,
And I'm sure he's a very fine man.

"If you will leave your house carpenter
And go along with me,
I will take you where the grass grows green
On the strand of the Sweet Dundee."

She had not gone two months and a half,
I'm sure it was not three,
Before this young lady was found for to weep,
And she wept most bitterly.

"Oh, is it for my gold that you weep,
Or is it for my store?"
"It is for my darling little babe
That I never shall see any more."

She had not sailed three months and a half,
I'm sure it was not four,
Before a hole in the ship sprang a leak,
And the moans was heard no more.
Before a hole in the ship sprang a leak,
And the moans was hear no more.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE HOUSE CARPENTER (trad Vermont)
From: John Minear
Date: 11 Dec 11 - 11:11 AM

From Mrs. Wales of Burlington, Vermont, in early 1932, learned from her grandmother, Mrs. Bissell, and also her sisters. Mrs. Bissell and her sisters "sang a great deal while living on the farm of their father, Phineas Moulton, at Randolph, Vermont, before 1860."

They had not sailed a month or more,
A month or scarcely three,
When she began to weep and lament
And to mourn most bitterlie.

"O do you weep for gold, " he said,
"Or do you weep for me,
Or do you weep for your house carpenter
That you left to come with me?"

"I do not weep for gold," she said,
"I do not weep for thee;
But I do weep for my house carpenter
Whom I left to come with thee."

They had not sailed a month or more,
A month or scarcely four,
When a hole in the ship, and the ship sprang a leak
And her weeping was heard no more.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 11 Dec 11 - 12:03 PM

The version by Mrs. Myra Daniels of East Calais, VT, which is in the Flanders Collection at Middlebury College, is not included in ANCIENT BALLADS. Also, the location of Ruth Moses is a bit confusing. Roud has her in North Woodstock, VT. But in ANCIENT BALLADS, Flanders has her in New York City, and her father, from whom she got her version, is in Woodstock, NH. I'm going to put her with the NH group. If anybody has a better clarity on this let me know.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE HOUSE CARPENTER (trad New Hampshire)
From: John Minear
Date: 11 Dec 11 - 12:33 PM

From Charlestown, New Hampshire, we have this version by Orlon Merrill (1931). He learned this "in logging woods in northern New Hampshire."

The House Carpenter

"I might have married a king's daughter fair,
And she would have married me,
But I have come across the sal', salt sea,
And it's all on account of thee."

"If you could have married a king's daughter fair,
I am sure that you're to blame,
Because I am married to a house carpenter,
And I'm sure he's a nice young man."

"But if you will forsake your house carpenter
And go along with me,
I will take you to the place where the grass grows green
On the banks of the sweet Will-lea."

"But if I forsake my house carpenter,
To go along with you,
What have you there to maintain me on,
And keep me from slavery?"

"I have three ships sailing on the sea,
All sailing for dry land,
And one hundred and ten jolly good seamen,
They are all at your command."

She took her baby on her knee
And gave it kisses three.
Saying, "Stay at home, my darling little baby,
To keep your father's company."

Then she dressed herself in a stylish dress.
Methinks she looks so gay!
As she walked through those streets of gold
She shone like a lily gay.

They had not been on sea two hours,
And I'm sure it was not three,
Before this maid she was found for to weep,
And she wept most bitterly.

"Is it for my gold you weep,
Or is it for my store,
Or is it for your house carpenter
That you never shall see any more?"


"No, it's neither for your gold I weep,
Nor it's neither for your store,
But it's all for the sake of my darling little baby
That I never shall see any more."

They had not been on the sea three months,
And I'm sure it wasn't for four,
Before the ship it sprang a leak,
And it sank for to rise no more.

"A curse, a curse, to all the seamen,
And a curse on me this life,
For robbing of a house carpenter
And a-stealing away his wife."

Subject: Lyr Add: THE HOUSE CARPENTER (trad New Hampshire)
From: John Minear
Date: 11 Dec 11 - 12:55 PM

From Mrs. Belle Richards of Colebrook, New Hampshire, April 22, 1942.

The House Carpenter

"Well met, well met, my own true love,
Well met, well met," said he,
"For I have crossed the sea, salt sea,
And 'twas all for the sake of thee.

"'Twas I could have married a king's daughter fair,
And she would have married me,
But I refused her houses and land,
And 'twas all for the sake of thee."

"If you could have wed a king's daughter fair,
I'm sure you are to blame,
For I am married to a house carpenter,
And I'm sure he's a nice young man.

"If you'll forsake your house carpenter
And go along with me,
I will take you to a place where the grass grows green
On the banks of a sweet vallee."

"If I forsake my house carpenter
And go along with thee,
What have you got to maintain me upon
And to keep me from slavery?"

"It's I've six ships out on the sea
All sailing for dry land,
And a hundred and ten jolly, brave seamen
And they're all at your command."

She dressed herself in scarlet red;
Methinks she looks fair to behold:
And, as she walked the streets up and down,
She shone like the glittering gold.

She took her babe upon her knee
And gave it kisses three,
Saying, "Stay at home, my darling little babe;
Keep your father company."

She had not been at sea two months -
I'm sure it was not three -
When this fair maid was found to weep,
And she wept most bitterly.

"Oh, is it for my gold that you mourn
That I've not laid up in store,
Or is it for your house carpenter
That you never can see any more?"

"It is not for your gold that I mourn.
'Tis neither for my house carpenter,
But it is all for my darling little babe
That I never shall see any more."

They had not been at sea two months -
I'm sure it was not three
When this proud ship she sprang a leak,
And she sank for to rise no more.

They had not been at sea three months -
I'm sure it was not four -
When this proud ship she sprang a leak
And she sank for to rise no more.

A curse, a curse, on all seamen,
A curse on me for life (doth lie),
For robbing of a house carpenter
And for stealing away his wife.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE HOUSE CARPENTER (trad New Hampshire)
From: John Minear
Date: 11 Dec 11 - 01:18 PM

From Sidney Luther of Pittsburg, New Hampshire, "as learned from his father, Alan Luther, when he was seven years old." September 17, 1942

The House Carpenter

"Well met, well met, my own true love;
Well met, well met," said he,
"For I have crossed the salt sea wave,
And it's all for the sake of thee;
For I have crossed o'er the salt sea wave,
And it's all for the sake of thee."

"Oh I could have married a king's daughter fair,
And she would have married me,
'N I have crossed the salt sea wave,
And it's all for the sake of thee."

"If you could have married a king's daughter fair,
I'm sure you are much to blame,
For I am married to a house carpenter,
And I'm sure he's a fine young man;
For I am married to a house carpenter,
And I'm sure he's a fine young man."

"If you will forsake your house carpenter
And come along with me,
I will take you to a place where the grass grows green
On the banks of a sweet Willie:
I'll take you to a place where the grass grows green
On the banks of a sweet Willie."

And then she takes poor little babe
And sets it on her knee,
Saying, "Stay at home, my darling little babe;
Keep your father's company.
Oh, stay at home, my darling little babe;
Keep your father's company."

She had not been on board two weeks -
I am sure it was not three -
When this fair maid was seen to weep,
And she wept most bitterly;
When this fair maid was seen to weep,
And she wept most bitterly.

"Oh, is it for my gold that your mourn,
Or is it for my store,
Or is it for my house carpenter
That you never will see any more?

They had not been on board three weeks -
I'm sure it was not four -
When this proud ship she sprung a leak
And she sank to rise no more;
When this proud ship she sprung a leak
And she sank to rise no more.

A curse, a curse, to all seamen,
A curse, a curse for life,
For robbing of a house carpenter
And stealing away his wife;
For robbing of a house carpenter
And stealing away his wife.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: GUEST,gus
Date: 11 Dec 11 - 01:40 PM

Thanks B.P. for the link to Rae. The title would probably have been given by an academic. It certainly is very close to Child 243F [15 verses] with his version having 18 verses [not 17 as given in the text] At a quick check I cannot find the three extra verses in any of the versions in Child.
As a nonacademic traditional singer from the sticks I very much doubt if Rae would even have heard of Child 40 years ago.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 11 Dec 11 - 06:05 PM

Thanks for the Joe Rae site. I finally got around to listening to that. It was grand.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE SHIP CARPENTER (trad Vermont)
From: John Minear
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 08:36 AM

I'm going to go ahead and put up the version that Flanders collected from Lena Bourne Fish, even though we already have a version from Granny Fish collected by the Warners. This is obviously the same version but there are some interesting differences in the way Mrs. Fish has sung her ballad. Flanders says that Mrs. Fish learned this ballad from her father, Stratton Bourne, who was born in northern Vermont, but whose forebears had been early settlers of Bourne, MA, on Cape Cod. It would be nice to claim this as a Massachusetts version, but I think that might be a stretch.

The Ship Carpenter

"Well met, well met, my pretty fair maid!"
"Not so very well met," said she,
"For I am married to a ship carpenter,
And a very fine man is he."

"If you will forsake your ship carpenter
And go along with me,
I will take you where the grass grows green
On the banks of the sweet vallee."

"If I forsake my ship carpenter
And go along with thee,
What have you there to keep me on?
Will I be in slavery?"

"Oh, I have ships all in the bay
And plenty more on land;
Five hundred and ten of fine young men,
And they're all at your command."

She took her baby in her arms
And gave him kisses three.
"Stay home, stay at home with your own father dear,
And he'll take care of thee."

She had not sailed six weeks on the sea,
Oh, no, not scarcely three,
Before this lady began for to mourn
And she wept most bitterly.

"Now do you mourn for gold? said she,
"Or are you tired of me?
Or do you mourn for your ship carpenter
That you left to follow me?"

"I do not mourn for gold," she cries,
"But I am tired fo thee!
And I do mourn for my ship carpenter
And for my sweet babee!"

The wild waves 'round the ship did roll;
They were leagues from shore;
In the bottom of the ship there sprang a leak.
And her mourning was heard no more.

This was recorded in 1940, with a "retake" in 1943. The Warner recording of Lena Bourne Fish was made in 1940. It is interesting to compare the two versions (the Warner one is above), and to notice the subtle differences in wording which really do affect the meaning of the song. [There is a correction to the Warner version: in the third line of the second verse it should read "take" instead of "teak".]

Subject: Lyr Add: THE HOUSE CARPENTER (trad New Hampshire)
From: John Minear
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 08:59 AM

And here is the version which Miss Ruth Moses of New York City "set down...from the singing of her father, who lives in Woodstock, New Hampshire." Flanders added this to her collection on February 9, 1935. I am treating this version as one from New Hampshire rather than New York City. All of these ballads from the Flanders' Collection are being taken from Vol. 3 of her ANCIENT BALLADS TRADITIONALLY SUNG IN NEW ENGLAND (1963).

The House Carpenter

"Oh, I might have married the Kings's daughter fair
And she would have married me,
but I have refused the crowns of Gordon gold,
And 'tis all for the sake of thee."

"If you have refused the King's daughter fair
I think you're much to blame,
For I am married to a House Carpenter
And I think he's a nice young man."

"If you will forsake your House Carpenter
And go along with me,
I'll take you where the grass grows green
On the banks of sweet Guerlee.

'If I forsake my House Carpenter
And go along with thee,
Oh, what hast thou got to maintain me on
Or to keep me from slavery?"

"I've got three ships loaded down with gold
And a-sailing now for land,
With a hundred and ten right jolly seamen bold,
And they're all at your command."

Then she dressed herself in scarlet red,
A color you all have seen,
And as she walked the streets up and down
She looked like a glittering queen.

Then she took up her darling little child;
She gave it kisses three,
Saying, "Stay at home, my darling little child,
For to keep your father company."

They had not been at sea more than two weeks,
I'm sure it couldn't have been three,
When that fair lady was seen for to weep,
And she wept most bitterly.

"Oh, is it for my gold that you weep?
Or is it for my store?
Or is it for your House Carpenter
That you never can see any more?"

"Oh, it is not for your gold that I weep,
Nor it is not for your store,
But it is for my darling little child
That I never can see any more."

They had not been at sea more than three weeks,
I'm sure it couldn't have been four,
When the ship sprang a leak; to the bottom then she sank
And she sank to arise no more.

Then that brings a curse on all womenkind,
Likewise on all men alive,
Who'll steal away from a House Carpenter
And take away his wife.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE HOUSE CARPENTER (trad Connecticut)
From: John Minear
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 09:26 AM

[Mudcat just gobbled up a ballad so I will try it again.]

From the Flanders Collection, May 17, 1949, as sung by Oscar Degreenia of West Cornwall, Connecticut. Flanders says, "He learned this from his Canadian-born father and his mother, a native of Glover, Vermont." So we don't really know whether this is a Canadian version or from what part of Canada, or whether it is a Vermont version. It is probably not a "Connecticut version."

The House Carpenter

"I have came across the sea, salt sea;
It was all for the sake of thee.

"I might have married a king's daughter fair
And she would married me."
"For I have married a house carpenter
And I think he's a very nice man."

"If you will leave your house carpenter
And come along with me,
I'll take you there where the grass grows green
On the banks of the sweet Dundee."

"If I should leave my house carpenter
And go along with thee,
What have you there to support me on
Or keep me from misery?"

"I have three ships all loaded with gold
And sailing for dry land,
And a hundred and twenty sailor boys
Will be at your demand."

She picked her baby up into her arms
And give him kisses three,
Saying, "Stay at home with you pap
For he is good company."

They had not sailed a week an' a half,
I'm sure it was not three,
Before this fair maid found for to weep,
And she wept most bitterly.

"Is it for gold that you do weep,
Or is it for my store?"
"It's for my darling little babe
That I never will see no more."

They had not sailed three weeks and a half,
I'm sure it was not four,
When a hole broke lout in the bottom of the ship,
And their bones was heard no more.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE DAEMON LOVER (trad Massachusetts)
From: John Minear
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 09:41 AM

This may be the only version so far that might claim Massachusetts as an origin, although it was collected from a person in Newport, Rhode Island. It was sung by Edith Ballenger Price, on October 23, 1945. She learned it as a young girl from "a lady living in Massachusetts, whose forebears came from England." This version is considerably different from the other New England versions and is entitled "The Daemon Lover."

The Daemon Lover

"I've seven ships upon the sea,
Beaten with the finest gold,
And mariners to wait upon us;
All this she shall behold."

She set her foot unto the ship,
No mariners did she behold;
But the sail was o' the....
And the mast o' the beaten gold.

They hadna' sailed a league, a league,
A league but only one,
When she began to weep and to mourn
and to think on her little wee son.

"Now hold ye tears, my dearest dear;
Let all your weeping be:
For I'll show you how the lilies grow
On the banks of Italee.

They hadna' been a league, a league,
A league but only two,
When she beheld his cloven foot,
From his gay robe thrusting through.

They hadna' sailed a league, a league,
A league but only three,
When dark and fearsome grow his looks
And gurly grow the sea.

"Now hold your tears, my dearest dear,
Let all your weeping be
And I'll show ye how the white lilies grow
At the bottom o' the sea."

They hadna' sailed a league, a league,
A league but only four;
When the little wee ship ran 'round about
And never was seen more.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE YOUNG TURTLE DOVE (trad New Hampshire
From: John Minear
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 10:48 AM

From a manuscript that belonged to Mrs. John Luther and handed on to her sister, Mrs. Alice Robie of Pittsburg, New Hampshire, and collected on November 21, 1941 by M. Olney, who was the "collector" for Flanders of many of these ballads.

THE YOUNG TURTLE DOVE

Don't you see young turtle dove
That sits on yonder pine,
She is lamenting for her true love
As I'm lamenting for mine.

I have returned from the salt, salt sea
All for the marry you
And you are married to a house carpenter
And he is a fine young man.

She went into her golden room
And dressed in silk so fine;
She turned around and around again
For she shone like a diamond's bride.

She went unto her dear little babe
And gave it kisses three
Saying, "Stay at home, my dear little babe,
Keep your papa company."

They had not sail'd more than one or two weeks,
I am sure it was not three,
When this fair maid, she began to weep
And she wept most bitterly.

Why do you mourn for your house carpenter that you have left on shore
I do not mourn for my house carpenter that I have left on shore;
But I do mourn for my dear little babe
That I shall see no more.

They had not sailed more than two or three weeks
I am sure it was not four
Before the ship sank in the deep
And sank to use no more.

There was no tune given with this version.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 11:21 AM

Here is a fragment sung by Maynard Reynolds of Pittsburg, New Hampshire "(upper Connecticut Lakes section)," September 8, 1941. Flanders says that "Reynolds was born in Maine and heard ...(this ballad) sung when a small boy." I would suggest that this may be a "Maine version" rather than a "New Hampshire version".

"Oh, if you'll forsake your house carpenter
And come along with me,
I will take you to the place where the green grass grows
On the banks of the Sweet Willee.
I will take you to the place where the green grass grows
On the banks of the Sweet Willee."

They had not been to sea two months,
I'm sure it was not three,
When she was seen sitting at the old cabin door
.....

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 11:27 AM

Here is a Youtube of Deborah Flanders, a great-niece of Helen Hartness Flanders, singing a version of "The House Carpenter" from the Flanders Collection. She does not identify which version it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Cui5qJIfuIs#!

Here is her website:

http://www.deborahflanders.net/Home.html

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 11:55 AM

The Ship's Carpenter as sung by George Edwards (of Grahamsville and Roscoe, New York) in Cazden, Haufrecht, & Studer, Folk Songs of the Catskills at Google Books

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: Lyr Add: THE HOUSE CARPENTER (trad Maine)
From: John Minear
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 11:58 AM

Here is the version sung by Allen Johnson, which he learned in Calais, Maine. It was collected by William L. Alderson for the Library of Congress (LC/AAFS, rec. No. 10366(A6).

House Carpenter

Well met, well met, my fair pretty maid.
No so very well met, said she,
For I am married to a house carpenter,
And a very fine man is he,
For I am married to a house carpenter,
And a very fine man is he.

If you'll forsake your house carpenter
And come along with me,
I'll take you there where the grass grows green,
On the banks of the sweet Vallie,
I'll take you there where the grass grows green,
On the banks of the sweet Vallie.

O if I forsake my house carpenter
And come along with thee,
What have you there to entertain me with
And keep me company?
What have you there to entertain me with
And keep me company?

I've a thousand ships all on the bay,
And many more on land,
A hundred and ten of as fine young men,
And they're all at your command,
A hundred and ten of as fine young men,
And they're all at your command.

She went upstairs herself to dress,
Very beautiful she was to behold,
For when she walked along the streets
She shone as though she were gold,
For when she walked along the streets
She shone as though she were gold.

She took her babe all in her arms
And kissed him three times three.
Stay at home, stay at home, stay at home, my lad,
Your father's good company.
Stay at home, stay at home, stay at home, my lad,
Your father's good company.

They had not been sailing for more than six weeks,
O no, not more than three,
When this fair lady began to mourn
And mourned most bitterly,
When this fair lady began to mourn
And mourned most bitterly.

O is it gold for which you mourn,
Or do you mourn for me ?
Or do you mourn your house carpenter
Who you left to follow me?
Or do you mourn your house carpenter
Who you left to follow me?

O it is not gold for which I mourn,
Nor do I mourn for thee.
But I do mourn my house carpenter
Who I left to follow thee.
But I do mourn my house carpenter
And likewise my fair baby.

They had not sailed for more than eight weeks,
O no, not more than four,
When a hole in the ship it sprang a leak,
And the mourner was heard no more,
When a hole in the ship it sprang a leak,
And the mourner was heard no more.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 12:04 PM

"As a nonacademic traditional singer from the sticks I very much doubt if Rae would even have heard of Child 40 years ago"

He may or may not have heard of Child, Guest gus, but the version he sings is pretty much word-for-word that published by Motherwell in 'Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern' (read it here) in 1873. It's substantially the smae as Child's F text From Scott, with those rather poetic additonal verses about waesomely wailing snow-white sprites etc.

I think it's a mistake to assume that traditional singers from the rural working class were necessarily ignorant of published ballad collections. Mike Yates article about Joe Rae tells us that Joe learned songs from his mother and father, but also from his neighbour, the shepherd Ned Robertson, of whom Yates says:

"many of Ned's texts are similar to those published in the late 18th and early 19th centuries by the likes of Herd and Motherwell... Joe's ballads reveal a literary influence from perhaps a couple of hundred years ago."

He also quotes Alan Lomax thus:

"The Scots have the liveliest folk tradition of the British Isles, but paradoxically, it is the most bookish. Everywhere in Scotland I collected songs of written or bookish origin from country singers, and, on the other hand, I constantly encountered bookish Scotsmen who had good traditional versions of the finest folk songs. For this reason I have published songs which show every degree and kind of literary influence."

And I hate to rain on too many parades at once, but John Minear's transcription (and thank for all those, John) from Edith Price of Newport, RI, looks an awful lot like a collation from the two versions of the ballad in Motherwell's 'Minstrelsey'. If the singer did indeed give it the title 'Daemon Lover', that alone would be grounds for suspicion.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 12:04 PM

Thanks, Becky, for the George Edwards' version from the Catskills. Here are two versions from the Adirondacks, collected by Edith E. Cutting and published in her book LORE OF AN ADIRONDACK COUNTY (from Google Books). One version is by Mrs. Cornwright and one by Mr. Cutting.

http://books.google.com/books?id=MElT30avx4wC&pg=PA69&dq=The+House+Carpenter+ballad&hl=en&ei=SUbdTv3_BqHK0AGNwJHHAg&sa=X&oi=book

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 12:08 PM

Possibly outside the region of your interest, but the version in the Penguin Book of Canadian Folk Songs is from LaRena Clark of Ontario. This article says that most of her English songs came from her grandfather who emigrated from northern England.

Song transcript available by request...

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 12:10 PM

Hi Brian. I, too, was suspicious of that "Daemon Lover" version from Rhode Island/Massachusetts/England. Thanks for the Mike Yates article on Joe Rae.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 12:13 PM

Becky, thanks for the LaRena Clark information. Can you post her version without too much trouble? I think it would give us a broader context for what we are looking at and be good for the purposes of comparison.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE HOUSE CARPENTER (trad Maine)
From: John Minear
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 03:35 PM

Here is the version sung by Susie Carr Young, of Brewer, Maine, and collected by George Herzog in 1928. This ballad was "traditional in her family." (Bronson, 452)

THE HOUSE CARPENTER

She took her baby on her knee
And she gave it kisses three,
Saying, "Stay a t home, you sweet pretty babe,
Keep your father company."

They had not been out more than two weeks,
I'm sure it was not three,
Before this lady began to weep,
And she wept most bitterly.

"O, do you weep for the gold that you left,
Or the dangers of the sea?
Or is it for fear of that house-carpenter
That you left when you came with me?"

"I do not weep for the gold that I left,
Or the dangers of the sea;
But it's all for the love of that little baby
That I left when I came with thee."

Subject: Lyr Add: THE HOUSE CARPENTER (trad New Jersey)
From: John Minear
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 03:50 PM

Here is the version sung by Jennie Devlin and I believe recorded by Alan Lomax. You can find out more about it here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=fVilv3ZcQEAC&pg=PA125&dq=The+House+Carpenter+ballad&hl=en&ei=EEfdTsL9MKrc0QHokZHDBg&sa=X&oi=boo

Roud says that this was collected in Gloucester, Massachusetts, but Newman in her book, NEVER WITHOUT A SONG, pp. 124-126, talks about it coming from New Jersey. There was not enough of the book on line for me to figure this out. Lomax's "Intro" was particularly unhelpful.

The House Carpenter

"Well met, well met, O my own true love,
Well meet, well met, O," cries she.
"I've come across the deep blue sea,
And it's all for o'er the love of thee."

"If I am to give up my house carpenter,
And also my little baby,
What have you got to support me upon,
On the banks of the old Tennessee?"

"I have six ships a-sailing the sea,
And one hundred and ten
Of your own countrymen
For to be at your command."

[So she goes with him]

She picks up her dear little baby,
And kisses it one, two, and three,
Saying "Stay at home with your daddy,
While I go sailing on the sea."

Subject: Lyr Add: THE YOUNG SHIP'S CARPENTER (trad NF)
From: John Minear
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 04:01 PM

Here is a version collected by Kenneth Peacock from Mrs. Mary Ann Galpin of Codroy, Newfoundland, in 1961. It comes from this website, which is not identified on this particular page:

http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/16/carpenter.htm

The Young Ship's Carpenter (Collected by Kenneth Peacock)

In England there lived a young ship's carpenter,
They tell me that he had a handsome wife,
When a sea captain he went from Newfoundland,
And soon he blighted both their tender lives.

He said, "Come and leave your husband now, my dear,
And see some pleasure all of your life,
And we will both go back to Newfoundland,
And there we will pass for man and wife."

"If I should leave my husband dear," said she,
"Likewise my little family that's so small,
What have you got to maintain me,
To support my weary ones in with all?"

He said, "I have seven ships now all of my own,
It was one of them that brought me here on shore,
And one of them will be at your command
For to carry you about from shore to shore."

They had not been sailing long upon the sea,
Scarcely two days, or p'rhaps it was 'bout three,
Before that young ship's carpenter's handsome wife
She began to weep most bitterly.

"Do you weep for gold, my dear?" said he,
"Or do you weep for silver that is free,
Or do you weep for any other man
That you do like much better than me?"

"I do not weep for gold," then said she,
"And neither do I weep for silver that is free,
But I do weep for my own little family
That I ought to have brought on board along with me."

'Twas just a short time after that, I know,
This lady she was distracted and forlorn.
Then she soon ended her life into the sea
By jumping overboard at the height of the storm.

When that sad news to England it returned
The young ship's carpenter swore and tore his hair,
Saying, "My curse might lay on you, all mariners,
For you do live a sad and a wicked life;
My curse may lay on that sea captain, too,
For 'twas he that stole away from me my handsome wife."

Here are the comments that accompany this ballad:

"Collected in 1961 from Mrs. Mary Ann Galpin of Codroy, NL, by Kenneth Peacock and published in Songs Of The Newfoundland Outports, Volume 3, pp.740-741, by the National Museum of Canada (1965) Crown Copyrights Reserved.

Kenneth Peacock noted that this ballad, usually known as The House Carpenter, especially in its North American variants, has lost most of its 'daemonic' character. If one reads the daemonism back into this Newfoundland variant, one finds that the woman was originally betrothed to the sea captain. However, when she jilts him for the young ship's carpenter he vows to have revenge and enlists the help of the devil. Appearing in the likeness of the captain, the devil woos her away from domestic bliss to her ultimate destruction. All these latter-day variants of the story are quite possibly descended from an archtypal legend of the remote past when sea daemons lured unsuspecting maidens into their submarine parlours."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 04:04 PM

The previous note comes from this website:

http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 04:52 PM

Brian, is this the Heylin piece on Dylan's "Daemon Lover" that you were referring to? It is quite amazing and will take some study.

http://www.clinton-heylin.com/PDFs/DaemonBitz.pdf

Subject: Lyr Add: THE HOUSE CARPENTER (trad Ontario)
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 07:49 PM

From The Penguin Book of Canadian Folk Songs
Edit Fowke & Keith MacMillan, 1973

81. The House Carpenter
from LaRena Clark (Toronto, Ontario 1961, recorded on 'LaRena Clark: A Canadian Garland', Topic 12T140)

'Well met, well met, my own true love,
And very well met,' said he.
'I have just returned from the salt, salt sea,
And it's all for the sake of thee.

'I could have married a queen's daughter,
And she would have married me,
But I refused a crown of gold,
And it's all for the sake of thee.'

'If you could have married a queen's daughter,
Then she should have married thee,
For me, young man, you have came too late,
For I've married a house carpenter.'

'If you will leave your house carpenter
And go along with me,
I will take you down where the grass grows green
On the banks of the River Dee.'

If I were to leave my house carpenter
And go along with thee,
What have you got to maintain a wife
Or to keep her from slavery?'

'I have seven ships at sea
And seven more in port,
And a hundred and twenty-four jolly, jolly boys,
And they all will wait on thee.'

She called then to her two pretty babes
And she kissed them most tenderly,
Saying, 'Stay at home, my two pretty babes,
And bear your own father company.'

She had not sailed on sea two weeks,
I'm sure not sailed on three,
Till here she sat in her new husband's cabin,
Weeping most bitterly.

'Oh, do you weep for gold?' he said,
'Or do you weep for fear?
Or do you weep for your house carpenter
That you left when you came here?'

'I do not weep for gold,' she said,
'Nor do I weep for fear,
But I do weep for my two pretty babes
That I left when I came here.'

She had not sailed on sea three weeks,
I'm sure not sailed on four,
Till overboard her fair body she threw,
And her weeping was heard no more.

Her curse did attend a sea sailor's life,
Her curse did attend a sailor's life,
For the robbing of a house carpenter,
And stealing away his wife.

---

There's a lovely and rustic ;-) photo of LaRena Clarke here on the cover of 'A family heritage: the story and songs of LaRena Clark'
By Edith Fowke, Jay Rahn, LaRena LeBarr Clark, at Google Books

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 12 Dec 11 - 09:06 PM

Thanks Becky for the version from LaRena Clarke.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 13 Dec 11 - 09:38 AM

Brian posted the text of this earlier, but here is a link to De Marsan's broadside as it was printed in an article by Phillips Barry entitled "Traditional Ballads in New England II," published in the JOURNAL OF AMERICAN FOLKLORE, Vol. 18, No. 70, July-Sept., 1905 (scroll to bottom of the page):

http://www.jstor.org/stable/533139?seq=17

Barry says this was printed "about 1860, by H. DeMarsan, 60 Chatham Street, New York, N.Y." It does seem to be something of a baseline for most if not all of the NE versions. How would this broadside have been distributed throughout the North Eastern region? And can we find any earlier references in print to this ballad in the North East or anywhere in the U.S.? I do not want to gather up examples from other regions, but I would be interested if there are any earlier print examples.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Bettynh
Date: 13 Dec 11 - 02:47 PM

Most New Englanders were (and are, I hope) literate, certainly by 1860. This entry from Old Sturbridge Village (a historical repro village representing 1830) discusses distribution. By 1860, railroads would certainly be involved as well.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 14 Dec 11 - 06:41 AM

While this excerpt is a bit chopped up, there are some interesting observations here in Norm Cohen's FOLK MUSIC: A REGIONAL EXPLORATION. Here is what was available of his discussion on the Northeast.

http://books.google.com/books?id=DqN_-kyCJFcC&pg=PA84&dq=New+England+singers+-+Norm+Cohen&hl=en&ei=-4roTvuuK-T50gHu8cDsCQ&sa=X&o

Subject: Lyr Add: THE HOUSE CARPENTER (trad Virginia)
From: John Minear
Date: 14 Dec 11 - 02:44 PM

For comparative purposes, here is a very fine version of "The House Carpenter" sung by Robert Shifflett, of Browns Cove, VA, which is in the Blue Ridge, east of Charlottesville.

http://www.klein-shiflett.com/shifletfamily/HHI/GeorgeFoss/SONGS/song5.html

"Well met, well met my old true love
Well met, well met," cried he,
"I have just returned from the great salt sea
To take thee away with me."

"I once could have married a king's daughter fair
She wanted to marry me
But a crown of gold have I refused
Because of my love for thee.

If you could have married a king's daughter, sir,
I'm sure you are to blame,
For I am married to a house carpenter
And he is a nice young man."

"Will you forsake your house carpenter
To sail away with me?
I will take you where the grass grows green
On the banks of the low country."

"How can I leave my house carpenter
Oh, how can I leave I say?
How could I leave my three little babes
To sail so far away?"

"I have seven ships upon the sea
All sailing for this land
And a hundred and ten brave, jolly, bold men
Shall be at your command."

She picked up her three little babes
She gave them kisses three
Saying,"Stay here with your papa, my dear,
To keep him company.

She arrayed herself in rich attire
Most glorious to behold
And every hamlet they rode through
She shown and glittered like gold.

They had been on the sea about two weeks
I'm sure it was not three
When this fair maiden began to weep
She wept most bitterly.

"Is it for the gold you weep
Or is it for the store?
Or can it be for your house carpenter
You never will see anymore?"

"It is not for the gold that I weep
And neither for the store
But I am grieving for my three little babes
I never shall see anymore."

They had been on the sea about three weeks
I'm sure it was not four
When there sprang a leak in the bottom of the ship,
And it sank to rise no more.

"What is it that looms so black,
As black as the feathers of a crow?"
"That is the smoke from the fires of Hell
Where you and I must go."

"What is it that shines so bright
As white as driven snow?"
"That is the gate of Heaven itself
Where we can never go."

This version is very similar to those that we have found in New England, with the exception of the last two verses. It is also very similar to the DeMarsan broadside. I wonder if the DeMarsan broadside was picked up at some point and published in a songbook. I'm finding it a little hard to grasp how a single broadside published in New York/Philadelphia could have spread so far and wide.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: GUEST,julia L
Date: 14 Dec 11 - 11:11 PM

Cape Breton's Magazine
> Issue 23 > Page 1 - MacDougalls and Whittys and Songs
Page 1 - MacDougalls and Whittys and Songs
Published by Ronald Caplan on 1979/7/31


Music as sung by Mary Ann MacDougall Cape Breton

It's of a young man this song I write
Unto the seas he takes great delight
While the female sex had him beguiled
Till at length he had two of them with child

He promised them he'd be true to both
He bound himself with a solemn oath
For to marry them both if he had life
And one of them he made his wife

The other poor girl she was left alone
She said, "You false and alluding men
It's funny. You have done a wicked thing
Which a public shame unto me will bring."

It's to some silent woods she went
This public shame all to prevent
And for to finish off the strife
She cut the tender thread of life

She hung herself out off a tree
Two men were hunting they did her see
Her flesh by birds were beastly torn
Which grieved those young men's heart forsom

Straightway they ran and they cut her down
And in her bosom a note was found
This note was written out in large
Saying, "Bury me not or I'll do you charge

"But here on the ground you will let me lie
For all false young men as they pass by
And this by me a warning take
And see their follies when it's too late."

It was on the land she plagued him so
Till at length to the sea he was forced to go

And as he was standing in the topmast high
A little boat he chanced to spy
A little boat without any trim
Which made him tremble on every limb

It's down below then this young man goes
Unto the captain his mind unclose
Saying, "There is a spirit a-coming hence
So captain you'll stand up in my defence."

It's up on deck then the captain goes
It's there he spied this a-fettered ghost
Saying, "Captain, captain, you must untend
You must fide(?) and help me with this young man.'

"It's in St. Helen's this young man died
And in St. Helen's his body lies."
"Oh captain do not tell me so
For he do dwell in your ship below

"And if you will stand up in his defence
A mighty storm I will send hence
Which it will make you and your sailors weep
And leave your bodies rolling in the deep.

" It's down below then the captain goes
He brings this young man unto his foes
She fixed her eyes on him so grim
That it made him tremble on every limb

Saying, "It's easily knowing when I was a maid
It was first by you I was betrayed
I am a spirit that came for thou
You bought me once but I got you now."

It's to preserve then both ship and men
It was in that boat where she forced him then
The boat sank down in a flame of fire
Which caused the sailors all to admire

So come all good people who love belong
And since you heard of my mournful song
Be true to one or don't be tied
Or don't allure with poor female kind.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: GUEST,julia L
Date: 14 Dec 11 - 11:23 PM

As I re-read this I realize it is in fact a fascinating amalgam... trying to remember the other ballad where the ghost reveals the culprit on the ship... too distracted right now

Also thinking about the relationship to this and Miss Bailey's Ghost

best- J

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 15 Dec 11 - 08:07 AM

"This version is very similar to those that we have found in New England, with the exception of the last two verses."

Yes, John - but those two last verses (Hell / Heaven) appear in Child F (Scott and Motherwell).

Also, that version and many of those from new England contain the verse:

"If you could have married a king's daughter
I'm sure you are to blame"

... which is absent from De Marsan but present in Socts oral and English broadside versions.

The verse beginning:

"She arrayed herself in rich attire
Most glorious to behold"

... is very common in versions from throughout the US, but again is absent from De Marsan; the Scots versions do not contain precisely the same verse, although some do mention posh attire (especially slippers of gold and velvet).

Lastly, several of your New England versions use the formula "keep me from slavery" as opposed to "keep me from misery" in de Marsan, and "what have you to keep me withal, if along with you I should go" in some Child texts (the Peacock Newfoundland version echoes the older versions).

So it looks like something other than De Marsan, whether another broadside or some consistent patterns in oral tradition, has contributed to the predominant form of the ballad in North America.

The Newfoundland version is interesting. Verses 1, 2 and 8 are aberrent, with the touch of a poetic hand about them. Someone has doctored that at some point.

It's also fascinating that the version you've given us from Mrs. Alice Robie of Pittsburg, New Hampshire, starts out with the first verse of the broadside ballad 'Turtle Dove' (aka 'Ten Thousand Miles'). There's one other example in Bronson of the same confusion of two separate songs: version 18, that opens with three verses of 'Turtle Dove', and comes from Wisconsin. Make of that what you will!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 15 Dec 11 - 09:35 AM

Thanks, Brian, for supporting my suspicion that there are some sources other than the DeMarsan broadside feeding into the North American development of this ballad. I suspect that this ballad was alive and well and came over with at least some of the Scotch-Irish immigrants themselves.

I don't know much about the whole business of the Broadsides and would welcome some education on that. Do we know how many copies they would print up and would they do reruns? How many copies of the DeMarsan printing could we reasonably expect to have existed? They would have been disseminated from New York City. I assume that was a major entry point for the Scotch-Irish. Treading very lightly, I wonder how literate these folks were when they arrived. And what about the tune, which seems fairly stable?   Also, what about that earlier (?) version printed in Philadelphia? Do we have textual evidence of that somewhere? Philadelphia would certainly have been a major port of entry for the Scotch-Irish.

According to the Wikipedia article, by 1775, there were already over 200,000 Scotch-Irish immigrants in this country scattered from Maine to Georgia. They had been arriving since 1710. This is well before the printing of the DeMarsan broadside. How likely is it that this printed song sheet found its way into the Southern Highlands? Or the hills of Kentucky and West Virginia? Or the lumber camps of Vermont and Maine? Another 100,000 Scotch-Irish immigrants arrived by 1812. Again, some forty years or so before DeMarsan's printing. Is it not likely that his version of this ballad was actually taken from these immigrants at some point, after they had become relatively well established in North America? This second "wave" was apparently somewhat older in age, and perhaps more skilled and tended to settle in the industrial centers of the North, like New York and Philadelphia. But were they the ballad singers? Weren't the "ballad singers" already several generations established in the Appalachians by then.

Another half a million arrived between 1815 and 1845. They just kept coming! And they spread out across the developing new country. And somehow they took this ballad with them. I suspect that whether or not they first received this ballad in printed form, many of them did in fact write it down for themselves and preserved it in that way as well as in their memories. The tradition of the "ballad boxes" surely plays a major role is stabilizing these texts.

This is all fascinating to me. I just wish we had more printed references to work with on this.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 15 Dec 11 - 01:47 PM

Hi, Julia L, that song is generally classified as a different song from the Demon Lover / House Carpenter, and has its own variants stemming from "The Gosport Tragedy, or, Perjured Ship Carpenter" a London broadside of about 1750. Sometimes known as the Ship's Carpenter, Polly's Love, or Pretty Polly (the last in the U.S., with the story only through the murder).

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 16 Dec 11 - 10:40 AM

Lena Bourne Fish, who lived in East Jaffrey, New Hampshire, back in 1940, when she was recorded by both Frank and Anne Warner, and by Helen Hartness Flandes, singing her version of "The Ship Carpenter" (Child #243), was born in April 1873. From my point in history, this would put her in my grandfather's generation (he was born in 1876). Above, I quoted Flanders as saying that Mrs. Fish learned this ballad from her father, Stratton Bourne, who was born in northern Vermont. This places this particular version of "The House Carpenter" back into the previous generation, or what would be my own great-grandfather's time. My great-grandfather, Franklin Pond, was born on November 30, 1819. Assuming that he and Stratton Bourne were contemporaries, this pushes the potential time for this version back to the early days of the 19th century. And if Stratton Bourne learned the ballad from his family, it would go back into the 1700's, but there is no documentation for that.

As far as I know, none of my ancestors were ballad singers. My mother's family, the Ponds, came over with Governor Winthrop in 1630, and settled in the Boston area, and were probably among those Puritans from East Anglia (to be specific in this case, from Groton, in Suffolk, England), that Brian mentioned earlier. My father's family were German and came over in 1732 to Philadelphia from the Palatinate, to become part of the "Pennsylvania Dutch", and eventually settled in Tucker County, West Virginia. I'm sure that both the Ponds and the Minears intermarried along the way with some good Scotch-Irish folks, but there are no records of ballad singing on either side.

I find that when I am trying to picture history it helps to personalize it and locate it. Both of the great-grandfathers involved here "went west" as young men. George Minear left West Virginia and moved out to the "frontier" of southeastern Iowa on the banks of the Des Moines River to farm in the late 1850's. Franklin Pond went to California in 1849 as a part of the "Gold Rush". [You can read about some of Captain Pond's later adventures in this thread: thread.cfm?threadid=126347 ]

They would have already departed for the west when the DeMarsan broadside was published in 1860. There was probably ballad singing going on in West Virginia in those days. Perhaps even in Tucker County, and it is conceivable that the Minears might have been exposed to it. If he was a singer, George Minear could have taken the ballad out to Iowa. Franklin Pond was born in Granby, Connecticut. He might have heard some ballad singing, and if he had been a singer, he could have taken the ballad out to California and beyond. But in both cases, their versions would have pre-dated the DeMarsan version.

I am just trying to imagine the times and some of what was going on from the perspective of my own personal family histories. Instead of Iowa or California, we do know that the ballad traveled to northern Vermont and down into central Virginia (Robert Shifflett's version was older than he was and probably came from the generation of Stratton Bourne and Franklin Pond and George Minear. Robert Shifflett was of my father's generation, having been born in 1909). But, at this point we don't know when "The House Carpenter" arrived either in northern Vermont or in central Virginia, using just these two examples.

I think that Brian's detailed observations above about some of the differences in details gives us about as much basis as we are likely to find at this point for suggesting that there were other and certainly possibly earlier traditions of "The House Carpenter" existing in North America from which our current "collections" have descended. And I suspect that any new information is going to come from individuals digging around in their own personal family histories. However, I have a feeling that we are approaching the point when "stuff" that may have survived the last two or three hundred years is either not going to be found or has already gone by the wayside. That is a pessimistic reading on things, and my own opinion, but I don't feel hopeful about new discoveries. But who knows what remains stashed away in academic archives and museums that no one has ever really looked at. And don't forget the local garage and estate sales!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 17 Dec 11 - 03:15 PM

Here is a very interesting website about music from the Adirondacks:

http://woods.tauny.org/pages/70/6/some-background

If you scroll down, you will see a photograph of a handwritten copy of "The House Carpenter".

You can also view it here:

http://woods.tauny.org/images_start.php?gal=gallery/sub5/&img=48

And here is a (sideways) picture of some more of the ballad:

http://woods.tauny.org/images_start.php?gal=gallery/sub5/&img=49

I'm not sure, but I think that the date on this is April 28, 1869! It is from Sarah A. Willard, in Moriah Center. NY. Unfortunately, as near as I can tell, there is no discussion on this website of this manuscript! It is not even labeled. From what I can read of the manuscript, this version looks like many of the others that we have found from New England. If anybody knows anything more about this manuscript, please share with us.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 17 Dec 11 - 04:33 PM

I think it might be 1849 John, comparing it with the numbers on the verses.

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 17 Dec 11 - 05:06 PM

Mick, you just might be right about that! I can't really see the only other "6" on the document, but when you compare it with verse "4" it looks pretty close. I have emailed TAUNY asking for more information on this manuscript. We'll see what they say. Thanks for your sharp eyes, Mick. If it is "1849" then this must be the oldest written documentation in North America for "The House Carpenter" and certainly pre-dates the DeMarsan broadside. It is very strange to me that there is no discussion that I have been able to find anywhere about this. And if you Google "The House Carpenter" pictures, it's right there.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 17 Dec 11 - 09:41 PM

Mick Pearce has transcribed the "Willard Version" from TAUNY website for us. He gives us a literal transcription and then a modern reading of that. Thanks very much for this good work, Mick.
---
The House Carpender

1
Well mett well mett my own
True love well mett well mett,said he
I have just returned from the salt
Salt Sea all for hte love of the

2 If you will forsake your hous
Carpender and go along with me
I will take you whair the grass
grows green on the Banks of the Sweete
Willie

3 If i'll forsake my house carpender
And go along with the have you
Eny thing to mantane me up
on to kepe me from slavery
-- ---- -- -- -

4 One hundred ships I have at
Sea a making for dryd land
With two hundred and tenn bold
Jolly seamen all shall be at your comand

5
She called her babe up on her
Knee and she kist it two and three
Sayd stay at home my sweete little
Babe and keepe your dad company

6
She dresst her self in rich way
In riches to be hold and every street
that She past through she shode
her glitter goald

7
She had not been at Sea two
Weakes I am sure it was not three
before this maid she began
for to weap and She wept most
Bitterly

8 Is it for my goald that you
Weape or is it for my store or is
It for the house carpender that
you never can see any more

9
Tis not for your goald that
I weap it is not for your store
But its all for the love of my
Sweete little babe that I never can
See eny more
--- --- --- ---
10
She had not ben on the sea three
Weakes I am sure it was not four
Before that ship She sprung a leak
And she sank to rise no more
--- --- --- --- --- --
11
Bad luck Bad luck to Sea
fare mades and kurse be all
your lives for robing of the
House Carpender and Stealing
Away his wife --- --- ---


April 28 1849

Sarah A.Willard
Moriah Center Ny


================================================
Rendering into modern orthography

The House Carpenter

1
Well met, well met my own true love
Well met, well met, said he
I have just returned from the salt, salt sea
All for the love of thee

2 If you will forsake your house carpenter
And go along with me
I will take you where the grass grows green
On the Banks of the Sweet Willie?

3 If I'll forsake my house carpenter
And go along with thee
Have you anything to maintain me upon
And to keep me from slavery

4 One hundred ships I have at sea
A-making for dry land
With two hundred and ten bold jolly seamen
All shall be at your comand

5
She called her babe up on her
Knee and she kissed it two and three
Said stay at home my sweet little babe
And keep your dad company

6
She dressed herself in rich way
In riches to behold
And every street that she passed through
She showed her glittering gold

7
She had not been at sea two weeks
I am sure it was not three
Before this maid she began for to weep
And she wept most bitterly

8 Is it for my gold that you weep
Or is it for my store
Or is it for the house carpenter
That you never can see any more

9
Tis not for your gold that I weep
It is not for your store
But its all for the love of my sweet little babe
That I never can see any more

10
She had not been on the sea three weeks
I am sure it was not four
Before that ship she sprung a leak
And she sank to rise no more

11
Bad luck Bad luck to sea fare maid
And cursed be all your lives
For robbing of the House Carpenter
And stealing away his wife

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 18 Dec 11 - 12:25 PM

So who was Sarah A. Willard, who wrote down the lyrics to "The House Carpenter" at Moriah Center, NY, in April of 1849? I have been searching online trying to locate her, but I have not had any success in linking a person by this name to this place. Did she live there or was she visiting? Was she a young woman, perhaps not yet married, or was she an older woman? A very rough time frame for her birth might be somewhere between 1775 and 1835. Moriah Center is near Lake Champlain and was barely even settled by 1849. It is in a region that was known for timbering and then for the mining of iron ore.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Bettynh
Date: 18 Dec 11 - 02:50 PM

According to this , Moriah is much older. Takes you right back to that edge of English settlement mentioned earlier in this thread. Really, there wasn't a huge difference between settlements in upstate NY and those in Kentucky in 1780. Tiny family farms in river valleys were the norm.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 18 Dec 11 - 08:06 PM

I just noticed that in v1 line4 of the original text transcription (09:41) I've put in hte instead of the the of the ms. I thought I'd mention it so that noone thinks that it was like that originally.

Perhaps a mudelf could change it for me.

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 19 Dec 11 - 09:13 AM

Thanks, Betty, for this additional information on Moriah. I've looked at a number of different websites on this and it has been a bit confusing to me trying to pin down exactly what and where "Moriah" is and was since it seems to have evolved historically. In any case, here are the two pages that I looked at:

http://history.rays-place.com/ny/n-hudson.htm

http://www.inandaroundtheadirondackpark.com/History_of_Moriah.htm

A fascinating footnote, for me, is the mention of "Benjamin Pond" as one of the original settlers in this area. Here is a bit more information on him:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Pond

He is descended from Samuel Pond, who was the eldest son of Robert Pond of Dorchester MA, mentioned earlier in this thread here:

thread.cfm?threadid=141964&messages=74#3274281

While I was thinking about "Sarah Willard" over the weekend, I was reminded of a book by Jeffrey Lent, published back in 2002, called LOST NATION. It is a work of fiction, set in what I think is the northern part of New Hampshire, possibly in the early 1830's. It is a very good book but brutal. I suspect that he is fairly accurate in his portrayal of the "frontier" in those times and places. The area he describes is about 150 miles or so northeast of Moriah Center. Accurate or not, it gives me a sense of what life might have been like between the time of Benjamin Pond in 1800 and the time of Sarah Willard in 1849 "in those days."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Bettynh
Date: 19 Dec 11 - 03:40 PM

Have you read Thoreau's Maine Woods? He describes travelling from his home, in civilized Concord, Mass. to several Maine destinations in 1846, 1853, and 1857, passing many farmsteads, logging camps, and Indian settlements while heading for "pure nature." He's fairly meticulous in describing the reading material available in the woods, but the only mention of singing is an Indian who knew some hymns.

My family also arrived in New England (first Boston, then Conn.) in the early 1700s. My branch of that family was Loyalist - they migrated from New England to St. John, NB about 1800, and settled along the St. John River. My grandfather, two brothers, and a sister came to southern NH for work in 1900. I remember one of my grandfather's brothers bursting into verse with little prompting, and he spoke of the Queen (the REAL queen, not Elizabeth) with tears in his eyes. He was born in 1888. Sadly, I never heard singing from any of them.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 19 Dec 11 - 04:02 PM

I had an email response from Varick Chittenden of TAUNY to my enquiry about the Willard manuscript. Here it is:

"Thanks for your inquiry. FYI, the handwritten copy we have in our archival materials is from a file compiled by Miss Edith Cutting beginning nearly 70 years ago. Now in her late 80s, Miss Cutting, who collected largely from family and neighbors in her native northeastern Adirondacks and the Champlain Valley, was a student of the legendary Dr. Harold Thompson and did meritorious fieldwork in those days. She donated some of her large collection to TAUNY, from which this one piece comes.

The limited info on the House Carpenter is: from Cutting's "Songs from Aunt Lois" file, and it is signed Sarah A Willard, Moriah Center NY, April 28, 1869."

They say the date is "1869". That should be authoritative, but it sure looks like "49". I've come across Miss Cutting's name before and we can look further there. I wonder who "Aunt Lois" was. And let me take this opportunity to credit "The Edith Cutting Collection in the TAUNY Archives" for our use of this material. And a big thanks to Varick Chittenden for getting back to me!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 19 Dec 11 - 06:18 PM

I think we have to take their date. I had another look at the ms and in particular the number 6 against the verse. I had originally assumed it was a normal single loop with no tail, but looking again, there is a diagonal line below left of the 6, but not looking connected to it and which I'd originally taken to be just a mark on the paper. But it does seem as if it might have been the continuation of the loop of the 6, which would make it more like the one in the date.

I also had a look for Sarah A Willard at Moriah Center in some of the censuses (via a free search at ancersty.com - it was linked from a Moriah Center site): Sarah A. Willard. There are a few of them listed for Essex, though none actually listed as at Moriah Center. If you hold the mouse over the census line it gives you some information about them. I'd could have got more information by taking a free trial, but declined to.

There are several sites relating to Moriah Center and I think there's a local history and a genealogy group listed for Moriah; they might be able to help identify her. (I think someone with genealogical experience might be needed for this). There was also a cemetary project for Essex, but it looks as if the two nearest cemetaries to Moriah Center haven't been done yet; I dint's see any Willard in the entries for the other Moriah cemeraries. Of course she may neither have been born (one of the census entries for a Sarah A Willard had estimated dob as 1794 and birthplace England!) there, nor died there.

Mick

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 20 Dec 11 - 09:09 AM

Thanks, Mick, for your continuing sharp eyes on this and the detailed search work. So, until further notice, we are back to "1869" as a dating for the Willard manuscript from the Cutting Collection at TUANY. That is still early and a significant documentation. I'm not aware of any other examples like it.

I spent quite a bit of time over the weekend doing genealogical searches for Sarah A. Willard up in the Moriah Center area, but could not find anything that looked likely. That is tedious work. Thanks for your efforts, Mick.

Here is a "preview" from Google Books of Dr. Cutting's LORE OF AN ADIRONDACK COUNTY.

http://books.google.com/books?id=MElT30avx4wC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Edith+Cutting&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BpTwTqHqF4rf0QHUz5y3Ag&ved=0CDs

This is only a partial and fairly limited sampling of her book, but as near as I could tell she does not mention "Aunt Lois" or "Sarah Willard". I believe we posted this reference earlier here:

thread.cfm?threadid=141964&messages=77#3272591

Dr. Cutting does present two different versions of "The House Carpenter" in this book, but there is no reference to the "Willard" version.

Here is a collection from the middle of the 19th century that she helped edit with her teacher, Dr. Harold W. Thompson. The collection is from the western part of the state of NY, and as near as I can tell does not contain "The House Carpenter."

http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100413170

I was unable to find any reference in anything else on line about Dr. Cutting that mentions "Sarah Willard."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Dave Ruch
Date: 20 Dec 11 - 09:24 AM

Hi all,

As project director for the above-referenced TAUNY website on traditional music in the Adirondack Mountains (NY), I felt fortunate to be able to spend large amounts of time working with various archival materials, and TAUNY's Edith Cutting collection was among them.

Because I still have her files here with me in Buffalo, I'm looking at the Aunt Lois file as I type. The official title of this folder is "Songs from Aunt Lois's papers", and underneath that, written in pencil, is the following:

Lois Lobdell, her daughter is Mrs Joseph Kogma(? tough to make out the last name), RD 2 2192C, Westport NY 12993.

I checked the "6s" against the "4s" on the original ms. and the date is indeed 1869, not 1849.   

I was going to mention anecdotally the 1841-1856 Stevens Douglass ms. (New England family that moved to Western NY in the 1830's, kept chapbook of song texts from 1841-1856), and the fact that they had nine Child ballads but no House Carpenter, but I see you found that online as the recently republished "Pioneer Songster".

Let me know if I can be of any other help!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 20 Dec 11 - 08:40 PM

Welcome, Dave, and thanks for this additional information on the Edith Cutting collection, and specifically on "Aunt Lois." Also, thanks for double checking the dating of the "Willard" manuscript. 1869 it is. I have spent the evening searching for "Lois Lobdell" in or around the area of Moriah Center. I found Lobdells as some of the earliest settlers at nearby Elizabethtown:

http://www.archive.org/stream/pleasantvalleyhi00brown#page/43/mode/2up

But I was not able to trace them down to a Lois Lobdell. A number of them did end up in Westport, which is/was the home of the daughter of "Aunt Lois". I feel like I'm close but I can't close the gap. In looking at the descendants of Simon Lobdell, I even found an Abigal Lobdell who married a Willard, but they were over in Vermont, and I couldn't trace it on down to anything.   And now I've gone cross-eyed! Maybe somebody else will have better luck than me connecting some of these dots. Thanks again for your help, Dave.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Dave Ruch
Date: 21 Dec 11 - 07:47 AM

John,

I don't know that Lois Lobdell would have been from Moriah Center. In fact, Elizabethtown sounds much more likely, as Edith Cutting had lots of family there.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 21 Dec 11 - 10:28 AM

Thanks, Dave. I'm sure there is a connection here somewhere. I just couldn't pin it down last night. I wonder if there is any chance that "Aunt Lois" was an actual relative of Dr. Cutting? It's still not clear at this point whether "Lobdell" was her married or unmarried name.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Dave Ruch
Date: 21 Dec 11 - 02:59 PM

John,

I take it that Aunt Lois was indeed a direct relative of Edith Cutting. Varick Chittenden at TAUNY is still in touch with Ms Cutting from time to time - you might check with him.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 22 Dec 11 - 01:58 PM

Here is some nice background on Dr. Cutting:

http://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/upnorth/masters/cutting/cutting.php

As you can see, she was born in Elizabethtown, in Essex County, NY, in 1918. I was able to find this about the first Cuttings to arrive in Elizabethtown:

http://books.google.com/books?id=_kkVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA334&dq=Dr.+Sewall+Sylvester+Cutting&hl=en&sa=X&ei=nXzzTs2OJ6Lh0QHD6LCcAg&ved=

However, I have not been able to find a genealogical link that connects Sewall Cutting to Edith Cutting. I am sure there must be one. Nor have a been able to find a genealogical link between the Cuttings and the Lobdells, although again, I am sure there must be one. There were certainly were both Lobdells and Cuttings in Elizabethtown in the early part of the 19th century. Still no mention of "Willard".

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 23 Dec 11 - 12:39 PM

Well, we have been burrowing down fairly deep in the details here for the past week on the "Willard" manuscript. I just wanted to remind everybody that I'm still looking for other versions of "The House Carpenter"/"The Daemon Lover" from northeastern part of North America - yes, we expanded our original locale from New England to this larger region. Does anyone know of any versions that we have missed? And what about the broadside printed in Philadelphia? Has anybody ever seen this thing? Is it the same as the DeMarsan version printed in NYC?

Does anyone know of any recordings of any of the versions of "The House Carpenter" that we have turned up so far? Has anyone ever recorded one of these New England or Canadian versions?

I know we are headed into the Christmas Weekend here, but if you need a break from all of the holiday cheer and goodwill, think a little on "The House Carpenter"!

Here are some YouTube versions (none from New England that I know of) that you might enjoy:

Bradley Kinkaid from Kentucky:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74LuelnRQjA

Peggy Seeger (with what appears to be the ending of the ballad):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4ajgLW-Yps

Joan Baez with the first version many of us heard:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VzGibeTuGs

Clarence Ashley, from Tennessee, with his classic version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op9j7X5BPGw

From the Watson family in North Carolina:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlS8f23LJd0

Natalie Merchant's version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y3dbVACG6M

Buffy Sainte-Marie's version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko4OL6SHipk&feature=related

Jean Ritchie's version from Kentucky:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT2G-OuRxVE

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 24 Dec 11 - 06:57 AM

I think I found a recording of an Adirondack version of "The House Carpenter". It is on an album by Lee Knight called "Adirondack Ballads and Folk Song - From Lumberwoods, Iron Mines, and Communities (2005). Here is the CD:

http://www.bloatedtoe.com/store/product.php?productid=16426

It is the last track and is combined with "The Gypsy Davey." I have not heard this recording and so far have not found a copy of the lyrics. Has anybody heard this and does anybody have the lyrics?

It says that these are "Songs from the Collection of Historian Marjorie Lansing Porter." And we have another collection! Here is some more information on Marjorie Lansing Porter from our friends at the TAUNY website:

http://adirondackmusic.org/pages/50/16/marjorie-lansing-porter

I've done some initial searches for more information on this collection but I haven't found much yet. Here is what it says from the Library of Congress:

"AFS 22,104-22,136: Marjorie Lansing Porter Collection
Thirty-three 10-inch tapes of conversations, instrumentals, songs, and stories recorded in the Adirondack region of New York by Marjorie Lansing Porter, 1943-67. Obtained through loan from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. The collection includes one and 1/2 linear inches of recording logs, correspondence, concordances, and notes. (66 hours; RWA 2671-2703)"

I've just discovered this LOC site and and realize that there are a bunch of collections out there, most of which I am not going to be able to access!

http://www.loc.gov/folklife/guides/NewYork.html

I'll have to spend some more time looking at this.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 24 Dec 11 - 01:03 PM

Keep up the good work, John, and a merry Christams to you!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 24 Dec 11 - 02:04 PM

Thanks, Brian, and the same to you, and all the rest of you as well. J.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 25 Dec 11 - 09:11 AM

Yesterday, my friend, Gibb, asked the obvious question. "What is your specific interest in finding a Massachusetts version?" So here is the story.

At Thanksgiving I was up in the Boston area and was doing some looking into my family background, on my mother's father's side. That would be the Ponds. I found that they got started over here with Robert Pond and his wife, Mary, who were from Groton, in Suffolk, England. They came over, along with about 700 other folks, with Governor John Winthrop to Boston in 1630. Robert and Mary Pond settled in Dorchester.

Robert was a house carpenter! Sometime in the early 1630's, he built a house there in Dorchester. That house lasted until 1873, when they tore it down to widen the road! Here is a story, with pictures about that old house:

http://www.dorchesteratheneum.org/page.php?id=667

This gave some real meaning to the idea of a "house carpenter" for me. Sadly, Robert died in 1637. But, his wife, Mary, remarried. And you may have guessed it. She married a sea captain! His name was Edward Shepard and he was from Cambridge. Now I realize that the story is a little out of sequence, but all of the characters are there. Mary even had a young son, named Daniel. All of this immediately reminded me of the ballad of "The House Carpenter." And I began to wonder if any versions of this ballad had ever been found in the Boston area or in Massachusetts.

So far, we have not been successful in finding such a version, although these families did multiply and spread out all over the Northeast. Robert's oldest son, Samuel, did not come over to Massachusetts with his father and mother, but apparently arrived some time later. Or, Samuel may have been a brother to Robert. Things are a little murky. But anyway a descendant of Samuel Pond shows up in the Adirondacks. He was a hero of the Battle of Plattsburg, and later settled in the early 1800's in the Elizabethtown area of Essex County. His name was Benjamin Pond.

It is entirely possible that "The House Carpenter" did find its way to Massachusetts, and traveled from there. Maybe Sarah Willard came from Boston! Keep looking.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Dave Ruch
Date: 25 Dec 11 - 03:36 PM

John,

I've got the Lee Knight recording (and his contact info), and also have lots of info on the Marjorie Lansing Porter collection. Send me an email if you'd like any of that stuff - I don't check in here every day. Email is [e-mail]

Just doing a quick five-minute check through my files (we're in the middle of a busy Xmas), there are several versions of the House Carpenter that have been collected in NY & New England that I am aware of, including George Edwards from the Catskills (1940s), Celia Kelter from Ulster Co NY (1950), Martin Montonyae possibly from NJ (age 83 in 1939), and an informant named Henry (last name) from the Flanders Collection.

Sorry so short - I should have a bit of time tomorrow to respond by email if you'd like any more info on any of this, then I'll be away from my files for about a week.

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 26 Dec 11 - 07:02 AM

Hi Dave, I emailed you, but let me say here that when you get some time we'd love to have information on the Porter/Knight version. When, where and from whom did Porter collect this version? It's combined with "Gypsy Davey" on the recording. Are the two songs somehow merged? And also lyrics would be very nice for comparative purposes. Thanks.

We've got the George Edwards version listed up above here:

thread.cfm?threadid=141964&messages=91#3272586

I don't think we have Celia Kelter or Martin Montonyae. I'll take a look and see what I can find. Anything you can share with us here would be appreciated.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 26 Dec 11 - 07:05 AM

Dave, I just noticed that we have only a partial copy of George Edward's version because Google Books cut some pages in the middle of it. If you, or anyone else has the whole thing, we'd welcome it here.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Dave Ruch
Date: 26 Dec 11 - 11:40 AM

John, I just sent you an email with several attachments. Apologies if you received it multiple times - I was getting mixed signals from my email program about whether or not it was sending.

Hope it's useful.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 26 Dec 11 - 01:11 PM

Dave, thanks for all of that very useful information. I will begin putting it up today. To begin with, here is George Edward's complete version of what he called "The Ship's Carpenter."

The Ship's Carpenter

"It's pretty well met to my own true love,
It's pretty well met," says he,
"It's pretty well met to my own true love,
Long time I've waited for thee, O thee,
A long time I've waited for thee."

"I'm married to a house carpenter,
And a jolly house carpenter is he;
By him I have two [three] little babes,
And I can't belong with thee, O thee,
I can't belong with thee.

["If I forsake my husband
And my children three,]
What have you to keep me on,
For to keep me from slavery, O ry,
For to keep me from slavery?"

"I have ships all on yonder sea,
Sailing from sea to dry land;
Besides I have three hundred twenty sailor lads,
They'll be at your command, O mand,
They'll be at your command."

She dress-ed herself in richery attire,
And so gaily where she did dress;
She went a-walkin' u and down the deck
With her dress all glittering gold, O gold,
With her dress all glittering gold.

They hadn't sailed much more than two weeks,
Two weeks had scarce come, and three,
Before she was heard to cry on deck
And to weep most bitterly, O ly,
And to weep most bitterly.

"Do you weep for gold," says he,
"Or do you weep for fee?
Or do you weep for the house carpenter
That you left when you came along with me, O me,
That you left when you came along with me?"

"I don't weep for gold," she says,
"Nor do I weep for fee,
Nor do I weep for the house carpenter
That I left when I came along with thee, O thee,
That I left when I came along with thee.

"But if I was worth ten thousand pounds,
So freely I'd give it to thee
If I could once more go on yonder shore
My two [three] little babes to see, O see,
My two [three] little babes to see."

They hadn't sailed much more than three weeks,
Three weeks, scarce coming four,
Before there was a leak spring up on their deck,
And her cries were heard no more, O more,
And her cries were heard no more.

Three times around went our gallant ship,
Three times around went she,
Three times around went our gallant ship,
And she sunk to the bottom of the sea, O sea,
And she sunk to the bottom of the sea.

May a curse be onto the ship's carpenter,
May a curse do them for life,
May a curse be onto the ship's carpenter,
To persuade away another man's wife, O wife,
To persuade away another man's wife.

According to Norman Cazden (FOLK SONGS OF THE CATSKILLS) George Edwards was from Sullivan County, along the Beaverkill. He lived in Grahamsville and in Roscoe. He was born March 31, 1877, in Hasbrouck. See here, and scroll up to page 19:

http://books.google.com/books?id=1ZKis4hmioIC&pg=PA274&dq=Well+met,+well+met,+my+own+true+love&hl=en&ei=-D7dToXoFKbq0gGR36W5Dw&s

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 26 Dec 11 - 06:54 PM

I want to thank Dave Ruch for sending me a copy of Lee Knight's singing of "The Gypsy Daisy." This is actually a rather unique merging of the ballad of "The Gyspy Davey" and the ballad of "The House Carpenter." When you listen to it, it makes perfectly good sense! Lee Knight got this song from the collection of Marjorie Lansing Porter. She collected this version "from the singing of Alec Couchey of Essex NY, August 30, 1957." Knight goes on to say,

"The ballad merges two of the Child Ballads, The Gypsy Davey with The House Carpenter.  It also includes a verse from Lord Thomas and Fair Annet (Child 73): 'She dressed herself in rich array....'  This is probably a family version since there is a similar text in Mrs Porter's notes attributed to Ora James, sister of Alec."  Here is "The Gypsy Daisy." It is sung to the tune of "The Gypsy Davey."

The Gypsy Daisy

The Gypsy came tripping o'er the hill,
The Gypsy sang so gaily,
He made the wide, wide wind blow,
And he won the heart of a lady.

Will you forsake your house and farm?
Will you forsake your baby?
Will you forsake your house carpenter
To roam with the Gypsy Daisy?

If I forsake my house and farm,
If I forsake my baby,
If I forsake my house carpenter,
To roam with the Gypsy Daisy.
Have you anything to maintain me upon
And keep me from my slavery?

I have a hundred ships that are out at sea,
All making for dry land,
With two hundred and ten bold jolly sailor men
Who will be at your command.
I will take you to where the grass grows green
On the banks of the sweet Willie.

Then I'll forsake my house and farm,
Then I'll forsake my baby.
And I'll forsake my house carpenter
To roam with the Gypsy Daisy.

Last night I slept on a warm feather bed,
Along with my landlord and baby.
Tonight I'll sleep on the cold, cold ground
Beside the Gypsy Daisy.

She dressed herself in rich array,
And riches to behold.
And every street that she passed through,
She showed her glittering gold.

They had not been at sea but about two weeks,
I'm sure it was not three.
When this young maid began to weep
Then wept most bitterly.

Is it for my gold that you weep,
Or is it for my store?
Or is it for the house carpenter
You never will see any more.

It is not for your gold I weep,
Nor is it for your store.
But it's all for the love of the darling little babe,
That I never will see any more.

They had not been at sea about three weeks,
I'm sure it was not four.
When the ship sprang a leak and she sank in the sea
And she sank to rise no more.

Bad luck, bad luck to all sea-faring maids,
Bad luck to all their lives,
But it's robbing of the house carpenter
And the stealing of their wives.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 27 Dec 11 - 11:23 AM

And also from Dave Ruch:

The House Carpenter (fragment)      by Celia Kelter, Tabasco, NY

If you'll forsake your house carpenter
And go along with me.
What have you got to support me on
And to keep me from slavery?

Don't you see those yonder ships,
As bright as bright can be,
I will make you the mistress of them all
If you will follow me.

Dave says: "Celia Kelter was 73 years old in October 1950 when she was recorded by folklorist/collector Sam Eskin.  She was a lifelong resident of the town of Tabasco NY in Ulster County in the Catskills." [She was born in 1877.]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 28 Dec 11 - 11:03 AM

Does anybody have a copy of Sarah Ogan Gunning's album "The Silver Dagger" (Rounder), from about 1976? She sings a version of "The House Carpenter" on this album. I have been unable to find either a recording of it online or the lyrics. I'd welcome the lyrics and any background information of her version.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 28 Dec 11 - 11:18 AM

Here is some background on Edith Cutting's family.

http://books.google.com/books?id=MElT30avx4wC&pg=PA11&dq=An+Essex+County+Family,&hl=en&sa=X&ei=XED7Tt_hNMrb0QGY-qHBAg&sqi=2&ved=

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 28 Dec 11 - 12:28 PM

Here are two broadside editions of "The House Carpenter," one of which appears to tbe the DeMarsan version.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amsshtml/amssTitles14.html

Here is the one with no date or publisher. Could this be the Philadelphia version?

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/S?ammem/amss:@field(TITLE+@od1(The+house+carpenter++%5Bn++p+%5D+%5Bn++d+%5D))

And here is a picture of the actual broadside:

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=amss&fileName=as1/as105530/amsspage.db&recNum=0&itemLink=S?ammem/amss:@field(TITLE+@

We are still looking for more information on the so-called "Philadelphia Broadside" version.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 29 Dec 11 - 04:41 PM

I've spent the day reading this study by Clinton Heylin on Bob Dylan's "House Carpenter."

http://www.clinton-heylin.com/PDFs/DaemonBitz.pdf

Brian Peters referred to it above in this thread, and we also posted this link above. I want to recommend this piece for anybody who is seriously interested in this ballad. In attempting to answer the question: "Where did Bob get this?" Heylin launches into a major study of the history of this ballad. He examines the manuscript history and interaction, the interaction of oral tradition and the broadsides, and the relation of "The House Carpenter" to other ballads in the "Child Collection." Apparently Bob Dylan's version, which he recorded for his first Columbia album, but which was not on that album, is a rather unique version both in terms of what is usually found in North America and in terms of what was being sung during the "revival" at that time by folks like Baez, Clayton, Van Ronk and others.

Here is a sample of some of what Heylin is concerned about:

"That the De Marsan strain of 'House Carpenter' seems to have overwritten many a text that previously drew solace from British oral tradition is truly a damning indictment of what might be termed The Broadside Effect upon traditional processes. Even when there remains evidence of a British oral source underlying an American rendition, the De Marsan gloss has almost always been applied. This makes particularly problematic establishing the form and relative dispersal of texts prevalent in the US at the time of the De Marsan printing."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 30 Dec 11 - 06:21 PM

The Heylin material brought to my attention a version of "The House Carpenter" in the Flanders collection that I had overlooked. It was collected July 13, 1932 from Mrs. Ellen M. Sullivan of Springfield, Vermont, and was entitled "The Banks of Claudy." It is significantly different from all of the other versions collected by Flanders. Mrs. Sullivan gave two different accounts of her ballad. They are as follows, taken directly from ANCIENT BALLADS, by Helen Hartness Flanders. I think that the phrases in parentheses were spoken by Mrs Sullivan, and the phrases in brackets is commentary by Flanders.

The Banks of Claudy

'Twas on the banks of Claudy

(Girl promises to marry a man who goes away, dies and as a ghost returns and says)

"Oh, come with me to the banks fo Claudy,
And perform those promises to me."

(Later in the song:)

When she came to the banks of Claudy,
Oh, sorry sore was she,
There was seven ships sailing to the brim.
They sunk to the bottom and was never seen no more.

When she came to the banks of Claudy,
Oh, sorry sore was she, she,
For the ships they were made of the yellow beaten gold
And the sails were of silk so fine.

[Mrs. Sullivan remembered August 23, 1932, more of "On the Banks fo Cludy," which she called "George Allis."]

(She lay asleep and his ghost came to her.)

"Oh, begone, begone, young George Allis,
For I am a married wife,
Oh, begone, young George," she said,
"For fear there may be strife."

"That is not the promise you gave to me
To come in seven long years and a ay,
So now come on to the salty seas
And perform your promises to me."

[Another time later, Mrs. Sullivan "broke out" with:]

"Oh, begone, begone, young George Allis,
For I am a married wife;
Oh, begone, young George," she said,
"For fear there may be strife, strife,
For fear there may be strife."

"Oh, that is not the promise you made to me
To come again in seven long years and a day
So now come on to the salty sea
And perform your promise to me, to me,
And perform your promise to me."

(She got up and dressed herself.)

When she came to the banks of Claudy
Oh, sorry, sore was she, she,
For there was seen ships floating to the brim
Which was never seen no more, more,
Which was never seen no more.

Then they sailed away for seven leagues;
then they sailed away for seven leagues.
She sank to the bottom of the sea, sea;
She sank to the bottom of the sea
And never was seen again.

[Mrs. Sullivan commented: "He was dead and came back as a ghost after seven years because of the oath that was between them."
---
Second Version

[As sung by Mrs. Ellen M. Sullivan of Springfield, Vermont. Mrs. Sullivan says this tells of a man who was dead who came back as a ghost after seven years, because of the oath that was between him and the girl.]

"O begone, begone, young George Allis,"
For I am a married wife;
O, begone, young George, " she said,
"For fear there may be strife."

"that is not the promise you made to me
To come in seven long years and a day,
So now come on to the salty sea
And perform your promises to me."

When she came to the salty seas,
O sorry sore was she,
There were seven ships floating (sailing) to the brim,
they were sunk to the bottom and was never seen again.

When she came t the banks of Claudy
O sorry sore as she,
Fr the ships they were made of the yellow beaten gold
And the sails of the silk so fine.

Then they sailed away for seven leagues

She sank to the bottom of the sea, sea,
And never was seen again.

[Another time Mrs. Sullivan changed the verses slightly:}

"O, that is not the promise you gave to me
To be gone for a year and a day,
To come again in seven long years and a day;
So now come on to the salty sea
And perform your promises to me, to me."

When she came to the banks of Claudy
For the ship was made of the yellow beaten gold
And the sails were of silk so fine, fine,
And the sails were of silk so fine,

(He was dead and came back as a ghost. She was asleep; she dreamt he came back. She begged to go back to her husband and baby.)

And she sank to the bottom of the sea, sea,
And she sank to the bottom of the sea
And was never seen again,
There was seven ships a-floated to the brim.
They sank to the bottom and were never seen no more.

Heylin says:

"The importance of the "former vows" to the original tale of 'The Dæmon Lover' cannot be underestimated. ...
Though these "former vows" are rarely encountered in American tradition, another Stateside text, collected in Eastern Tennessee by Charles Morrow Wilson, reveals the subtext of these vows that irked the dæmon lover so:

Well met, well met, my own true love,
Well met, well met, said he.
Now that the span of years is done
I'm returnin' to marry thee.

Have you wedded any other man?
I'm shore I've wed no other woman.
Yes, I'm wedded to a house carpenter,
And I think he's a very nice man.

You better leave your house carpenter
And come along with me;
We'll go till we come to the old salt sea,
And married we will be.2

So these vows were almost certainly secret vows of marriage, exchanged by two lovers before the male partner took to sea....

Just one other American version preserves these "former vows." ...the rendition in question, uncovered in Springfield, Vermont, not only survived uncontaminated by De Marsan and his various proxys but by any derivative from Diverting Songs. The female repository, one Ellen M. Sullivan, first recollected the song to collector Helen Hartness Flanders on July 13, 1932. All that she remembered was that a, "girl promises to marry a man who goes away, dies and as a ghost returns and says,"

Oh come with me to the banks of Claudy,
And perform those promises to me, me.
...
Mrs. Sullivan also commented to Flanders that, "He was dead and came back as a ghost after seven years because of the oath that was between them,"9 making explicit the revenant nature of the dæmon lover and recognizing the 'broken vows' as the song's key motif. This sort of explication is not repeated in American tradition until Mr. Dylan's highly unusual rendition, which also 'reveals' the revenant nature of the 'man' at the outset (though not the "former vows")....

Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of the Sullivan text, though, is that she has a name for the revenant, George Allis, seemingly a simple phonetic corruption of the only name ever assigned to the mysterious ex-lover, James Harris (or as Peter Buchan would have it, James Herries). Though it was under this title that the song came to be assigned in Child's English & Scottish Popular Ballads, only Buchan called the song by this name."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 30 Dec 11 - 06:25 PM

Here is Bob Dylan's version, from Heylin:

[spoken:] Here's a story about a ghost come back from out in the sea, come to take his bride away from the house carpenter.

1. Well met, well met, my own true love,
Well met, well met, cried he,
I've just returned from the salt, salt sea,
And it's all for the love of thee.

2. I could have married a king's daughter there,
She would have married me,
But I have forsaken my king's daughter there,
And it's all for the love of thee.

3. Well, if you could have married a king's daughter there,
'm sure you're the one to blame,
For I am married to a house carpenter,
And I'm sure he's a fine young man.

4. Forsake, forsake your house carpenter,
And come away with me,
I'll take you to where the green grass grows,
On the shores of sunny Italy.

5. So up she picked her babies three,
And gave them kisses one-two-three, saying,
Take good care of your Daddy when I'm gone,
And keep him good company.

6. Well, they were sailing about two weeks,
I'm sure it was not three,
When the younger of the girls [sic], she came on deck,
Saying [she] wants company.

7. Well, are you weeping for your house and home,
Or are you weeping for your fee?
Well, I'm not weeping for my house carpenter,
I'm weeping for my babies three.

8. Oh what are those hills yonder, my love,
They look as white as snow,
Those are the hills of heaven, my love,
Where you and I'll never know.

9. What are those hills yonder, my love,
They look as black as night,
Those are the hills of hellfire, my love,
Where you and I will unite.

10. Oh, twice around went the gallant ship,
I'm sure it was not three,
When the ship all of a sudden sprung a leak
And drifted to the bottom of the sea.2

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 02 Jan 12 - 06:45 PM

In his study of the origins of Bob Dylan's version of "The House Carpenter," Clinton Heylin notices a number of verses that show up in various renditions of this ballad in the U.S. that are not found in the De Marsan/J. Andrews broadside of the mid-1800s. He comments on this broadside saying,

"The so-called De Marsan broadside, actually first published by De Marsan's predecessor J. Andrews in New York circa 1857 - and rapidly adopted by American printers of songsters and broadsides like Delaney and Wehamn - seems to have played a large part in any mini-revival, at the same time loosening the grip of all previous templates on American tradition. Of the 200+ versions collected in America in the twentieth century, not even a handful omit this text's unmistakeable watermark.

In other words, this nineteenth century American broadside, a descendant of a late seventeenth-century English broadside, has been almost entirely responsible for the song's survival, and the form of its survival, in twentieth century tradition."

But what about those verses that keep showing up in the American versions that are not in the De Marsan broadside? Through a detailed analysis, Heylin traces these verses back to either Scottish versions of the ballad, or to other Scottish ballads. On this basis he is able to hypothesize that there were earlier, or at least other sources for the spreading popularity of "The House Carpenter" in America, and to further posit that these sources were more than likely Scottish.

Here are those verses that are not a part of the De Marsan broadside, but which show up in various American versions of the ballad, which Heylin has been able to trace back to Scottish origins.

If you will leave your house carpenter,
And go along with me.
I'll take you where the grass grows green,
On the banks of sweet Italy.                               [the use of "sweet Italy"]

O hold your tongue of your former vows,
For they'll bring bitter strifes.
O hold your tongue of your former vows,
For I have become a wife.
--
She dressed herself in rich attire,
Most glorious to behold,
And as she tread upon her road
She shone like the glittering gold.
---
Oh, what is that [hill] that shines so white,
That shines as white as snow?
Oh, those are the hills of heaven itself,
Where we may never go.

Oh, what is that [hill] that shines so black,
That shines as black as a crow?
Oh, that is the [hills] of Hell itself,
Where you and I must go.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 02 Jan 12 - 10:49 PM

Banks of Claudy as a version of the House Carpenter? I don't know if I buy that. Is that Helen Flanders's interpretation?

However, a quick Google search for "house carpenter + banks of claudy" to see if anyone else had anything to say about them brought up a this:

"Never without a song: the years and songs of Jennie Devlin, 1865-1952" by Katharine D. Newman (1995, University of Illinois Press, foward by Alan Lomax). Jennie Devlin, has a version of the House Carpenter (and also a version of the Banks of Claudy).

Though this book was published in 1995, the process of its creation started with recordings made by Lomax and the author in 1936-1938. Jennie Devlin was born in 1865 in upstate New York, rejected by her mother, and by age 5 was "bound out" as an indentured servant working for her keep; at age 14 she began working for wages. She spent several years with a family of itinerant basketmakers and fiddlers who traveled throughout the northeastern states and into southern Canada, where she started building her repertoire of songs. (see review by Gloria Eive in MELUS Vol. 21, No. 1, Spring, 1996) She later lived in Philadelphia and Gloucester, New Jersey.

Library of Congress catalog record for the recordings (the recordings are not available online, unfortunately)

If you scroll up at the first link (to Google Books), you'll see the tune, as well (although the transcriptions for this collection are strongly criticized by Gloria Eive), and quite a bit of the book is available.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 02 Jan 12 - 11:04 PM

And, I should have noted: Jennie Devlin's version is a fragment, and with the singer insisting that the woman returned to her child.

"Well met, well met, O my own true love,
Well met, well met, O," cries she.
"I've come across the deep blue sea,
And it's all for o'er the love of thee."

"If I am to give up my house carpenter,
And also my little baby,
What have you got to support me upon,
On the banks of the old Tennessee?"

"I have six ships a-sailing the sea,
And one hundred and ten
Of your own countrymen
For to be at your command."

[So she goes with him] -- states the singer

She picks up her dear little baby,
And kisses it one, two, and three,
Saying "Stay at home with your daddy,
While I go sailing on the sea."

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 03 Jan 12 - 12:43 AM

I see that the Ballad Index entry says

"Flanders-Ancient3, pp. 287-321, "James Harris, or the Daemon Lover" (13 texts plus 3 fragments, some mixed with other songs (e.g. "G" has the "Turtle Dove" verse; "N" is very confused, with references to the Banks of Claudy), 11 tunes) {A=Bronson's #93, N=#141}"

and that this has been picked up in Roud (as listed by Mick Pearce above, but does anyone else conflate Banks of Claudy with Demon Lover?

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 03 Jan 12 - 10:22 AM

Becky, thanks for the Jennie Devlon fragment of the "House Carpenter"/"Banks of Claudy" fragment. When I first glanced at the fragment that Flanders collected from Mrs. Sullivan, I skipped over it and didn't see it as being of much relevance. But reading Heylin's study changed my mind on this. He devotes a bit of discussion to Mrs. Sullivan's version and sees it as a significant example of the survival of an independent Scottish tradition of "The Daemon Lover" in North America. His discussion of this is too complicated to present here, but please do take a look at his (long) article here:

http://www.clinton-heylin.com/PDFs/DaemonBitz.pdf

Scroll down about a fourth of the way to section (iii) "All For The Sake of Thee". Heylin discusses a Virginia text from Miss Tyrah Lam of Elkton, VA (1935) in the Wilkinson Collection at UVA (actually he has discussed this text in detail in the previous section along with the fine version from Kentucky by Clay Walters). And then he mentions an East Tennessee text from Charles Morrow Wilson. His question in all of this is the role of "the vows", which in fact are "broken vows". This theme does not show up in the De Marsan broadside tradition, but they are in the older Scottish traditions. And it is in this context that Heylin finds the Sullivan text of the "Banks of Claudy" important, since the Sullivan text begins with:

Oh come with me to the banks of Claudy,
And perform those promises to me, me.

And:

That is not the promise you gave to me
To come in seven long years and a day,
So now come on to the salty seas
And perform your promises to me.

Heylin says:

"Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of the Sullivan text, though, is that she has a name for the revenant, George Allis, seemingly a simple phonetic corruption of the only name ever assigned to the mysterious ex-lover, James Harris (or as Peter Buchan would have it, James Herries). Though it was under this title that the song came to be assigned in Child's English & Scottish Popular Ballads, only Buchan called the song by this name."

Oh, begone, begone, young George Allis,
For I am a married wife,
Oh, begone, young George, she said,
For fear there may be strife.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 03 Jan 12 - 10:44 AM

"does anyone else conflate Banks of Claudy with Demon Lover"

Much further up this thread I listed a whole set of variants for the 'Banks of Italy' line, many of them apparently nonsensical. It seems to me as though a particular singer, seeking some appropriate banks for the destination of the journey, settled on 'Claudy' on the basis of a memory of a different song. Apart from the name there doesn't seem to be any substance of either of the two 'Banks of Claudy' songs that I know with thatversion of 'House Carpenter'.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 03 Jan 12 - 12:00 PM

Maybe it would be best to go ahead and put up what Heylin says about the Sullivan text. It's a long quote:

"Just one other American version preserves these "former vows." Unlike Wilkinson's and Wilson's collected texts, the rendition in question, uncovered in Springfield, Vermont, not only survived uncontaminated by De Marsan and his various proxys but by any derivative from Diverting Songs. The female repository, one Ellen M. Sullivan, first recollected the song to collector Helen Hartness Flanders on July 13, 1932. All that she remembered was that a, "girl promises to marry a man who goes away, dies and as a ghost returns and says,"

Oh come with me to the banks of Claudy,
And perform those promises to me, me.

later in the song:

When she came to the banks of Claudy,
Oh, sorry sore was she.
There were seven ships sailing to the brim.
They sunk to the bottom and was never seen no more.

When she came to the banks of Claudy,
Oh, sorry sore was she, she,
For the ships they were made of the yellow beaten gold
And the sails were of silk so fine.4

A month later Flanders returned and managed to glean some additional verses. Mrs. Sullivan called the song 'George Allis', and recalled that the girl in the song, "lay asleep and his ghost came to her." She then recalled much the same verse as Miss Lam:

Oh, begone, begone, young George Allis,
For I am a married wife,
Oh, begone, young George, she said,
For fear there may be strife.

as well as a verse not replicated in any other traditional text, though the second couplet approximates to Morrow Wilson's third verse:

That is not the promise you gave to me
To come in seven long years and a day,
So now come on to the salty seas
And perform your promises to me.5

At last we encounter the evidence that Dylan's "ghost come back from out in the sea" once existed in American tradition. Indeed, in Sullivan's text the ghost came to her in her sleep, placing it in the long-established tradition of revenant ("one who returns after a long absence, esp. the dead"6) ballads. The hugely popular "Well met, well met" opening, though, does not fit easily with such a night visitation.

As an intriguing addendum, the version that Mrs. Sullivan sang to Flanders carried a burden, the final line of each verse repeating the final word and then the entire line, thus:

For fear there may be strife, strife,
For fear there may be strife.7

This rare verse-ending also appears in the version collected by Wilkinson from Miss Lam, this time as a three-word repeat, thus:

And I think he's a nice young man, man, man,
And I think he's a nice young man.8

perhaps suggesting a connection somewhere down the stream of tradition. Mrs. Sullivan also commented to Flanders that, "He was dead and came back as a ghost after seven years because of the oath that was between them,"9 making explicit the revenant nature of the dæmon lover and recognizing the 'broken vows' as the song's key motif. This sort of explication is not repeated in American tradition until Mr. Dylan's highly unusual rendition, which also 'reveals' the revenant nature of the 'man' at the outset (though not the "former vows").

Comparison with A Collection Of Diverting Songs makes it plain that the 'blame' for a form of rationalization that turned the former lover from revenant to flesh and blood should not be placed at any Yankee's door. It had already occured within the (perhaps exclusively) English strain from which the American broadside largely came. In this rationalized 'English' derivative, the lady does not leave her husband and children without some considerable persuasion on her lover's part; and does so only because of the obligation (and, perhaps, love) she still felt for her former dear. As we shall see, in Scottish oral tradition (and the two American texts that best reflect that tradition) the lady is taken to her death not because she elected to take her lover's proferred escape route - "dying from guilt far from her children,"10 as Alan Lomax chose to put it - but because she had proved untrue to her former love, having broken the solemn vows she swore some (seven) years before.

The broken vows may be implicit in some twentieth century texts - "I have returned from the salt, salt sea/ And all for the sake of thee" does imply at least some debt of honour ("the love of thee" makes for an inferior reading) - but more traditional texts, of which the renditions collected by Wilkinson, Wilson and Flanders are rare vestiges, make the vow not only explicit, but the veritable crux of our tale.

Perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of the Sullivan text, though, is that she has a name for the revenant, George Allis, seemingly a simple phonetic corruption of the only name ever assigned to the mysterious ex-lover, James Harris (or as Peter Buchan would have it, James Herries). Though it was under this title that the song came to be assigned in Child's English & Scottish Popular Ballads, only Buchan called the song by this name."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 03 Jan 12 - 02:39 PM

I may have confused the issue; to clarify, the Jennie Devlin book contains both the House Carpenter and Banks of Claudy, but they're given as entirely separate songs. The verses I transcribed are what she had as the House Carpenter.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 03 Jan 12 - 04:37 PM

My apologies to you, Becky. I didn't look close enough at what I was doing or you were saying, and it was me who confused the issue on the Devlin fragment. Can you post the Devlin version of "Banks of Claudy" for comparative purposes?

And Brian, reading back upstream a ways, I came across this note from you in response to my posting of the Robert Shifflett version from Virginia, in which you list a number of the verses and phrases that differ from the De Marsan broadside and point out that they have parallels in the earlier Scottish versions, which is very similar to what Heylin is suggesting. Here is your previous note:

thread.cfm?threadid=141964&messages=111#3274135

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 04 Jan 12 - 10:37 AM

Unfortunately, I seem to have gotten lucky with Google Books on the House Carpenter, but Banks of Claudy is not available, since it's a preview of the book, not a full e-book.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 04 Jan 12 - 12:41 PM

Thanks, Becky. Google Books is a mixed blessing and at times frustrating! Maybe someone else has access to this and can put it up.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 11 Jan 12 - 03:27 PM

Part I

I want to offer some analysis of the versions of the "House Carpenter" collected in the Northeastern part of the United States that we have found so far. At this time I am not including the Canadian versions. I am also excluding the version known as "The Banks of Claudy", collected from Ellen Sullivan of Springfield, Vermont, since it is so different from all of the others, and I have already posted Heylin's analysis of it. And, I am excluding, for now, the version collected from Edith Ballenger Price, of Newport, Rhode Island, entitled "The Daemon Lover." This, too, is a unique version, different from all of the others. I will discuss it in a different context later.

In addition to the Sullivan and Price variants, there are two other versions that are significantly different enough from the rest to deserve mention. One is the version entitled "The Young Turtle Dove", from a manuscript that belonged to Mrs. John Luther of Pittsburg, New Hampshire. The other is the version from Alec Couchey of Essex, New York, as sung by Lee Knight, entitled "The Gypsy Daisy", which combines "The House Carpenter" with "The Gypsy Davey." I will be including both of these variants in my discussion.

There are also a number of fragments or incomplete versions in what we have found so far. They are as follows: the version from Susie Carr Young, of Brewer, Maine; the one from Celia Kelter, of Tabasco, New York; the one from Mrs. Wales of Burlington, Vermont; the one from Maynard Reynolds of Pittsburgh, New Hampshire; the one from Clarence Cutting from the Adirondack region of New York, and the one from Jennie Devlin, from either Gloucester, Massachusetts or perhaps New Jersey. I will include all of these fragments in my discussion.

I will also include the broadside printed by De Marsan, which I assume is the same one printed by "J. Andrews" in New York City in 1857. We don't know the sources for the Andrews/De Marsan broadside, but since it was printed in New York, it seems to me to be a part of our collection, as well as one of the possible sources for the others that we have found.

All of our versions have been collected roughly within a hundred years of the printing of the Andrews/De Marsan broadside. It predates all of our versions and certainly could have been around for all of our singers to draw on as a source. I want to try to see which of our versions seem most dependent upon the broadside and which ones differ from it the most. All of them follow the same general narrative of the broadside, but with some significant individual variations. None of our versions correspond exactly with the broadside. Each one differs in some significant way.

I have not been able to see any geographical tendencies among our versions. The "state boundaries" seem irrelevant, so I have decided to ignore them. Also the distance from New York City as the source of the broadside does not seem relevant. We don't have enough samples from Canada to be able to tell about any influence from that direction. So I am treating our versions strictly on a regional basis within the northeastern part of the United States.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 11 Jan 12 - 06:20 PM

Part II

There are a number of themes that do not show up in the versions of "The House Carpenter" that we have "collected" on this thread. These are themes that are common to the older versions from the British Isles. This includes the "Andrews/De Marsan" broadside, and excludes the Sullivan and Price versions.

There is no mention of any "ghost" or of "the Devil". As far as I can tell there are no hints at anything supernatural or diabolical. There is no mention of any "broken vows" or any punishment for the woman because she has broken previous vows. The person who steals away the House Carpenter's wife has "come from the sea," "come across the sal', salt sea," has "crossed the sea," has "crossed the salt sea wave," has "come across the sea," has "returned from the salt, salt sea," has "come across the deep blue sea," has "just returned from the salt, salt sea" (Willard). George Edward's version says,

"It's pretty well met to my own true love,
It's pretty well met," says he,
"It's pretty well met to my own true love,
Long time I've waited for thee, O thee,
A long time I've waited for thee.

This seems to indicate that the one absent (at sea) has "waited" a "long time". This is the only mention of time in any of the versions. There is no mention of "seven years" in any of them.

There is no mention of anybody's actual name in any of these versions. And finally, none of these Northeastern versions, including the broadsides, have the two verses about seeing the hills of "heaven" and "hell", which are so frequent in the Southern versions. There is no mention of the ship being destroyed by it's owner at sea. In every case it sinks because of natural causes.

There is no use of older English words, such as "league", or any signs of Scottish dialect in any of these versions. George Edwards does make reference to "pounds" in a verse that is unique to him and seems to have come from some other song:

"But if I was worth ten thousand pounds,
So freely I'd give it to thee
If I could once more go on yonder shore
My two [three] little babes to see, O see,
My two [three] little babes to see."

Edwards' version is somewhat anachronistic throughout. Two of the versions, from Mancour (VT) and Degreenia (CT), mention "the sweet Dundee." But it is impossible to know why and whether this reference came with the ballad or from other associations, since the names associated with this particular verse are very diverse. None of the versions refer to "the banks of sweet Italy." And none of them refer to "white lilies at the bottom of the sea."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 12 Jan 12 - 03:46 PM

Part III

We are looking at 15 more or less complete versions, plus 6 fragments of "The House Carpenter" from the Northeastern region of the U.S. One of these is the "Andrews/De Marsan" broadside, printed in New York/Philadelphia in 1857/1860. I want to turn my attention now to trying to see what influence this broadside might have had on the ballad in this region. As I mentioned before, there are no exact reproductions of the broadside.

I want to begin by noting a couple of differences from the broadside version that are found widespread throughout the Northeast. In the third verse, the broadside has the line

"I will take you where the grass grows high,"

Out of the 21 versions represented, 14 of them have

"the grass grows GREEN" (or "greener" in the Cutting version)

These are Cornwright NY, Couchey NY, Willard NY, Cutting NY, Johnson ME, Reynolds ME/NH, Moses NH, Luther NH, Richards NH, Fish NH, Merrill NH, George VT, Mancour VT, and Degreenia CT. As can be seen, they are spread all over the region.

A second difference of wording comes at the end of the fourth verse. The broadside has

"And keep my from misery."

Out of the 21 versions represented, 11 have "SLAVERY" instead of "misery." They are Cornwright, Kelter, Couchey, Willard, Cuttng and Edwards of NY, Moses, Richards, Fish, and Merrill of NH, and George of VT.

The fact that these two wording differences are so widespread and so consistent suggests an alternative source, especially with regard to "misery"/"slavery", which are not really synonyms. It is curious why "slavery" would be preferred, and perhaps an interesting commentary on the situation of women in that culture (?). Grass growing "green" seems a more natural image than grass growing "high", perhaps suggesting that "green" was at least the more popular version, if not the more "original" or earlier version.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 12 Jan 12 - 04:46 PM

Part IV

In addition to a preference for "green" grass and "slavery", there are a number of other differences from the Andrews/De Marsan broadside that show up in these Northeastern versions. One of these is the repetition of the last line or two of a verse used as a refrain. This shows up in seven of the twenty-one versions: Edwards NY, Cornwright NY, Johnson ME, Reynolds ME/NH, Luther NH, George VT, Mancour VT.

Another difference is the addition of the verse that refers to the lady dressing up and parading her riches. An example is from Sarah Willard's version from 1869 in NY:

She dressed herself in rich array
And riches to behold
And every street that she passed through
She showed her glittering gold.

Sometimes she dresses in "scarlet red " (twice from NH, Moses and Richards).

In one version, the "House Carpenter" becomes the "Ship's Carpenter" (Fish NH), and in another version, both "House Carpenter" and "Ship's Carpenter" are mentioned (Edwards NY)

In four of the versions (Cornwright NY, Johnson ME, Fish NH, and George VT), the first two verses of the broadside are conflated into one verse. The broadside has:

"Well met, well met, my own true love,
Well met, well met," cried he
"For I've just returned from the Salt Sea,
All for the love of thee."

"I might have married the King's daughter, dear,"
"You might have married her," cried she,
"For I am married to a House Carpenter,
And a fine young man is he."

These four versions have something equivalent to Mrs. Cornwright's version:

"Well met, well met, my pretty fair maid."
"Not so very well met," said she,
"For I am married to a house-carpenter,
And he is good to me."

In four of the versions, there is a preference for "pretty fair maid" instead of "my own true love" (Johnson ME, Fish NH, George VT, Mancour VT). Both phrases seem to be something like stock ballad phrases, but are different in meaning, perhaps reflecting two different sources.

Two of the versions begin with the verse "I might have married the king's daughter fair," And in five of the versions, there is the addition of a reproach in response to this bragging about having turned down an offer of marriage to a "King's daughter":

"If you could have married a king's daughter fair,
I'm sure you are much to blame,

This is found in Moses NH, Luther NH, Richards NH, Merrill NH, and Mancour VT.

Instead of "What have you got to keep me upon" in the fourth verse of the broadside, three of the versions have "What have you there to ENTERTAIN me on/with" (Johnson ME, Fish NH, George VT).

Two versions have reference to "three ships loaded down with gold" (Moses NH, Degreeenia CT).

Only one of the twenty versions other than the broadside has the phrase "On the banks of the old Tennessee." Curiously enough this is the fragment from Jennie Devlin.

Four of the versions have "sweet Willie" (Willard NY, Reynolds ME/NH, Luther NH, Merrill NH) and five of them have "sweet valley" (Cornwright NY, Johnson ME, Richards NH, Fish NH, George VT). The repetition of these similarities suggests other sources or influences than the broadside.

In five of the versions, the lady says that indeed she is mourning for her house carpenter and her baby (Cornwright NY, Johanson ME, Fish NH, George VT, Wales VT). The broadside says that she is only weeping for her "sweet little babe."

While the broadside says that the ship went down when it "struck a rock and sprung a leak." Six of the versions have some variation on "When a hole in the ship it sprang a leak," (Johnson ME, Cornwright NY, Fish NH, George VT, Mancour VT, Wales VT).

Thirteen of the versions, including the fragments, omit any reference to a curse at the end of the ballad.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 13 Jan 12 - 09:23 AM

Part V

Which of our versions from the Northeast come closest to matching the "Andrews/De Marsan" broadside? I have already mentioned the Devlin version, which is the only one to contain the phrase "on the banks of the old Tennessee."   It is a fragment, with only four verses, and one could say that all four verses match up with the broadside. The "Salt Sea" has become "the deep blue sea." I would appreciate clarification on the geographical context for the Devlin version. I have not been able to resolve that issue.

Aside from Jennie Devlin's song, I think that there are only two other versions that come very close to the broadside. One is the Sarah Willard manuscript from Moriah Center NY, written in 1869. The other is the version published by Flanders from Oscar Degreenia of West Cornwall CT.

I am going to go through the Willard and Degreenia versions and compare them verse by verse with the Andrews/De Marsan broadside. The broadside comes first, and then Willard as our oldest written manuscript, and then Degreenia. I have put some of the word differences in CAPITALS.

"Well met, well met, my own true love,
Well met, well met," cried he
"For I've just returned from the Salt Sea,
All for the love of thee."

Well met, well met my own true love
Well met, well met, said he
I have just returned from the salt, salt sea
All for the love of thee

"I have came across the sea, salt sea;
It was all for the sake of thee.
---

"I might have married the King's daughter, dear,"
"You might have married her," cried she,
"For I am married to a House Carpenter,
And a fine young man is he."

Willard omits this verse.

"I might have married a king's daughter FAIR
And she would married me."
"For I have married a house carpenter
And I think he's a very nice man."
---

"If you will forsake your House Carpenter,
And go along with me,
I will take you where the grass grows high,
On the banks of old Tennessee."

If you will forsake your house carpenter
And go along with me
I will take you where the grass grows GREEN
On the Banks of the SWEET WILLIE?

"If you will LEAVE your house carpenter
And COME along with me,
I'll take you there where the grass grows GREEN
On the banks of the SWEET DUNDEE."
---

"If I forsake my House Carpenter,
And go along with thee,
What have you got to keep me upon,
And keep me from misery."

If I'll forsake my house carpenter
And go along with thee
Have you anything to MAINTAIN me upon
And to keep me from SLAVERY.

"If I should leave my house carpenter
And go along with thee,
What have you there to SUPPORT me on
Or keep me from misery?"
---

Says he, "I've got six ships at sea,
All sailing to dry land,
One hundred and ten of your own countrymen,
Love, they shall be at your command."

One hundred ships I have at sea
A-making for dry land
With two hundred and ten bold jolly seamen
All shall be at your command

"I have three ships ALL LOADED WITH GOLD
And sailing for dry land,
And a hundred and twenty sailor boys
Will be at your demand."
---

She took her babe upon her knee,
And kissed it one, two, or three,
Saying, "Stay at home, my darling sweet babe,
And keep your father's company."

She called her babe up on her knee
And she kissed it two and three
Said stay at home my sweet little babe
And keep your dad company

She picked her baby up INTO HER ARMS
And give him kisses three,
Saying, "Stay at home with your pap
For he IS GOOD company."
---

Willard inserts the following verse at this point:

She dressed herself in rich way
In riches to behold
And every street that she passed through
She showed her glittering gold
---

They had not sailed four weeks or more,
Four weeks or scarcely three,
When she thought of her darling sweet babe at home,
And she wept most bitterly.

She had not been at sea two weeks
I am sure it was not three
BEFORE THIS MAID BEGAN TO WEEP
And she wept most bitterly

They had not sailed a week an' a half,
I'm sure it was not three,
BEFORE THIS MAID FOUND FOR TO WEEP,
And she wept most bitterly.
---

Says he, "Are you weeping for gold, my love,
Or are you weeping for fear,
Or are you weeping for your House Carpenter,
That you left and followed me."

Is it for my gold that you weep
Or is it for MY STORE
Or is it for the house carpenter
That you NEVER CAN SEE ANY MORE

"Is it for gold that you do weep,
Or is it for MY STORE?"

[Degreenia conflates this verse with the next one.]

"It's for my darling little babe
THAT I NEVER WILL SEE ANY MORE"
---

"I am not weeping for gold," she replied,
"Nor am I weeping for fear,
But I am weeping alone for my sweet little babe,
That I left with my House Carpenter."

Tis not for your gold that I weep
It is not for your STORE
But its ALL FOR THE LOVE of my sweet little babe
THAT I NEVER CAN SEE ANY MORE.
---

At this point, the broadside inserts the following verse, missing from all other versions:

"Oh, dry up your tears, my own true love,
And cease your weeping," cried he,
"For soon you'll see your own happy home,
On the banks of old Tennessee."
---

They had not sailed five weeks or more,
Five weeks or scarcely four,
When the ship struck a rock and sprung a leak,
And they were never seen any more.

She had not been on the sea three weeks
I am sure it was not four
Before that ship she sprung a leak
And she sank to rise no more

They had not sailed three weeks and a half,
I'm sure it was not four,
When A HOLE BROKE OUT IN THE BOTTOM OF THE SHIP
And their bones was heard no more.

[Notice the differences in the last line.]
---

A curse be on the sea-faring men,
Oh, cursed be their lives,
For while they are robbing the House Carpenter,
And coaxing away their wives.

Bad luck Bad luck to sea fare MAID
And cursed be all your lives
For robbing of the House Carpenter
And STEALING away his wife

The Degreenia version does not have the curse.
---

There is certainly enough agreement between both the Willard and Degreenia versions with the broadside to suggest that they were at least influenced by the broadside tradition, if not derived from it. However, there is always the question as to whether or not all three of these versions (including the broadside) may have come from an earlier source. It is also interesting to note the agreements between Willard and Degreenia that disagree with the broadside, suggesting other common sources. And finally it is important to notice what is unique to the broadside, and what is unique to Willard and to Degreenia, again suggesting multiple sources. Certainly Willard shares with other earlier sources the verse about dressing up in riches and the use of "slavery." Degreenia shares with other versions the use of "Dundee" and "I have three ships all loaded with gold." He also omits the opening two lines about "Well met..." and the ending "curse verse."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 13 Jan 12 - 10:17 AM

John

I wonder if you'd seen this article: The Ancestry of "The House Carpenter" A Study of the Familial History of the American Forms of Child 243 - Alisoun Garner-Medwin JAF, 1971. I don't have access to it, but it might be an interesting read.

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 13 Jan 12 - 10:19 AM

Oops - that should have been Gardner-Medwin.

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 13 Jan 12 - 10:24 AM

Should have looked further - there's a copy of the article on the Bluegrass Messenters site: Ancestry of the House Carpenter (though the OCR is a bit patchy!)

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 13 Jan 12 - 11:20 AM

Mick, thanks very much for that reference. I had not seen it and look forward to reading it. By the way, after getting hold of the Heylin book, I checked and the online article does contain the whole book, with the exception of the notes and an appendix containing copies of all of the versions having the "heaven/hell" verses, and a pretty good bibliography. There is also a page of followup on Heylin's quest for the source of Dylan's version, which I will discuss a bit later. There is also an in depth review of the Heylin book by a Christopher Rollason from 2004 here (you have to scroll down to find it):

http://nicolamenicacci.com/bdcc/bookreviews.pdf

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 13 Jan 12 - 11:23 AM

Part VI

I now want to look at five more of our versions from the Northeast that seem to have been influenced by the Andrews/De Marsan broadside, or the tradition underlying that broadside, as well as some other distinct traditions. These five versions come from Sidney Luther NH, Belle Richards NH, Ruth Moses (from her father)NH, Orlon Merrill NH, and slightly different from Alice Mancour of VT. The first four, all from NH are the most similar to each other.

Two of them, (Luther and Richards) begin with the familiar "Well met, well met my own true love" line from the broadside. The version from Mancour in VT also begins with this line but has "my pretty fair maid." The other two (Moses and Merrill) begin with the second verse from the broadside, "I might have married a king's daughter fair." The other two NH versions also have this verse. All four of the NH versions share in common the response of "If you could have married a king's daughter fair, I'm sure you are to blame," which is not a part of the broadside. The Mancour version, while structured a bit differently does have the line "You are very much to blame." Clearly this response comes from some other source than the broadside tradition.

All five of these versions share in common, over and against the broadside version, the phrase "the grass grows GREEN" (instead of "high"). Two have "sweet Willy," one has "sweet Valley," one has "Sweet Dundee," and one has "sweet Guerlee." Of course the broadside has "old Tennessee."
Three (Richards, Merrill, Moses) have "slavery" instead of "misery." Interestingly enough, both the Luther version and the Mancour version omit this verse, and the following verse about what she will be offered if she leaves. Moses, Richards and Merrill then have some version of the "dressed herself up" in riches verse. Both Moses and Richards share the line "She dressed herself in scarlet red." Merrill simply has her in a "stylish dress." We have noticed before that this verse surely comes from a different and probably early source.

All five of these versions have in common the lines "Is it for my gold you weep, or is it for my STORE?" And the answering verse, which is omitted by both Mancour and Moses, also has the word "store." The broadside has "Or are you weeping for fear," etc.   The broadside has "But I am weeping for my sweet little babe, That I left with my House Carpenter." Moses, Merrill and Richards all have some variation on "That I never shall see any more." The other two omit this verse entirely.

All five versions have the ship springing a leak but with no mention of striking a rock as in the broadside. And the four NH versions end with some form of a "curse." Three of them curse "all sea men" and Moses curses "all womankind, Likewise all men alive,..." The VT version from Mancour omits the curse. In all, only seven of our versions end with a form of curse. In addition to the four mentioned here and the one mentioned in the previous section from Willard, both Edwards and Couchey of NY have "curse verses."

So, while it may have been possible that these five versions were at least influenced by traditions going back to the Andrews/De Marsan broadside, they have obviously come under other influences as well. The commonalities would perhaps suggest a fairly stable textual tradition lying behind these differences. There were probably alternate versions already in circulation perhaps before the printing of the broadside and certainly afterwards.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 13 Jan 12 - 01:57 PM

Part VII

There is another group of four versions plus a fragment that I want to consider. They are from Elmer George VT, Lena Bourne Fish NH, Allen Johnson ME, and Mrs. Cornwright NY, along with the fragment from Mrs. Wales VT, learned from her grandmother, Mrs. Bissell. The four complete versions have an amazing number of things in common, which are not in the Andrews/De Marsan broadside, definitely suggesting some other source.

Setting aside the Wales fragment for moment, the other four all begin with almost identically the same verse:

"Well met, well met, my pretty fair maid,"
"No so very well met," said she,
"For I am married to a house carpenter,
And a very fine man is he;

Fish has "a ship carpenter" instead of "a house carpenter." What is interesting about this is not only that they all have the same wording, but that this is a conflation of the opening two verses from the broadside. They also use "pretty fair maid" instead of "my own true love."

Three of the four versions, from Cornwright, Johnson, and George use a repetition of the last two lines of each verse as a refrain, which is somewhat unusual in ballad singing. This is also true for the versions by Reynolds ME/NH, Luther NH, and Mancour VT.

All four versions have "the grass grows GREEN, On the banks of a sweet VALLEY." Three of them (Johnson, George, and Fish) use the word "entertain" in the third verse, "What have you there to ENTERTAIN me on/with?" And three of them (George, Fish, and Cornwright) use the word "slavery" instead of "misery". Johnson has "And keep me company." Three (George, Fish and Johnson) have almost identical fourth verses:

"Oh, I have ships all in the bay [Johnson has "a thousand ships"]
And plenty more upon land,
Five hundred and ten of as fine young men.
They are all at your command."          [all four agree on these last two lines]

There is strong agreement from all four versions on the next verse about "kisses three." Then two of the versions (George and Johnson) have almost identical versions of the "riches" verse that they insert at this point:

She went upstairs to dress herself
Most beautiful to behold.
'Twas then she walk-ed the streets all along,
And she shone like the glittering gold.

All four versions have almost identical accounts of the lady mourning most bitterly (Fish has "most pitifully"). They all agree on the "six weeks at sea":

She had not sailed six weeks on the sea,
Oh, no, not more than three,
Before this fair lady began for to mourn
And she mourned most bitterlee.

And the fragment from Wales has almost the same thing:

They had not sailed a month or more,
A month or scarcely three,
When she began to weep and lament
And to mourn most bitterlie.

All four versions and the fragment agree on the next verse about "weeping for gold':

"O do you weep for gold, " he said,
"Or do you weep for me,
Or do you weep for your house carpenter
That you left to come with me?"

And then, all five of these versions agree that she is weeping FOR the House Carpenter, "But I do weep for my house carpenter..." The four main versions add the baby.

All five versions have the strange line in the last verse about a hole in the ship springing a leak:

When a hole in the ship, and the ship sprang a leak   (Wales)

When a hole in the ship it sprang a leak,    (Johnson)

At the bottom of the ship there sprang a leak    (Fish)

Before that hole in the ship sprang a leak   (George)

When a hole in the ship caught a leak,    (Cornwright)

And finally, none of these five versions have a curse verse. They all end with the ship going down.

When you put these five versions along side of each other they clearly look like they have a common source. All four of the main versions agree on six points that are not in the broadside version. And there is some agreement on up to ten points that are not in the broadside. It seems to me that these five versions are the strongest and most coherent evidence we have for an alternate source different from the Andrews/De Marsan broadside for this ballad in the Northeast.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 13 Jan 12 - 02:31 PM

Part VIII

There is one other version from the Northeast left to consider. It is the one published by Flanders from Edith Ballenger Price of Rhode Island, collected in 1945. Supposedly, she learned it " as a young girl from "a lady living in Massachusetts, whose forebears came from England." For the sake of this discussion I am going to reprint this version.

The Daemon Lover

"I've seven ships upon the sea,
Beaten with the finest gold,
And mariners to wait upon us;
All this she shall behold."

She set her foot unto the ship,
No mariners did she behold;
But the sail was o' the....
And the mast o' the beaten gold.

They hadna' sailed a league, a league,
A league but only one,
When she began to weep and to mourn
and to think on her little wee son.

"Now hold ye tears, my dearest dear;
Let all your weeping be:
For I'll show you how the lilies grow
On the banks of Italee.

They hadna' been a league, a league,
A league but only two,
When she beheld his cloven foot,
From his gay robe thrusting through.

They hadna' sailed a league, a league,
A league but only three,
When dark and fearsome grow his looks
And gurly grow the sea.

"Now hold your tears, my dearest dear,
Let all your weeping be
And I'll show ye how the white lilies grow
At the bottom o' the sea."

They hadna' sailed a league, a league,
A league but only four;
When the little wee ship ran 'round about
And never was seen more.

It is not hard to see how different this version is from everything else we have looked at! I have to say that I tend to agree with what Bryan Peters has said above about this version. He says that the transcription

"from Edith Price of Newport, RI, looks an awful lot like a collation from the two versions of the ballad in Motherwell's 'Minstrelsey'. If the singer did indeed give it the title 'Daemon Lover', that alone would be grounds for suspicion."

I have not gone back through all of Bronson but I think this is the only American version of this ballad to contain many of these unique characteristics. I would suggest that either it came over quite late in written form, or was appropriated directly in written form by somebody in Massachusetts. It seems suspicious to me as well. I would welcome some counter arguments. In the next post, I will put up Clinton Heylin's counter argument so you can see what he thinks about this text.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 13 Jan 12 - 02:35 PM

Part IX

Here is what Clinton Heylin has to say about the Price text. [a long quote!]

"Establishing the revenant nature of the former lover adds an important dimension to an otherwise mundane tale of temptation and guilt. What it does not afford is an explanation of the supernatural powers with which our 'Dæmon Lover' is endowed on his return. The final verse of the Greig-Buchan text confirms that it is the spirit of 'James Harris' that causes the ship to sink (unlike in the familiar broadside texts); that the storm is invoked by the revenant; and that the white lillies on the banks of Italy were intended to contrast with the white fishes/lillies at the bottom of the sea. Though Buchan's text does not depict the advent of the storm, Robert Scott's North Eastern text does, as do both of William Motherwell's variants, his Minstrelsy text bearing the more authentic tone:

They had not sailed a mile awa,
Never a mile but three,
When dark, dark, grew his eerie looks,
And raging grew the sea.2

Motherwell's nine-verse text appeared in the 1827 edition of his Minstrelsy, Ancient & Modern. An American text, collected from New England by the same indefatigible collector who had previously located the 'George Allis' fragment, suggests that Motherwell's text drew upon an enduring tradition. This eight-verse 'condensation', transcribed in October 1945, despite narrative holes, is an excellent text, another rare rendition to have survived in America without the debilitating input of De Marsan. It also adds an important piece to our jigsaw - the notion of the lady in the song becoming increasingly aware that her former lover is not all that he seems. In the Motherwell-Price text/s encroaching dread consumes the song long before the destruction of the ship.

Thankfully not only did one Edith Ballenger Price, from Newport, Rhode Island, recall that fine verse about "his eerie looks" but she also provided the only American text to date to contain an all-important reference to "his cloven foot." The image of the lady catching sight of 'her lover's' cloven foot is one of the most dramatic snapshots in all of popular balladry. Ms. Price says that she learnt the song from a lady whose family came from England, the only real suggestion that the 'dæmonic' version might have once had a foothold in English tradition. Comparing Ms. Price's rendition with the one in Motherwell's Minstrelsy affords an invaluable insight into how the strings of tradition can preserve the supernatural. The similarities are striking: [here follows a comparison verse by verse]
......
Perhaps one is doing Ms. Price a disservice referring to her rendition as a condensation. Her eight verses accord remarkably well with Motherwell's nine. Perhaps, as the English and American broadsides elected to start the tale in act three, some long-forgotten Scottish wag decided to take Mr. Graves at his word and begin proceedings in "the last act of the play." As it is, Motherwell's reciter and Ms. Price both start and end on the same verse and inbetween agree on all the main particulars (the absence of mariners, the banks of Italy, the cloven foot, the raging sea and a fine 'lingering' quartet that builds to its climax four miles/leagues from shore).
Indeed, the two texts - recorded a hundred and twenty five years and three thousand miles apart - correspond so well that it begs the question: could Motherwell's version, which was after all a published text, have spawned its own rivulet of tradition? I think not. Setting aside the fact that Motherwell's work remained largely unknown outside antiquarian circles (and indeed the text in question Motherwell only apologetically included as a preface for what he deemed the more authoritative version, t'wit that published by Scott), the imagery in Price's rendition is, if anything, more convincing than Motherwell's. In particular, the penultimate verse, slightly Anglicized in Motherwell, rings with an authentic Scottish brogue in Price:

They hadna' sailed a league, a league,
A league but only three,
When dark and fearsome grow his looks
And gurly grow the sea.5

I presume that our New England lady was not in the habit of using the word 'gurly' despite the fact that, when imbued with some vocal gravel, it acquires a fine onomatopoeic quality. That her recollection had an authentic basis can be confirmed by reference to page 297 of George Kinloch's manuscript:

Till grim, grim grew his countenance,
And gurly grew the sea.6

Ms. Price's version also bypasses the strange offer made by the revenant, "mariners to wait upon us" - subsequently contradicted by the lady's protestation, "woe be to the dim mariners/ that nowhere can I see!" In Ms. Price's rendition, "She set her foot unto the ship/ no mariners did she behold." Her second verse, though it finds no real parallel in Motherwell, replicates - almost word-for-word - verse nine of Scott. The absence of mariners on this spectral ship is a lovely touch, one whose disappearance (sic) from tradition is much to be mourned."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 13 Jan 12 - 03:24 PM

Following you with interest, but way too busy just now to contribute. I'll be back!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 13 Jan 12 - 04:29 PM

I'm looking forward to that, Brian.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 13 Jan 12 - 09:31 PM

John

I was just looking over this and I'm not clear if you have the Philadelphia broadside or not (at a quick look through the text you seem to be asking for information on it, but I couldn't tell if you had a copy or not).

That version is available in the Bodleian Broadside collection, with the imprint: J.H. Johnson, Song Publisher, Stationer And Printer, No. 7 N. Tenth Street, 3 doors above Market, Philadelphia, Pa., dated ca1860.

The image is at: House Carpenter - Philadelphia version

Looking it at, the text is the same as the LOC np,nd version with what looks like one exception - the version at the Bodleian has House Carpenter at the end of the very last line, while LOC seems to have House Carpenters. The border also appears to be different. I'd guess that the LOC copy is either a slightly altered version from Philadelphia or derived from the Philadelphia or the same source.

(apologies if you do have it and I've missed the info above).

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 13 Jan 12 - 10:25 PM

Mick, thanks very much for this link and this information. I did not have the Philadelphia version anywhere. There was the De Marsan version from the LOC and an "unnamed" version from the LOC. I had been assuming that these were mostly all the same. But I am very glad to actually be able to see the Philadelphia one. It is apparently the oldest one in print in the U.S. I think you are right about the difference between the LOC and the Bodleian copies.

I have been working my way through the "Ancestry of the House Carpenter" article. The jumbled up printing of it is a bit maddening, but I am working at it. It definitely has some interesting information in it. Here is one important note:

"It is true that these New England versions are very like De Marsan, and indeed we know that a copy of DeMarsan's broadside came north, for there is one in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, Massachusetts,..."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 14 Jan 12 - 05:21 PM

Part X

Now that we've got the versions from the U.S. in some kind of order, perhaps it would interesting to look at the two Canadian versions that we have in our "collection." One comes from Newfoundland, collected by Kenneth Peacock in 1961 from Mary Ann Galpin of Codroy, and the other one comes from Toronto, Ontario, from LaRena Clark, also 1961. She recorded her version on "LaRena Clark: A Canadian Garland," Topic 12T140.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about these two versions which they agree upon and which is different from all of our New England versions is that the woman ends her part of the story by committing suicide. Here is the verse in Clark's version:

She had not sailed on sea three weeks,
I'm sure not sailed on four,
Till overboard her fair body she threw,
And her weeping was heard no more.

And here is the Galpin version:

'Twas just a short time after that, I know,
This lady she was distracted and forlorn.
Then she soon ended her life into the sea
By jumping overboard at the height of the storm.

The Galpin version is quite developed in relation to all of our other versions and shows local reference and creativity and is in a more literary style. The story has been made "coherent" with an orderly beginning and end. The young wife of a ship's carpenter in England is seduced away from her family by a rogue from Newfoundland who promises her the good life back there. She goes with him but several days out on the return trip she begins to have major regrets. She weeps and then jumps overboard. Back in England, when the ship's carpenter learns what has happened, he "swore and tore his hair," and cursed all mariners and especially the sea captain who stole away his wife.

The Clark version is much closer to the oral traditions that underlie our New England editions. It begins with the "Well met," and ends with the curse verse. The "king's daughter" has become a "queen's daughter." And the seducer has "refused a crown of gold." There is the response about "If you could have married a queen's daughter, Then she should have married thee," which leaves out the "blame" part. He's going to take her "down where the grass grows green, On the banks of the River Dee." And she asks how he will "keep her from slavery?" In this version, the lady has "two pretty babes, for whom she weeps. While Clark's version has the overall structure of the broadside version, it has a lot of the tell-tale signs that we have been seeing before that are different from the broadside, and probably comes out of the same streams as many of the versions just over the border to south in NY, NH, VT, and ME.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 15 Jan 12 - 03:24 AM

Nice work -- good quality Mudcat stuff!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 15 Jan 12 - 10:48 AM

Hey Gibb, thanks. I was wondering if this song ever shows up on board an actual ship anywhere? It has nautical themes. Of course many versions end by cursing all sea-faring men, but still, it's a good story. I have not come across it in any of the sea-going materials I have looked at. But we know that it went to sea at least once when it crossed the Atlantic. And more than likely it came over many times and might even have gone back the other way as well (Alisoun Gardner-Medwin).

In her, now forty-year old - this is hard to believe! - article, entitled "The Ancestry of "The House-Carpenter": A Study of the Family History of the American Forms of Child 243" [which Mick Pearce has noted above], Gardner-Medwin suggests that the Scottish versions of this ballad may have come over, before the American Revolutionary War, with the Scottish tobacco traders, who came over from Scotland specifically to run the tobacco trading facilities in the port cities on the Atlantic coast, especially in Virginia and the Carolinas. Apparently they never intended to be permanent residents and many returned to Scotland when the war broke out. But if they were conveyers of the ballad, they certainly had constant access to sea going folks.

Gardner-Medwin says: "I believe that this ballad flourished here for at least two generations before it was printed [in 1858 & 1860]." And she says in the paragraph just before this statement that the printed "...English form of the ballad is by no means the only ancestor of the American "The House- Carpenter " and perhaps this essay will show that the connections with the Scottish side of the family are even stronger ." She goes on to suggest that there are "definite Scottish element(s)" to be found even in the De Marsan broadside, pointing back to earlier oral tradition. Gardner-Medwin says:

"...there are three verses in De Marsan that could not have come from the English B [version in Child] and are like verses found only in Scottish tradition. They are verses , where she takes the baby on her knee and kisses it, and the two verses in which the seducer says he will take the woman to a promised land (verses 3 and 10). Therefore there must have been influence from Scotland in the ballad before De Marsan printed it.....Where and when this mixing of the English broadside tradition and the Scottish oral tradition took place cannot be shown from this evidence alone, but I think that further investigation of the American tradition will show that it took place well before 1860 and probably in America."

At this point, I have to admit that I have only recently, with the advent of this particular thread, dived into any scholarship on this ballad. I am wondering if there is any more recent study of this ballad in its American context, since Gardner-Medwin's 1971 article. I know that forty years may or may not be very long ago in an academic context, but is there anything more recent? In addition to the Heylin book from 1999? Taking a quick look at Heylin's rather extensive bibliography, nothing leaps out at me. There is an article by David Atkinson on "Maarriage & Retribution in 'James Harris'" in FOLK MUSIC JOURNAL vol. 5 no. 5, 1989, but I would assume this does not focus on American versions.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 15 Jan 12 - 09:09 PM

With regard to the version in the Flanders collection from Edith Ballenger Price of Newport, Rlhode Island, entitled "The Daemon Lover", which is so completely different from all of the other versions found in the Northeast, and probably throughout North America, and about which Brian Peters and I have expressed some skepticism, Alisoun Gardner-Medwin says in her article:

"It is possible that a copy of this book [the 1812 edition of Sir Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border] was brought to America and provided a source for some versions. It is interesting to note here that one of the versions collected by Helen Hartness Flanders [the Price version] is so close verbally to F that it must have been taken from Scott's book not long before it was recorded. [23] The influence of Scott's book can be observed in a comment found in a letter from Margaret Reburn of Iowa, to Child in 1881, where she mentions that she has seen a volume of Scott's Minstrelsy. Apart from a volume of songs, whose title she could not remember, this was the only printed book containing ballads that she had seen.[24]"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 15 Jan 12 - 09:25 PM

In her discussion about comparing the examples in Child taken from the Scottish oral tradition with the De Marsan broadside (and other American versions, including a number from New England) Gardner-Medwin says, specifically with regard to the verse about putting and and parading riches:

"The other element which is present in the Scottish group and in some American variants, but not in De Marsan's broadside, is the finery that the young woman dresses up in before she leaves. (This finery should be distinguished from his offer to her of fine clothing.) Compare this verse from the Scottish side with the American one.

CHILD D, vs. 13

She's drawn the slippers on her feet,
Were covered o'er with gold,
Well lined within wi velvet fine,
To hide her frae the cold.
(See also D4 and perhaps E8)

BRONSON 2, vs 4

She dressed herself as in a yellow rose,
Most glorious to behold,
And she walked the streets all round and about,
And shined like glittering gold.

(See also Bronson 9, 25, 27, 32, 33, 34, 47, 50 etc.)

It will be observed that this element is frequent in America. It is found in versions from the Southern Appalachians, and interestingly enough, it is also found in New England. Helen Hartness Flanders collected many versions of this ballad, and Tristram P. Coffin, who wrote the critical analyses for the collection, felt that the Flanders versions were much affected by the popularity of the song in print. He says:

"Most of the texts follow De Marsan's song, which is similar to Child B, rather faithfully, but he probably took his version from established oral tradition." [25]

It is true that these New England versions are very like De Marsan, and indeed we know that a copy of De Marsan's broadside came north, for there is one in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, Massachusetts, nevertheless six of the sixteen versions published by Helen Hartness Flanders contain the verse describing the young woman who dresses herself up, and walks up and down, and who looks like "a glittering queen."[26]

This image could have come to New England directly from Scotland or more probably from the oral tradition current in America, since the Flanders versions are closer to the Southern Appalachian ones than to the Scottish. While it is possible that other American broadside versions existed and were later lost, evidence points to a widespread currency of the ballad in American oral tradition, quite apart from the influence of the De Marsan broadside."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 16 Jan 12 - 10:36 AM

One of the remarkable characteristics of the Andrews/De Marsan broadside printed in Philadelphia and New York City in 1858/1860 is the reference to "the banks of the old Tennessee," referring to the Tennessee River. We have noted that the only Northeastern version that has this that we have been able to find so far is the one from Jennie Devlin.

In her essay, Gardner-Medwin has a very interesting theory about "the old Tennessee." Rather than try to summarize it, I will print another long quote from her article:

"Let us look more closely at the mysterious land to which the young woman is beckoned. In America the use has changed markedly, from the seducer saying "I will shew you how the lilies grow, On the banks of Italy" (FI2) to "I will take you where the grass grows high, On the banks of old Tennessee" (De Marsan 3 ). It is evident that when this was printed this place-name had already undergone the changes noted by W.Edson Richmond.' [13] There are, as will be seen from his article, a great many American substitutes for "Italy." Some of them are nonsensical, but sound like it (for example, "sweet Da Dee," "sweet Willie"); some represent a memory that the journey was a sea journey ("salt water sea"); some show an attempt to place the song in a geographical context familiar to the hearers, and of these "Tennessee" is an example. It has a similar rhythm to "Italy" but is otherwise not very like it; moreover the Tennessee is a river, and it is obvious from the context in De Marsan that a sea voyage of three or four weeks is contemplated. It is interesting to note in this connection that there was a belief among the early settlers that a mysterious western sea lay only as far to the west of the Appalachian watershed as the Atlantic lay to the east. There is an early map made by Farrer in 1651 that shows this slim American continent. [14] In 'A Perfect Description of Virginia', Farrer puts this belief into words' [15] He says:

"From the head of the James River above the falls ... will be found like rivers issuing into a south sea or a west sea, on the other side of those hills, as there is on this side, where they run from the west down to the east sea after a course of one hundred and fifty miles; but of this certainty Henry Briggs, that most judicious and learned mathematician, wrote a small tractate and presented it to the noble earl of Southampton, the governor of the Virginia Company in England anno 1623.

Briggs says there is a sea "on the other side of the mountains beyond our falls which openeth a free and fair passage to China."[16]

These geographical tracts were of course written at a much earlier date than that from which we have the ballad, and by the time the De Marsan broadside was printed it was well known that the Tennessee was a tributary of the Mississippi. However, since I am suggesting that the ballad arrived in America some considerable time before the 1860 printing let us look for a possible clue to the date that the river acquired the name "Tennessee". Here again maps are very helpful. In 1760 A New Map of the Cherokee Nation was published; the river there is called "Cherokees or Hogehegee River," and there is a settlement on it called "Tunnassee."[17] In a sketch map of about 1783 the river is called "Tenefee"; [18] by 1794 both the river and the state are called "Tennassee." [19] If I am correct in my belief that the ballad came to the Appalachian Mountains before 1775, then it would seem not impossible that the name "Tennessee" was substituted for "Italy" because the old belief in a western sea just beyond the mountains had not yet been superseded by the correct knowledge of the geography of the rivers and perhaps also because Tennessee represented the mysterious and beckoning west.

The position within the ballad which this verse occupies is significant. In the Scottish versions it appears late in the story, after the young woman has discovered what the situation is and has started to weep. In many American versions it appears right at the beginning, as if this were the one promise that would persuade the young woman to leave. In De Marsan it appears in both positions; a closer look at the broadside shows that there is a significant change in the words the second time this verse appears.

De Marsan 3.
"If you will forsake your House-Carpenter,
And go along with me,
I will take you to where the grass grows high,
On the banks of old Tennessee!"

De Marsan 10.
"Oh, dry up your tears, my own true love,
And cease your weeping," cried he,
"For soon you'll see your own happy home,
On the banks of old Tennessee."

The first six lines are very like the Scottish versions and they appear in the American position and again in the Scottish one, after she weeps. Indeed the first two lines are close to the Scottish (see FI 2). However, all hint of mystery has evaporated in the last two lines: the demon lover has become the most ordinary of seducers and all he offers is "Your own happy home." This is far from the Scottish tradition, and indeed is not often found in American versions. Nearly all of the versions published by Bronson consistently give this promise as the inducement to leave and omit it from the end of the story. [20] Three of his examples( 54, 71, and 94) repeat the verse at the end, and only 94 changes the words as De Marsan does. If De Marsan had been influential in the spread of this ballad in America, one would expect to find a larger percentage of versions following this particular change."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 16 Jan 12 - 04:05 PM

A part of our discussion has focused on the influence of the Andrews/De Marsan broadside on the traditions of "The House Carpenter" that have shown up in the New England region. We have certainly seen that there must have been other sources involved in the formation of these traditions. But the question of "when?" is very difficult to figure out. In her article, Gardner-Medwin is suggesting that these earlier traditions may have been Scottish and that they may have preceded the printing of the broadsides by several generations, and in fact may have established the oral traditions from which the broadsides were taken. Here is an example of two arguments that she offers in this direction.

"One or two minor points also suggest that when this ballad was published in 1860 it was taken from a tradition that had been flourishing in America for a long time. The change from Ship Carpenter to House Carpenter is perfectly understandable since American houses are largely made of wood, yet it would seem likely that if this ballad had not been current inland for some time before it was taken up by De Marsan there might have been less reason to change the name, for even as late as 1869 there were wood carpenters working in the shipbuilding industry of the coastal towns. In the American tradition there is a marked increase in the length of the voyage mentioned. One is only told of a short sail in the British versions: compare these phrases "not been long upon the sea" (Child B); "a league but barely three" (C); "a league, a league, A league but barely twa" (D); "A mile awa, Never a mile but one" (G); with De Marsan "They had not sailed four weeks or more, Four weeks or scarcely three."Many American versions have this long voyage and it is possible that this reveals that the singers remembered the long and dreary voyage across the Atlantic that they or their forebears endured when emigrating. By the end of the nineteenth century the trans-Atlantic voyage was rather shorter than this, perhaps two weeks on the average, so the change must have taken place well before the printing of the De Marsan version."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 16 Jan 12 - 04:13 PM

Here is a bit more of Gardner-Medwin's argument for earlier, Scottish influence on the "House Carpenter" tradition in America. A question that arises out of her comments would be how did these Scottish-influenced traditions move from the Southern Appalachians north into the New England region? I think we are always assuming that everything was moving south and west and never the other direction. But surely that can't be accurate.

""The internal evidence from the words of the American versions of Child 243, which we have been examining, seems to point to a very strong Scottish influence. There is also a certain amount of evidence that the ballad was current in America some considerable time before it emerged in print in 1858. How far back can we reasonably make it? On the evidence furnished by the words themselves we can only say that there must have been several streams of influence from Scotland, and it is probable that the song had been in oral tradition in America for several generations of singers before the end of the nineteenth century."
....
"Ian Charles Cargill Graham shows that between 1707 and the American Revolution merchants of the port of Glasgow made themselves the chief traders of tobacco between Virginia and Europe.[30] As well as carrying tobacco these merchants established stores in the Fall Line towns of Virginia that became centers of trade and, I suggest, also of cultural exchange.[31] Moreover, although the factors themselves went back to Scotland at the time of the Revolution, there were settlers who stayed."
....
"Therefore, it seems reasonable to suppose that ballads from Lowland Scotland could have come to the Southern Appalachian area by one of two routes, either directly from Glasgow in the eighteenth century or via Pennsylvania after a stay of a generation or two in Ireland. With regard to the particular song under discussion it, was published as a broadside (Child B ) too late (1757) for it to have come via Ireland so it seems probable that this was a song that traveled to America with the Scottish tobacco traders."
....
"I am inclined to think that the Scottish element in the ancestry of "The House-Carpenter" is rather stronger than the English, and that the ballad must have migrated to America in several versions (the Scottish versions differ appreciably among themselves as well as from Child B) which have inter-related among themselves in America between 1775 and the present day. "
....
"I believe that the ballad known in Scotland as "The Demon Lover" and in America as "The House-Carpenter" came to the Southern Appalachian region from Scotland in the middle of the eighteenth century. There it was current in oral tradition, being changed in small details, such as the name" Tennessee" which reflects the local geography as known at an early date, and surviving until the twentieth century as a living entity. It gathered up elements, at times from other ballads, and in its turn influenced them. It was picked up in the mid-nineteenth century and printed at least twice( 1858 and 1860), and these printed versions combined with the oral tradition to reinforce some of the changes."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 04:23 PM

With regard to versions of "The Daemon Lover"/"The House Carpenter" found in either Newfoundland or Nova Scotia, Clinton Heylin has a nice summary of the evidence, or rather the lack of evidence. Kenneth Peacock's version from Newfoundland that we have discussed above is the only example found so far. Here is what Heylin has to say about this:

"The notion that American strains of 'The Dæmon Lover' were transplanted during the early waves of emigration, i.e. no later than the mid-eighteenth century, finds a form of reverse corroboration in the almost total absence of renditions from the coastal outposts of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. These two English colonies were inhabited by British settlers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries but in the case of Newfoundland the early settlers came almost exclusively from the Western counties of England - Hampshire, Dorset, Devon, Cornwall and Somerset - where the fishing trade had been a mainstay of the local economy for a thousand years. A list of settlers on the southern shore, compiled in 1675, contained only English names. The Irish began to settle there from 1713 on but Scots remained few and far between.

Nova Scotia, despite its name (New Scotland), bestowed on it in 1622 by Sir William Alexander, was not an inviting prospect for settlement until the French renounced all rights to the territory after the Seven Years War. As W.S. MacNutt observes, "The advance-guard of the great immigration of Highland Scots to Nova Scotia did not arrive until 1773, when The Hector came to Pictou via Philadelphia."7 Not until the period 1801-1803, when eleven ships from Scotland arrived at Pictou, can "the great immigration" be said to have begun in earnest.

These two territories, early British settlements, as isolated by the sea as any Virginian mountain-range, might have been expected to yield a commensurate amount of British popular ballads. The yield has, if anything, been disproportionately small. Maud Karpeles, who visited Newfoundland in 1929, later wrote, "I had hoped that Newfoundland might yield a wealth of songs comparable with the riches that Cecil Sharp and I had discovered in the Southern Appalachian Mountains a decade earlier."8 In fact, Karpeles found just 24 Child ballads - many badly mangled by tradition - in her excavations, compared with the 45 Child ballads Sharp and she had found in the hills of Eastern America. 'The Dæmon Lover', which had yielded 22 renditions in the Appalachians, failed to yield even a solitary fragment in Newfoundland. Kenneth Peacock's even more thorough excavations in the Fifties yielded but a single 'House Carpenter', and that an English broadside derivative. In Nova Scotia, neither Helen Creighton nor W. Roy MacKenzie succeeded in tracking down one 'Dæmon Lover'. Creighton's haul was a mere eleven Child ballads. MacKenzie reluctantly admitted, in his The Quest Of The Ballad, "I have not ceased to cherish the hope that I may yet extort from some crafty singer the admission that he knows 'a line or two' of 'James Harris' ... but so far I have had to content myself with the ... unsatisfying knowledge that [it was] ... once current in the northern part of Nova Scotia."9"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 04:40 PM

I don't recall any sea versions; in a way, it is the quintessential anti-sailor song! :-) The sailor's song would usually be the "opposite" scenario, where the sailor returns to find his beloved taken another.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 17 Jan 12 - 05:36 PM

In a footnote to our ongoing discussion, I would like to add a suggested correction to one conclusion that Heylin draws. In this section, Heylin is discussing an important text from Virginia, collected by Winston Wilkinson from Miss Tyrah Lam of Elkton, Virginia in 1935. He suggests that this text is an important link between the English broadside and a separate English oral tradition:

"Though Clay Walters' rendition [from Kentucky] also includes two of the three verses in De Marsan not in Diverting Songs, it omits any reference to the "banks of Italy." A complete text containing all three 'orally-acquired' verses - drawn from a stream independent of either broadside - has been collected in twentieth century America. It suggests that a collision between (a derivative of) the English broadside and an entirely separate British oral tradition - resulting in the De Marsan derivative - occured in America before any naturalizing process had taken hold. This rare example of a British undercoat intact can be found in Winston Wilkinson's manuscript, housed at the University of Virginia. Collected by Mr. Wilkinson himself from a Miss Tyrah Lam in Elkton, Virginia in 1935, eight of the first eleven verses accord with the first eight verses of De Marsan. However, verse five preserves our banks of Italy:

If you will leave your house carpenter,
And go along with me.
I'll take you where the grass grows green,
On the banks of sweet Italy.15

The denouement, though, entirely omits the moralizing coda, concluding with the increasingly familiar visions of heaven and hell: (vss. 12 & 13)

What hills, what hills, my false true love,
What hills so black and blue?
The hills you see are the hills of Hell,
Awaiting both me and you.

What hills, what hills, my false true love,
What hills so white as snow?
The hills you see are the hills of Heaven,
Where you and I can't go.16

The reader may have started to think that there is nothing unusual about the hills' appearance in American tradition. Not so, my friend. Of the 86 versions in Bronson that qualify as more than fragments, just 14 feature these verses, barely more than those featuring "the banks of Italy."

The Lam text is central to any understanding of the relationship between the American 'House Carpenter' and its British parent. Though verses five and eight correspond to two of the three De Marsan verses unreplicated by the earlier English broadside, the reference to "the banks of sweet Italy" confirms a source preceding the De Marsan transliteration. The surely symbolic couplet, "She turned herself three times around/ And looked at her babies three," otherwise unreplicated in American tradition, suggests perhaps an Old World superstition designed to ward off evil. The reference in the third verse to having "forsaken those crowns of gold," may occur in A Collection Of Diverting Songs but it also crops up in Scottish oral tradition - in Motherwell (Child E), as "I refused the crown of gold," and in Buchan (Child C), as "I despised the crown o' gold," while the uniquely English description of golden slippers and gilded boats remains absent.

What we have in Lam are three verses that cannot be traced to either broadside - yet also occur in Walters' and Dylan's renditions - integrated into a version containing nine of the De Marsan verses. The similarities between Lam's and Dylan's renditions are striking (all of Dylan's ten verses have their equivalent here, save for his attack of amnesia at the end of verse six), though Lam has lost the anachronistic "fee" and Dylan has not. But it is unlikely Dylan had recourse to a direct derivative of Lam. In Lam's rendition the otherworldy status of the "false true love" (an oxymoron in the true sense) remains implicit at song's end, nor does Dylan provide an equivalent to Lam's second verse, which yields another core constituent of the ballad's most ancient tradition:

O hold your tongue of your former vows,
For they'll bring bitter strifes.
O hold your tongue of your former vows,
For I have become a wife.17

This begs an obvious question: what former vows?"

These comments are helpful in understanding and giving some context to the Andrews/De Marsan broadside that we have been looking at. However, the correction I want to suggest has to do with Heylin's comment about Dylan not having had access to the Lam manuscript.

As Heylin says, this manuscript is a part of the Winston Wilkinson collection at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA. It is very probable that a friend of Dylan's not only had access to this collection and this version of "The House Carpenter," but worked with it. This was Paul Clayton (Worthington), who

"... attended the University of Virginia where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree, with honors, in English Literature. He continued with his graduate studies at the University of Virginia, studying folklore under professor, folklorist, and archivist Arthur Kyle Davis, Jr." (University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Library Archives and Special Collections)

He lived in the mountains west of Charlottesville, up Brown's Cove, for a while. So it is entirely possible that Dylan did have access to this version through Paul Clayton Worthington. Here is a link that says a little bit more about Paul Clayton Worthington and Dylan.

http://expectingrain.com/dok/who/c/claytonpaul.html

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 18 Jan 12 - 11:19 AM

In the note above where Heylin is talking about the Canadian versions of "The House Carpenter" he says:

"In Nova Scotia, neither Helen Creighton nor W. Roy MacKenzie succeeded in tracking down one 'Dæmon Lover'. Creighton's haul was a mere eleven Child ballads."

Heylin does not mention a version that Creighton did find in New Brunswick, which was listed in the Roud index earlier in this thread, that I have overlooked. Here is the information on it:

"House Carpenter, The  (from IRELAND, W.E. of Elgin, New Brunswick
first line of song: 'Well met, well met, this pretty fair maid,) — September 1954"

Does anyone happen to have access to this? I can't find it online anywhere so I'll to look for it next time I'm at the library, which won't be for awhile.

Also, there are two other versions that are mentioned above for which we have no lyrics:

Mrs. Myra Daniels of East Calais, VT (This was not in Flanders' ANCIENT BALLADS. Perhaps it is in another of her books, which will have to wait until I get back to the library).

And, the version from Mort Montonyea of Sloatsburg, NY. This is on a LOC recording and I have not been able to find a transcription of it.

If anyone has access to any of these, please post the lyrics for us and send them to me and I will be glad to do it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 18 Jan 12 - 12:04 PM

Hey, Gibb, thanks for getting back to us on this. You suggestion that this ballad is actually an inversion of what would likely be sung by a seaman is very interesting. One of the issues that we have not addressed in this discussion is who did sing this song. In his book, DYLAN'S DAEMON LOVER, which we have been referring to quite often, Clinton Heylin has a whole chapter on this, entitled "(xi) "Knitters in the sun," in which he suggests that this ballad was sung by women. He says:

"Though the knitters, milkmaids, shepherds and yeomen of the sixteenth century must have had a common store of ballads and lyrics, the overlap might not have been as great as scholars have perhaps imagined. The themes reverberating through 'The Dæmon Lover' suggest a song whose main appeal would have been to womenfolk. Would a ballad of such supernatural vengeance, which places the focus so roundly upon the woman and her broken vows, suggest composition by a well-versed sixteenth century yeoman (I say compose rather than write to neatly sidestep the contentious issue of whether such ballads were orally composed. I think not, but it does not fundamentally affect my argument)? Would such a song have been adopted by the travelling minstrel? 'The Dæmon Lover' certainly does not come across as a tavern song. On the other hand, the appeal to superstitious "knitters in the sun" dreaming of an escape from the drudgery of daily existence seems self-evident."

In looking over all of the sources mentioned so far on this thread, I find that sixteen are from women and ten are from men. This means that almost two thirds of the our versions were collected from women, with the assumption being that they actually were sung by them.

While Gardner-Medwin definitely focuses her study on what happens to the young woman in the ballad, it (having been published in 1971) predates the general rise of feminist scholarship in academia and betrays no hint of this influence, and thus does not raise the issue of who might have been actually singing this song, leaving intact the assumption that it was being passed along by the men - i.e. those Scottish tobacco traders!

Gibb's point about the ballad inverting the "normal" sailor's theme of some landsman stealing away his wife while he was at sea throws this issue into relief, in that we have a tale about a mariner stealing away a landsman's wife and taking her off to sea with him. But the story is really about the woman going willingly and then having "buyers regret!" It definitely echoes the theme that we find in Child #200, "The Gypsy Davey." And in fact, the Couchey version from NY, sung by Lee Knight, demonstrates this by actually combining the two ballads, almost seamlessly. Here is the Couchey/Knight version:

thread.cfm?threadid=141964&messages=143#3280327

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 19 Jan 12 - 11:43 AM

As a followup on yesterday's note about the roles of women in relationship to this ballad, I wanted to mention an interesting study by Barbara Fass Leavy, called IN SEARCH OF THE SWAN MAIDEN: A NARRATIVE ON FOLKLORE AND GENDER. A good deal of her Chapter 3 entitled "The Devil's Bride" is devoted to "The Daemon Lover"/"The House Carpenter", and she also discusses it within a larger folklore context. She is definitely interested in how this ballad both reflects the feelings and plight of women and also what influence it may have had on both. And her discussion provides a telling critique of the long tradition of male-oriented interpretation of the ballad materials. Here is a link to this chapter:

http://books.google.com/books?id=BytDXeTtHiQC&pg=PA65&dq=%22James+Harris+(The+Daemon+Lover)%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VAgYT4GhIoja0QGHhdW

It is interesting to compare the perspectives of Leavy, Gardner-Medwin, and Heylin. Gardner-Medwin wrote in 1971, Leavy in 1994, and Heylin in 1999. History is never "just history" and the interpretations do change and do depend upon time, place and frame of reference.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 01:23 PM

My post yesterday about "The Devil's Bride" chapter in Barbara Fass Leavy's book IN SEARCH OF THE SWAN MAIDEN, got me to thinking about my own originating story for this thread:

thread.cfm?threadid=141964#3279700

So old Robert Pond was a house carpenter in Dorchester, MA. He died there in 1637. About 55 years later, and 22 miles north there began the infamous Salem witch trials. Witches were accused of being "the Devil's Bride." While it would appear that there was only one North American version of our ballad that actually portrayed the man from the sea as at least supernatural and probably diabolical, it is somewhat ironical that this version supposedly was learned in Massachusetts! This was the version published by Flanders from Edith Ballenger Price of Rhode Island, collected in 1945. Supposedly, she learned it " as a young girl from "a lady living in Massachusetts, whose forebears came from England." Here is the link to that version:

thread.cfm?threadid=141964#3290123

Perhaps the cultural atmosphere of the Massachusetts Bay Colony at the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century had something to do with why this ballad did not take root there. The Price version probably came over (in a book?) in the early part of the 19th century.

If the poor woman who left her house carpenter had made it back home, there is some likelihood she might have been burned as a witch, if she was from Massachusetts in the late 1600's. And of course, there is a link here to Dorchester! Check this out:

http://www.dotnews.com/hangingjudge.html

As far as I know, Mary Pond, who did marry a sea captain after the death of her first husband, Robert Pond the house carpenter, died of natural causes, probably in Cambridge.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 02:28 PM

http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~zierke/lloyd/songs/thedemonlover.html

If that's been posted before, my apologies. The 'cat is taking so long to load stuff that I'm giving up for the day.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 04:31 PM

Thanks for the link, GUEST 999. It gives us lyrics from A.L. Lloyd, Steeleye Span, Peter Bellamy and Jon Boden, and a very youtube of "Cara."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 20 Jan 12 - 04:35 PM

That should be "a very nice youtube."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 06:15 PM

It's taken me a fair old while to read this thread and some of the other documents linked to.

To pick up on the question of whether the Price version was derived from Motherwell: surely the conclusive piece of evidence is the word "gurly", which as Heylin points out is not in either of the Motherwell versions but is in the Kinloch version (Child D). Even if Motherwell was (directly or indirectly) Price's main source, she got at least that one word from somewhere else.

BTW is Edward Ballinger Price a mistranscription of Edith Ballenger Price or was he a real person (presumably related) with another version?

BTW2 I tried searching for the Joe Rae version on the Tobar an Dualchais site and drew a blank. If it was there, it has disappeared.

Richard

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 06:33 PM

Re:BTW2 It looks as if your right and it's been removed Richard. 67187 is there - Joe Rae singing Owre the Muir Amang the Heather, but 67188 (the number for the Daemon Lover above) has gone.

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 09:15 PM

Richard, I don't know who "Edward Ballinger Price" might be. Here is the reference from Roud above:

DAEMON LOVER
Source       Helen Hartness Flanders Collection (Middlebury College, Vermont) D46 A 13         
Performer       Price, Edward Ballinger         
Place collected       USA : Rhode Island : Newport         
Collector       Flanders, Helen Hartness

This looks like it is at Middlebury College. All I've had access to is Flanders' ANCIENT BALLADS TRADITIONALLY SUNG IN NEW ENGLAND, Vol. III (1963). It does say that these are"From the Helen Hartness Flanders Ballad Collection Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont."

The version from Ms. Price was collected by "M. Olney" and according to the entry above the one from Mr. Price was collected by H.H. Flanders herself. As near as I can tell there is no mention of Mr. Edward Ballinger Price in Vol. III of ANCIENT BALLADS. I'm afraid the answer to this lies buried somewhere at Middlebury College, unless someone out there has discovered otherwise.

I am aware that Flanders had published at least five other collections of folk songs/ ballads from the New England region. I had assumed that there was a lot of overlapping and repeating among these publications and that the ANCIENT BALLADS was the final and definitive version of things. That may not be an accurate assumption at all. I don't know very much about this. When I get back to the library, I will try to check out some of these other books to see what's going on there.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 21 Jan 12 - 09:53 PM

Edith Ballenger Price has one other ballad in Vol. III of ANCIENT BALLADS, which is a version of Child 200, "The Gypsy Davey." Her version is entitled "Gypsum Davey" and looks very much like some Southern versions. This was collected from Ms. Price by M. Olney. The comment says: "learned from Esther Morton Smith, who was singing this ballad before Cecil Sharp had collected in the Southern Appalachians." No word on who Esther Morton Smith was. Perhaps there are additional notes on all of this somewhere, but what we have available in ANCIENT BALLADS is enigmatic to say the least.

I notice on her album "Dad's Dinner Pail", Debra Cowen has two songs collected from Edith Ballinger Price: "Bold Richard" and "Cruel Brother" (Child #11). These come from the Flanders Collection.

http://www.debracowan.com/DDP.html

I did find a preview of Flanders' BALLADS MIGRANT IN NEW ENGLAND on Google Books, but it is partial. While there are a number of songs and ballads from Rhode Island, none are from Edith (or Edward) Ballinger Price. The "Turtle Dove" version that we have mentioned above is in this collection.

http://books.google.com/books?id=fUenQQss7K0C&pg=PR14&dq=Helen+Hartness+Flanders&hl=en&sa=X&ei=JnUbT6j2Ksbc0QGnpvjWCw&ved=0CDcQ6

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 08:39 PM

First of all, an apology for acting like a ballad collector and giving Brian Peters' first name a number of different spellings! Sorry about that Brian.

Secondly, I Googled "Edith Ballenger Price." I thought I had done this. But obviously I had not. There is actually quite a bit of stuff out there on her. She was born April 26, 1897, and died September 29, 1997. She was an American author, who wrote a bunch of books, and she started the Brownie Scouts. Here are some links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edith_B._Price

http://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=inauthor:%22Edith+Ballinger+Price%22&source=gbs_metadata_r&cad=4

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Edith+Ballinger&x=0&y=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=

And finally, from Google, this snippet:

"1. Ballads Migrant in New England - As sung by Miss Edith Ballenger Price of Newport, Rhode Island. Learned about 1910 when a small child, from the singing of a friend in Amherst, Massachusetts ....        "

I don't know what song this refers to, and it doesn't come up in the Google Book, but if I had to guess, I would say that this refers to the same information that we have about Price's source for "The Daemon Lover", that she learned it " as a young girl from "a lady living in Massachusetts, whose forebears came from England"." So, there may be more information out there on this woman/person from Amherst, MA, whose family may have come from "England" .

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 22 Jan 12 - 08:57 PM

Here is some more detailed information about Edith Ballinger Price:

http://nwda-db.wsulibs.wsu.edu/findaid/ark:/80444/xv52677

There is no mention in any of these materials about her being interested in ballads or about her having contributed any ballads to the Flanders' Collection. There is this reference: "Her other interests included gardening, ecology, playing violin and viola, restoration of historical sites, preservation of endangered species, involvement with humane societies and with the English Folk Dance Society."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 07:09 AM

Mrs. Ellen M. Sullivan of Springfield,VT, who gave Helen Hartness Flanders that most unusual version of "The House Carpenter", called "The Banks of Claudy", which was of some interest to Clinton Heylin in our discussion above, remembered this song from her childhood, growing up in County Cork, Ireland! Here is the Heylin discussion:

thread.cfm?threadid=141964#3284123

So this version comes out of a different stream of tradition, the "Irish", rather than the "Scotch-Irish".

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 02:36 PM

Here I am, back at last, John - having just submitted my Tax Return with five days to spare!

Having read the above reference to an Irish tradition for this ballad, I thought you might be interested to see the text of the one Irish version that I know of. I don't have time to go into a comparison now, but will try later. 'The Banks of Sweet Viledee' appears on a cassette called 'Early Ballads in Ireland', sung in 1983 by one Frank Browne, from Ballingare, Co. Roscommon, who appears to have been a song collector rather than a source singer - I hope someone will correct me if I'm wrong on that score. Cathy Jordan of Dervish learnt it directly from Mr. Browne, and if you want to get some idea of the tune, here are Dervish taking more than a few liberties with it. In Browne's rendition I can hear echoes of the magnificent tune that the Hammond brothers found with the fragmentary English version they noted from Marina Russell in the 1900s. It's closer to that than to the usual American tune, anyway.

THE BANKS OF THE SWEET VILEDEE

Well met, well met, my own true love
Well met, my love, by thee
I have just arrived from the salt, salt sea
And it's all for the love of thee, my love
And it's all for the love of thee

Now I could have married a great king's daughter
And have myself to blame
For it's tons of gold I have refused
And it's all for the love of thee, my love
All for the love of thee

Now if you could have married a great king's daughter
And have yourself to blame
I have married a house-carpenter
And I think he's a nice young man, my love
And I think he's a nice young man

If you do leave you house-carpenter
And come along with me
I'll take you to where the grass grows green
On the banks of the Sweet Viledee, my love
On the banks of the Sweet Viledee

If I do leave my house-carpenter
And go along with thee
What have you there to support me with
Or keep me from slavery, my love?
Or keep me from slavery?


I have six ships now sailing out
And seven more on sea
Three hundred and ten all jolly sailsmen
And they're all to wait on thee, my love
And they're all for to wait on thee

She dressed her baby neat and clean
And gave him kisses three
Saying, "Stay, stay here, my darling baby boy
And your father as company, my love
And your father as company"

She dressed herself in a suit of red
And her maiden's waist was green
And every town that they passed by
Sure, they took her to be some queen, my love
They took her to be some queen

We were not two days out at sea
And I'm sure we were not three
When this fair maid began to weep
And she wept most bitterly, my love
And she wept most bitterly

My curse, my curse, upon all seamen
Who brought me out on sea
And deprived me of my house-carpenter
On the banks of the Sweet Viledee, my love
On the banks of the Sweet Viledee

We were butt three days out on sea
And I'm sure we were not four
When this fair maid disappeared from the deck
And she sank to rise no more, my love
And she sank to rise no more

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 26 Jan 12 - 03:01 PM

Thanks, Brian. I was wondering what kind of tradition this ballad might have in Ireland.

Here is a note that I found on another thread from Debra Cowan (from 04 Oct 07) saying that she had been listening to a recording of Edith Ballinger Price, from the Flanders Collection, accompanying herself on the piano.

thread.cfm?threadid=105259#2163893

And here is an old thread ('99! with a last update from '07) on Helen Hartness Flanders:

thread.cfm?threadid=12997#2105107

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 04:08 AM

Brian asked me to pass on what I know of Frank Browne (thanks Brian)
This is the note to 'Vildee' from 'Early Ballads in Ireland' (a must for ballad buffs - soon to be issued on CD by the Goilin Singers Club nudge-nudge to all concerned)
"Frank Browne, aged about 70 (the cassette was issued in 1985) , farmer, Rathnollaig, Belnagare, Co. Roscommon, on June 1983 in the home of Bairbre O'Flynne, Dublin, who for some years recorded songs and folklore from Frank at his home and in Dublin. Apparently not recorded elsewhere in Ireland, but common in America, where Frank was born and lived to an early age."
We met Frank once when he was asked to sing at a ballad conference in Dublin. He appeared to have a reasonable repertoire of traditional songs and was well able to sing them.
As the note says, he was a farmer and could in no way be described as a collector, certainly no more than any traditional singer could be described as one (weren't all traditional singers 'collectors' in their own way?)
I have no knowledge of Frank other than that, but I'm sure Bairbre, who works at the Folklore Department at UCD, would be happy to pass on what she knows; the recordings of Frank, along with any information on him, should be housed at the archive there.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 05:08 AM

Thank you Jim. Having listened to Frank Brown's extremely good and very traditional-sounding rendition of this ballad, I was sceptical about the idea that he was a collector. I should have known better than to trust the information on a record company's website. Here, for your amusement, is what Compass Records have to say about the ballad:

"The Banks of Sweet Viledee was discovered when Cathy Jordan spent a memorable afternoon with the late Frank Browne, from Ballingare, Co. Roscommon, one of the few song collectors from that county. He was the sole collector of the song which is also known as The Demon Lover and James Harris. The location of Viledee is unknown but it maybe a corruption of a particular place name. Frank died in early 1998 the song is dedicated this song to Frank's memory. There was a Maid in her Father's Garden was also collected from Frank Browne also and has a similar theme to The Banks of Sweet Viledee. It's known by several titles and is among the commonest English songs sung in Ireland, in which the usual starting point is the return of an unrecognised young man after a considerable length of time."

'The Demon Lover' was collected only once??

'Maid in her Father's Garden' has a similar theme???

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 05:51 AM

Oh dear!!
"'Maid in her Father's Garden' has a similar theme??? "
Just goes to show, you never know what's lurkin' behind them daffodils, d'ye!
In fairness, The Demon Lover has never turned up elsewhere in Ireland as far as I know, I half expected to find it from Travellers, but no luck.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 27 Jan 12 - 11:36 AM

Thanks for the additional information, Jim and Brian. And here is my best take on the "Price Version." I would be interested in your further comments.

I've been pondering the Price version of our ballad for several weeks now. I don't have anything much new to add, other than I'm a bit puzzled about why it hasn't created more discussion, since 1945! Of course I was puzzled about why the Willard copy hadn't created more of stir as well. Could one conclude that "ballad studies" are not a particularly hot item and haven't been for over half of a century?

I am not an expert in the British ballad traditions and don't know very much at all about the various manuscripts. I want to say at this point how much I miss Malcolm Douglas in these discussions! In any case, I want to try to sum up my observations on the Price version.

We know that Marguerite Olney collected this version, for Helen Hartness Flanders, from Miss Edith Ballenger (Ballinger?) Price of Newport, Rhode Island on October 23, 1945. Miss Price learned her version "as a young girl from a lady living in Massachusetts." In an introduction to another ballad in this collection, which was also obtained from Miss Price, it says she learned it " about 1910 when a small child, from the singing of a friend in Amherst, Massachusetts ...." We don't know for sure if this is the same person or an accurate dating for her "Daemon Lover," but we might assume that it is. When I can get to the library and look at some of Flanders' other books, I may be able to find out more about Miss Price and her friend from Massachusetts.

The next thing that we know about the "Price version" is that it is unique in the total collection of this ballad in North America. While the title, "Daemon Lover," shows up elsewhere, some of the details in the Price version do not show up anywhere else in North America as far as I know. Her version seems to overtly maintain not only a supernatural element, which is rare in North America, but also a diabolical element, with reference to the "cloven hoof." Here are some of the more remarkable verses:

"I've seven ships upon the sea,
Beaten with the finest gold,
And mariners to wait upon us;
All this she shall behold."

She set her foot unto the ship,
No mariners did she behold;
But the sail was o' the....
And the mast o' the beaten gold.
----
They hadna' been a league, a league,
A league but only two,
When she beheld his cloven foot,
From his gay robe thrusting through.

They hadna' sailed a league, a league,
A league but only three,
When dark and fearsome grow his looks
And gurly grow the sea.

"Now hold your tears, my dearest dear,
Let all your weeping be
And I'll show ye how the white lilies grow
At the bottom o' the sea."
----
It would seem that Price's version comes closest to the Scottish (in differentiation from the "English" or "Scotch-Irish" traditions - please forgive me if I am mangling boundaries here!) traditions of this ballad, in which the supernatural and the diabolical are most pronounced. Clinton Heylin suggests that this version, along with the one it resembles most from Motherwell, come from earlier Scottish oral tradition. Gardner-Medwin, in her article, seems to suggest that it comes directly from Scott's book. However, as Richard Mellish, above, and Clinton Heylin himself point out, the word "gurly" is not found in the Motherwell/Scott version, but in another version from the Scottish oral tradition, from Kinloch.

In fact, when you compare Price's version with the version from Motherwell, which Heylin does on pages 83-84 of his book, one sees that while there are resemblances between the two suggesting that they may indeed have a common ancestor, they are different enough from each other to say that probably the Price version is not taken from the Motherwell version. Unless it has been significantly reworked. But that suspicion raises some other questions.

So, it is surely possible that the Price version does come from Scottish tradition. Motherwell's version was published in 1827, suggesting that he got his version from the oral tradition somewhat earlier, and if Price's version comes from the same milieu, then that would date it back to the early part of the 19th century. Both Heylin and Gardner-Medwin argue that there were earlier versions than the 1858 Andrews/De Marsan broadside printing in North America and suggest that they either came from Scotland or were influenced by the Scottish versions.

However, one might immediately ask, "why are there no other surviving examples like the Price version anywhere else in North America if such versions came over from Scotland between about 1750 and 1860?" Also, we just don't know when the Price version arrived on North American shores. Price says that she learned her song from a friend whose "family came from England." When did this "English" family come over? The unspoken implication would seem to be that it was fairly recently, since otherwise, what would be the point of mentioning this in the light of the fact that many, many families had "come over from England!" While there is no evidence to support it, this seems to point to a time more recent than 1827.

There is nothing to say that a Scottish version of "The Daemon Lover" could not have been preserved in England throughout the 19th century and then brought over to the United States later. However, just as there are no surviving examples of this form of the ballad in North America other than Price's, there also do not seem to be any in England either, other than what was already in print. I may be wrong about this. But the question remains, where did it come from, and when?

We know that Miss Price was born in New Jersey and grew up there, and then went to art school in Boston. In 1910, she would have been about 13 years old. It would be so interesting to know more about this "friend" but at this point I don't. However, we do know that Francis James Child had published Part VIII (Vol. 4, Part 2 of the Dover Edition) of his THE ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH POPULAR BALLADS in Boston in 1892, about five years before Miss Price was born. Child had died a year before Miss Price's birth. But the point is that his works were certainly current and available in the Boston/Amherst/Cambridge area in 1910. It is possible that someone with a literary training and background, both of which Miss Price possessed, could have skillfully crafted a "traditional" version of an old ballad, using nothing more than Child's work itself. We all know that this is not an uncommon or necessarily undesirable practice. This could have been done by either Miss Price or her "English" friend, or her English friend's "family". If only M. Olney or H.H. Flanders had asked a few more questions!

On the face of it, the Price version does not "look" like a compilation, but like a genuine surviving version of a somewhat Anglicized Scottish variant of "The Daemon Lover', or exactly what collectors would long to have found all over North America - but didn't. Heylin even suggests that this may be " the only real suggestion that the 'dæmonic' version might have once had a foothold in English tradition."

After trying to consider all of this carefully, I find myself still on the suspicious side of the argument. Too much time had elapsed for such a neat version to all of a sudden show up in Child's backyard a few years after his death. There is too much of a literary ambience surrounding this version. And there is a total lack of any other such versions in either the U.S. or Great Britain for the possible time frames involved, especially from "oral tradition." The Price version remains a somewhat suspicious enigma for me.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 28 Jan 12 - 11:38 AM

Early on in this thread, I mentioned that there was a Cajun French version of "The House Carpenter" which has the line "On the banks of the Tennessee," in three verses. It was collected by Alan Lomax in 1934 and is called "J'ai marie un ouvrier" . Here is a link to the text with a translation:

http://books.google.com/books?id=y51Pcgyqj14C&pg=PA155&dq=On+the+banks+of+the+old+Tennessee&hl=en&ei=dBTiTpi9Iajc0QGqkd3cBQ&sa=X

The fact that this version refers to the "banks of the Tennessee" probably means that it is derived either from the "Andrews/De Marsan" broadside of 1858, or from the tradition that precedes the printing of that broadside, or perhaps from a later oral tradition that incorporated elements from that broadside. It is also possible that this is a fairly late addition to the Cajun repertoire from the early country music world. Unfortunately, the Google Book selection is chopped. And I don't know what Alan Lomax might have said about this, since I don't have access to the liner notes.

However, I'm also wondering if there is any possibility that this ballad might actually have been appropriated by the French Acadians from their English neighbors before their exile from the Northeast beginning about 1755.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_the_Acadians

Such an early appropriation seems unlikely because of the reference to "the banks of the Tennessee", but we don't know for sure when that reference crept into the oral tradition. Surely it predates the printing of the broadside in 1858. Gardner-Medwin said: "by 1794 both the river and the state are called "Tennassee." So probably sometime between the latter part of the 1700's and the middle of the 1800's "the banks of the old Tennessee" became a phrase the back-country folks would have understood. But that seems too late for any Acadian connection up north. So when did this ballad enter the Cajun tradition?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 28 Jan 12 - 03:21 PM

Looking at my previous post, I think that the Cajun connection is too much of a reach. But I would be interested in knowing where the Cajuns got there version of "I Married A Carpenter" aka "The House Carpenter."

I came across this first page of a journal article - I can't access the whole article - that prints the tune for "The Banks of the Sweet Viledee" that Brian and Jim mentioned above:

http://www.jstor.org/pss/20522501

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 29 Jan 12 - 01:17 PM

In looking back over this discussion, I see that we have focused a good bit of attention on the two versions of "The House Carpenter" collected in the Northeast - both of them from the Helen Hartness Flanders Collection - which are the most "unique." Actually, neither of them was titled "The House Carpenter." One, from Ellen Sullivan, was called "The Banks of Claudy" and the other one from Edith Price, was called "The Daemon Lover." They are unique not only in relationship to all of the other versions that we have found from the Northeast, but also in relation to all of the other versions found in North America (including Canada). They are of interest because they supposedly preserve aspects of this ballad that are not found otherwise on the American side of the Atlantic, namely the supernatural and the diabolical dimensions.

However, just because both of these versions were "collected" in the Northeastern part of the United States, one from Springfield VT (Sullivan), and one from Newport RI (Price), does not mean that they are necessarily "American" versions of this ballad. In fact we know from Mrs. Sullivan and Miss Price that they were not American versions. Mrs. Sullivan learned "The Banks of Claudy" in her childhood in County Cork, Ireland. It is an Irish version of this ballad that she brought over with her to Vermont. And Miss Price learned "The Daemon Lover" from a "friend" whose family had "come over from England", and it is possibly of Scottish origin.

Neither of these two versions have much at all to do with the other versions found in New England and Canada. We can see that clearly when we compare them with the oldest version we have found which is the one from Sarah Willard, of Moriah Center NY from 1869. The Willard version stands squarely in the midst of the rest of those versions normally associated with North America.

When we look at the larger picture of the Northeastern region of America, I think that these two "unique" versions are almost entirely marginalized, and rightfully so. They do not represent early traditional variants of this ballad in this country. I am here suggesting that the Price version did not come "over from England" early on, but much later, and was limited to a single family that "brought it over" and handed it on to Miss Price.

It seems to me that the best way to understand and appreciate the remainder of the American versions found in the Northeast is to place them in the larger context of all other versions found ithroughout the United States, but especially in the Southern Appalachians. As we know, there are many. And I would imagine that the versions found "up North" are probably quite similar to those found "down South" in the Appalachians.

To undertake this kind of study is more than I can do at this point. I am not aware of any detailed analysis of this ballad in America that is very recent. I would appreciate any information that anyone might have on this. I suspect that Gardner-Medwin (1971) may be the most recent work done on the North American versions.

While I think that the versions we have found from New England and Canada definitely help us understand better the spread of this ballad in North America, I don't think that either the Sullivan or the Price versions contribute very much at all to such an understanding. The Sullivan version tells us that the ballad had found its way to Ireland and did come over to New England with a fairly recent Irish immigrant. I'm not at all sure what the Price version tells us and will not venture an opinion on that.

I understand much better now why we did not turn up any versions of this ballad in the Boston area, and especially why there were not any early versions there, due to immigration patterns and religious belief systems. It would seem that the major influence in the Northeast is the same as that down South, in other words the ubiquitous "Scotch-Irish" presence. That this traditional frame of reference undoubtedly had some other "Scottish" influence mixed in with it goes without saying. However, when and where that happened remains to be discovered, although we can assume that it took place prior to the publication of the Andrews/De Marsan broadside in 1858.

I will look forward to additional finds and information, and to discussion of the materials that we have been able to collect here.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: GUEST,pizel
Date: 30 Jan 12 - 10:13 AM

The Scottish version of the ballad removed from the Tobar An Duchlais
site is due to reappear on that site sometime in February.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 31 Jan 12 - 09:46 AM

Thanks for that update on the Tobar An Duchlais site.

As I look at this discussion I am struck by how much information we have and by how little we actually know about the history of this ballad in the Northeast. We still are unable to push anything back in time on the American side of the Atlantic prior to the printing of the broadside in 1858, and yet we also know that the broadside was probably "lifted" from one or more strands of oral tradition. It seems much more "Americanized" than British. We also know that "oral traditions" get written down by others besides broadside publishers, because we have that hand-written copy by Sarah Willard from 1869. There were probably hand-written copies prior to the broadside as well. It is all very tantalizing in a somewhat frustrating kind of way!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 01 Feb 12 - 09:08 AM

It is interesting to take a look at one of Edith Ballinger Price's novels. Here is THE FORTUNE OF THE INDIES, published in 1922. She seems to know something about the days of sail and being at sea.

http://books.google.com/books?id=-McWAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:%22Edith+Ballinger+Price%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wDUgT9O-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 03 Mar 12 - 10:27 AM

I finally made it back to the UVA library yesterday to see if I could find out any more information about Edith Ballinger Price and her mysterious Massachusetts' source. I looked through the other two volumes in Flanders' collection ANCIENT BALLADS TRADITIONALLY SUNG IN NEW ENGLAND. There were other ballads from Price, collected by M. Olney, with the same kind of cryptic note about "learned in childhood from a friend in Massachusetts" but no new information. One note made reference to 1910 "when she [Flanders] was very young". I also looked at some of Flanders' earlier collections, from Vermont and an earlier collection of New England songs and ballads. There was no additional information in any of these works. In fact, Flanders had incorporated some of the material in these earlier works into ANCIENT BALLADS. So for now, that's all I have been able to find on Edith Price and her source, leaving us no closer to a definitive answer than before.

I would welcome some additional discussion on this subject from New Englanders, and especially from some of the many ballad singers from that region. I think that the questions raised by the study of this one ballad probably apply to the overall status of the old "English & Scottish" ballads in the Northeast.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 03 Mar 12 - 12:04 PM

Not directly related to the New England tradition of Child 243, but yesterday I saw for the first time the text noted down by the English poet John Clare from his mother's singing, recorded in his manuscript collection of songs from the 1820s. The bulk of the verses resemble closely (though with differences in detail) the Distressed Ship's Carpenter broadside, but the first three - although a little garbled - are much more like those published by Peter Buchan in Ancient Ballads and Songs of the North of Scotland (1828). It seems highly unlikely (given the chronology and geography) that Clare's mother could have been influenced by Buchan's text and, since her own background seems to have been solidly English, the suggestion is that the ballad was extant in England around 1800 (which is interesting in itself since we have no other example from this period), and that it existed in a form partly resembling that which we've tended to assume was its 'Scottish' form.

Just for your interest...!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 03 Mar 12 - 01:07 PM

George Deacon, in his John Clare and the Folk Tradition, also noted the similarity of the opening to the Buchan text: Despite the resemblance between the first two verses of Clare's version and the opening verses of 'Sweet William's Ghost' (Child, No.77), comparison with the text that Child prints from Buchan's Ballads of the North of Scotland reveals a remarkably similar opening to the ballad. Apart from providing us with evidence of the ballad's having been sung in Northamptonshire, Clare's version also retains not only the unusual opening but a stronger reminder of the ghostly nature of the returning lover than do most versions (see verse 10 '& cause he was drest like a man').

The first three verses of his (mother's) version are:

  Whos that under my window
  That doth so sigh & moan
  Is it my father dear
  Or is it my brother John
  Or is it my own true love
  That from Scotland has newly come home

  It is not your father dear
  It is not your brother John
  But it is your own true love
  That from Scotland has newly come home
  James Ellice is my name you know
  Altho youve lost the vow

  Im new come home from the salt salt sea
  & its all for the sake of loving thee
  I might have had a kings daughter
  & she would have married me
  & have forgone her golden crown
  & all for the sake of thee



Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 03 Mar 12 - 03:15 PM

"I came across this first page of a journal article - I can't access the whole article"
Rest of article plus obituary of the singer
Jim Carroll

'If you do leave your house-carpenter,
And come along with me,
I'll take you to where the grass grows green
On the Banks of the Sweet Viledee, my love,
On the Banks of the Sweet Viledee.'

'If I do leave my house-carpenter,
And go along with thee,
What have you there to support me with
Or to keep me from slavery, my love,
Or to keep me from slavery.'

'I have six ships now sailing out,
And seven more on sea,
Three hundred and ten, all jolly sailsmen,
And they all for to wait on thee, my love,
And they all for to wait on thee.'

She dressed her baby neat and clean,
And she gave him kisses three,
Saying, 'Stay, stay here, my darling baby boy,
And your father is company, my love,
And your father is company'

She dressed herself in a suit of green,
And her maiden's waist was green,
And every town that we passed by,
Sure they took her to be some queen, my love,
Sure they took her to be some queen.

We were but two days out on sea,
And I'm sure we were not three,
When this fair maiden began to weep
And she wept most bitterly, my love,
And she wept most bitterly.

'My curse, my curse upon all seamen,
Who brought me out on sea,
And deprived me of my house-carpenter
On the Banks of the Sweet Viledee, my love,
On the Banks of the Sweet Viledee.'

We were but three days out on sea,
And I'm sure we were not four,
When this fair maiden disappeared from the deck
And she sank to rise no more, my love,
And she sank to rise no more.

IFC BF 82. Recorded from Frank Browne, of Rathnallog, Ballanagare, county Roscommon, on the 25 March 1981, by Bairbre Ni Fhloinn (and also on many subsequent occasions). On the night in question, Frank sang the song for the collector in the front room of the house attached to Bruen's pub, in the village of Ballanagare. Like many other publicans in the area, the Bruens have always been most obliging in facilitating recording sessions on their premises. Frank died in February 1998 (see obituary notice in the present volume).
'The Banks of the Sweet Viledee' is the only recorded version in Irish tradition of Child no. 243, 'James Harris' or 'The Demon Lover' (F. J. Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Boston 1882-98). In Frank's version of the song, as in many others, the supernatural dimension appears to have been lost. The location of 'The Sweet Viledee' is unknown, and it may well represent a corruption of a placename. Some other versions of the song, from both sides of the Atlantic, contain placenames somewhat similar to 'Viledee'. Frank learned the song, along with many others, from his sisters. It was included on a compilation tape published in 1985 by European Ethnic Oral Traditions, entitled Early Ballads in Ireland 1968-1985, edited by Hugh Shields and Tom Munnelly.
Thanks are due to Debbie Metrustry, of the Top Type Music Bureau, for making the musical transcription.

IN MEMORIAM
FRANK BROWNE
(1909 - 1998)
Frank Browne, traditional singer and storyteller, died on the 21st of February 1998. Frank lived a long life, never moving far from his native Ballanagare, in county Roscommon, where he was born in November 1909. All his life he was a loyal Roscommon man, and he never lost an opportunity to sing his county's praises, in every sense. Until the end of his days, he had an energy and an enthusiasm for life which would put to shame a person half his age.
Music and song played an important part in Frank's life from his young days. He was a noted flute-player, and he used to be much in demand locally to play at house-dances and 'sprees', as they were called. He was a fine singer, with a very rich repertoire of songs, gathered from all kinds of sources. Some of Frank's songs were unique in Irish tradition, and had never before been recorded here (see Mam as Mala na mBailitheoiri — From the Field', in this volume).
In his later years, Frank became well-known in traditional music circles as a singer, performing at festivals and gatherings in several parts of the country. He visited Dublin frequently, where he sang at numerous sessions and conferences, and was a frequent and well-loved visitor at the Goilin Singers' Club, in particular. Only months before he died, he sang to a rapt audience of young people from various parts of the world as part of the programme of the annual International Summer School at University College Dublin.
His songs have been included on a number of commercial compilation recordings, most recently on a compact disc produced by UNESCO, consisting of a representative selection of Irish traditional music and song from the archives of the Department of Irish Folklore. This disc forms part of an international series of ethnic music from around the world.
Frank also had a great deal of traditional material relating
to other areas of life, including stories about \ the fairies and similar supernatural occurrences.
He was, in many ways, a walking archive of information about his own place, and a living link with the past.
First and foremost, Frank was his own person, and he remained indomitably himself on his visits to Dublin and elsewhere.   His   humour and his energy, his love of fun and of singing, were all central to his personality, and affected everyone who met him. It
is a consolation to know that so many of Frank's songs and stories were recorded by the Department of Irish Folklore, with whose staff he was always so generous and patient, and whose students he always welcomed so freely.
Ar dheis De go raibh a anam uasal dilis.
BAIRBRE NI FHLOINN
BEALOIDEAS 66 - 1998

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: GUEST,gus
Date: 05 May 12 - 07:07 AM

Rae"s Scottish version can, again,be heard on the Tobar An Duchlais site.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: GUEST,Richie
Date: 25 Mar 13 - 05:40 PM

Hi John,

I've started putting New England version on my site:

http://bluegrassmessengers.com.temp.realssl.com/the-defeated-knight--fish-nh-pre1940-flanders-e.aspx

I have 1941 for the Warner's version not July 1940 wonder where you got that info?

I'm using some of your notes and info on my site,

TY

R-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: John Minear
Date: 25 Mar 13 - 07:16 PM

Hi Richie - I think you are right. Flanders recorded Lena Bourne Fish in 1940, but the Warners recorded her in 1941. A misprint/mistake on my part. Here's what I said above:

"This was recorded in 1940, with a "retake" in 1943. The Warner recording of Lena Bourne Fish was made in 1940." And I believe I repeated that mistake somewhere else but I can't spot it right off. Thanks for catching this. And keep up all of your good work!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: GUEST,Richie
Date: 25 Mar 13 - 10:08 PM

Hi,

Here's some info on the Price version:

http://bluegrassmessengers.com.temp.realssl.com/the-daemon-lover--price-ri-ma-1945-flanders-m.aspx

Richie

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 26 Mar 13 - 08:05 AM

I just checked and the Joe Rae version recording (1973) is now back at the Tobar an Dualchais site: The Daemon Lover - Joe Rae. (It went missing earlier!)


Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: leahyj
Date: 17 May 18 - 11:17 PM

I'm more than a little late coming to this thread but in the hope that someone sees it , does anyone have the chords and possibly the sheet music for the Steeleye Span version of Demon Lover . I have searched to no avail .

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 19 May 18 - 10:44 AM

I'm grateful for this thread being revived, both because I had entirely forgotten reading it a few years ago and putting in my own three hap'orth and for the sake of some of the subsequent posts that I probably didn't see at the time. All the same, given the range of discussion and the number of versions posted, I do wonder why someone should have a desire for details of one particular version from the modern revival.

Subject: Demon Lover
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 08 Jun 18 - 10:21 AM

I've heard a few versions of this song and I see there are links on this thread re other versions. But I first heard it from Joan Baez so the version I sing is close to what she recorded. I'd like to know the source of the version Baez recorded (and also background sources for other ballads Baez sang, such as Matty Groves and Geordie, etc)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Jun 18 - 06:09 AM

I have tow versions from the Edith Fowke collection if anybody is looking for them
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Gutcher
Date: 11 Jun 18 - 02:13 PM

Rather a dull {weatherwise} afternoon here after a few weeks of glorious sunshine.
Reading through this thread I came on the post from Brian Peters dated 12.12.2011 @ 12:04. Brian mentions the title of the ballad on Tobar An Duchlais as "Daemon Lover" I, as the singer, certainly did not give it its title, must have been someone at the S.S S in Edinburgh or the recorder of the ballad. The Tobar An Duchlais site came on stream shortly after I had taught myself to use a computer and it came as a surprise to me that I was included in their archives with two recorded items, the first one having missed the opening first verse. Since that time I have recorded a number of sessions for them of ballads, songs and stories.
The father of the Ned Robertson mentioned in the same post spent some time in the East Borders with the Galloway poet Thomas Murray collecting ballads and stories during the mid 19th. C., this period being only one generation removed from the rich harvest gleaned in that airt by Sir W. Scott and others.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: GUEST,Julia L
Date: 05 Apr 20 - 01:48 PM

Hi folkd- maybe I missed t in this verey interesting discussion, but I did not see this version that appears in Barry / Eckstorm / Smyth's Bristish Ballads from Maine volume 1

The House Carpenter
Lyrics-Capt. Lewis F. Gott, Bernard ME, 1926
Eckstorm Collection
Tune-Susie Carr Young, Brewer ME 1928
Barry Collection
Transcription © 2019 Julia Lane

Smyth and Eckstorm received a copy of this song written down in 1926 by Capt. Lewis F. Gott of Bernard, ME "as sung by him for many years." These lyrics appear in "British Ballads from Maine, Volume 1". A tune was later noted by Susie Carr Young of Brewer who says it was "traditional in her family". She also included 4 verses

"I might have married a king's daughter fair,
And she would have married me;
But I've just returned from the salt, salt sea
All for the sake of thee,
All for the sake of thee."

"If you could have married a king's daughter,
I am sure you are much to blame;
For I have wed with a house carpenter,
And Johnnie it is his name,
And Johnnie it is his name."

"If you'll go leave your house carpenter,
And go along with me,
I'll take you where the trees grow tall
On the isle of sweet liberty,
On the isle of sweet liberty"

"If I go and leave my house carpenter,
And go along with thee,
What means have you provided for me '
To keep me from slavery,
To keep me from slavery?"

"Oh, don't you see that good light ship
A-standing in to land,
With a hundred and fifty brave young men
Shall be at your command,
Shall be at your command!"

She took her babe upon her knee,
And she gave him kisses three,
Saying, "Stay at home with your father dear,
For to hear him company,
For to hear him company".

They had not sailed more than two weeks,
I am sure it was not three,
When this cruel mother began to weep, _
And to weep most bitterly,
And to weep most bitterly.

"Oh, do you weep for your house carpenter,
Or the dangers of the sea?
Or do you weep for that sweet little babe
That you left when you came with me,
That you left when you came with me."

"I don't weep for my house carpenter,
Nor the dangers of the sea,
But I do weep for the sweet little babe
That I left when I came with thee,
That I left when I came with thee."

They had not sailed more than three weeks,
I am sure it was not four,
When this good ship sprung a leak
And she sank to rise no more
And she sank to rise no more

Come all you mothers far and near,
Take warning now by me,
And never sell your babe for gold,
Lest you sink in the salt, salt sea.
Lest you sink in the salt, salt sea.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 05 Apr 20 - 02:20 PM

I think you're right Julia - that version isn't mentioned. Which is curious because the Carr Young 4-verse fragment which follows it is given above!

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Demon Lover in New England?
From: GUEST,Julia L
Date: 05 Apr 20 - 08:09 PM

It may have been overlooked because it was only printed as lyrics...however, it is variant A (p 304) whereas hers is designated as B (p306)- who knows; anyway, there it is

Just a note that in verse 6 it is meant to be "bear him company", not "hear him company"
best- Julia