Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 18 Dec 15 - 09:29 AM

Thanks, Jon. Will follow that up. Have a good Christmas.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 18 Dec 15 - 03:24 AM

Jon
Thank yourselves for a fine analysis of an important ballad - would that there were more of them widely available.
I always feel slightly uneasy at putting these up without permission, but on this occasion, it seemed to be too good an opportunity to pass off.
Best wishes.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Jon Bartlett
Date: 18 Dec 15 - 01:37 AM

Thanks to Jim Carroll for the reprinting of the first part of our paper. The whole thing is on our website at http://jonandrika.org/wp/articles/lamkin-terror-of-nurseries/. Feel free to print yourselves a copy.

The Niles piece is indeed where Steve says it is, titled 'Lamkin: The Motivation of Horror'.

Jon Bartlett

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 17 Dec 15 - 03:09 PM

By Jon I meant Jon Lighter but I see Jon Bartlett the writer of the article in CFMB posted here in August.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 17 Dec 15 - 03:06 PM

Jim,
Found it. It is the same one as you posted, thanks.
The DeWitt Niles article is in JAFL Vol 90 (1977) pp49-67. Hopefully I can find this somewhere online. If not Jon might have a copy.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 17 Dec 15 - 03:01 PM

Thanks, Jim.
I think I may already have the article. Is it at CFMB 36.1 p34, and/or CFMB 36.3 pp13 and 15? If so I have got it.

All the best,
Steve

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Dec 15 - 02:48 PM

Sorry Steve
My mistake - not CJTM as stated, but Canadian Folk Music Bulletin - I got it as a single document with a set of journals - unfortunately it is not referenced
Offer still stands.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Dec 15 - 01:36 PM

Hi Steve
Will send you the ref later, but I can let you (or anybody) have a scan of the document if you'd rather
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 17 Dec 15 - 01:31 PM

See EBarnacle's posting of the 13th inst. for the most likely motive.
I would certainly agree with what Niles says here and will try to get hold of the full article. (John DeWitt Niles, no relation to John Jacob Niles, I hope). No denying Mrs Brown's great skill, certainly deserving of Child's praise.

Jim, have you got the full ref for the CJTM article, please? I have several copies so I might already have it.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Dec 15 - 12:13 PM

was he just a crap builder?, like the ejit who beat up noel hill

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: GUEST,Anne Neilson
Date: 17 Dec 15 - 08:32 AM

Thanks, Jim -- lots of interesting stuff to go poking after. Probably when the mince pies have ceased to allure…

Have a good Christmas!

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Dec 15 - 07:55 AM

Just stumbled across this interesting piece and thought I'd put it up before interest dissipate among the mince pies and endless roast potatoes.
It comes from a Canadian Journal of Traditional Music of yesteryear.
The text given in the article (which I have omitted along with the footnotes) gives the Christie text as an example
I found it interesting - hope somebody else does
Happy Crimbo all
Jim Carroll

Lamkin, "The Terror of Countless Nurseries"
Jon Bartlett and Rika Ruebsaat
This paper is an attempt to come to terms with a ballad unique in its often motiveless brutality. 1 In an interpretation that speaks to
the undoubted popularity of the ballad by addressing the question of its "meaning", we look to the listeners and to the singers to provide significant clues.
We start by drawing a distinction between "origins" and "meanings". A song might at its composition bear one meaning - it might have been made for some purpose later obscured - and yet continue its life bearing other meanings, having to do with the social context in which it finds itself. Given the varied perspectives of later singers and audiences, it might bear or have borne several
meanings, both synchronically and diachronically.
To distinguish between etiology - the causation of the ballad, and utility - why the ballad is and has been passed on, William of Ockam's warning - pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate - "multiplicity ought not to be posited without necessity" - should ring in our ears. We shall be addressing the question of the multiplicities of meanings, from leprosy to pacts with the devil,
which have been used to explain Lamkin's original meaning.
In this paper, we review other theories as to the etiology and the meaning of the ballad, and argue, predicated on its wide circulation over considerable time, and on its singers and listeners, that it speaks to the issue of abandonment, on the part of both the murdered child and the murdered mother. Further, we suggest a reason for the continued presence (in every variant collected) of the five essential persons: The absent father and the mother, their "dark twins" Lamkin and the false nurse, and the baby.
"Lamkin" appears in Child in twenty-five variants, the earliest dating from a 1775 letter from a Kentish churchman to Bishop Percy, and the latest in Allingham's The Ballad Book of 1892.
Most of the variants are from Scotland, with a very few from Ireland.
"The story is told, " Child notes, "without material variation in all the numerous versions. A mason has built a castle for a nobleman, cannot get his pay, and therefore seeks his revenge. " Child quotes Motherwell as saying "it seems questionable how some Scottish lairds could well afford to get themselves seated in the large castles they once occupied unless they occasionally
treated the mason after the fashion adopted in this ballad. " Child disagrees with Motherwell's notion that the mason's name was Lambert Linkin, and suggests that the name Lambkin "was a sobriquet applied in derision of the meekness with which the builder had submitted to his injury. " He closes his relatively short and somewhat uninterested head note with the fruitful statement that Lambkin's name was a "simply ironical designation for the bloody mason, the terror of countless nurseries". 11
We shall return to this statement later. It is to be noted that fourteen of the sixteen identifiable texts from informants were taken from the singing of women.
Bertrand Bronson111 finds forty-five tunes, which he organizes into thirty-three variants. The earliest is from Virginia in 1914 and the latest from Arkansas in 1941. He also records tunes from Newfoundland (four collected in the 'thirties) and six from England in the period 1896-1911. Given that most of Child's sets derived from Scotland, it is interesting that Bronson only reports two
Scottish tunesiv. Again, be it noted that of the thirty-five tunes, twenty-three are noted as sung by women and eight by men. Coffin and Renwick report a total of forty-five North American texts'.
The ballad was first given serious study by Annie G. Gilchrist in 1932. vi In her "'Lambkin': A Study in Evolution", she posits two forms of the ballad, which she titles "The Wronged Mason" and "The Border Ruffian". She proposes that the first form is Scottish and the second Northumbrian, and that they are distinguished by the presence or absence of the identification of the motive for the
murder he and his accomplice commit.
In the Scottish tradition, she identifies Balwearie Castle as a possible site, but argues that whether or not there was any connection between it and the ballad, it seems to her "probable" that the ballad has an historical foundation. She argues that the Scottish form is "the undoubtedly older and completer form"™, the Northumbrian version differing only in that the murder motive is missing.
There are thus problems for the singer of the latter version in finding other motives for the murders.
She discusses such possible motives as robbery, or the jealousy of Lamkin as a spurned lover of the lady.
Having decided that the Scottish is the real form of the ballad, and that the Northumbrian version is an incomplete version of it, she turns her attention to the villain's name, which she argues is Flemish in origin. She finds that there were "former colonies of Flemings" at Balwearie, Fife, and reports that the "dule-tree" on which Lambkin was hanged "used to be pointed out". She appears to presume that there is only one meaning, the original meaning, to the ballad.
Bertrand Bronson reports much of the above in his head note. He argues that it is "highly probable, on Miss Gilchrist's showing, that... the secondary variety is a north-country offshoot arising from the loss of the first stanza", and that, with this loss, deterioration as once begins to eat into the ballad from this side and that. " He finds (it seems to us) no great distinction, as between the two forms of the ballad, in the tunes associated with the texts. It was not until 1977 that a re-examination of the ballad was attempted, in spite of MacEdward Leach's comment that "this ballad needs detailed study"™' when John DeWitt Niles' "Lamkin: The Motivation of Horror" appeared. "Again searching for original meaning, Niles' very thorough study led him to suppose that no singer in the last two hundred years of its recorded history "might have understood (it) fully. " Niles, like   Gilchrist, assumes here that the "original meaning' is the "true" or "only" meaning.
He begins his analysis by a comparison of the two types identified by Gilchrist, and a close reading of the Jamieson textx, from the lips of the celebrated Mrs. (Anna) Brown". He notes how her version is distinguished from all others in three particulars: the three-stanza dialogue between Lord Wearie and Lambkin over the former's inability to pay the latter what he owes him; the
nurse's urging on of Lamkin in the killing of the lady, with the inflammatory "What better is the heart's blood'o the rich than o the poor?" and the two-stanza ending beginning "O sweetly sang the black-bird/that sat upon the tree". He takes these as examples of Mrs. Brown's skill and ability, and evidence that she "did not hesitate to improve upon the raw materials of oral tradition". ™

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 15 Dec 15 - 06:13 AM

> I am joking. you know, HUMOUR.

Indeed; nevertheless I read it as suggesting that you disliked those particular ballads.

> I judge performance of songs on the actual performance, not on how many times they are sung.

For me it's both, but I don't mind even a mediocre performance if the song is interesting, and I'd rather hear that than a good performance of a song that I've heard too often.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Dec 15 - 01:37 AM

I am joking. you know, HUMOUR. I think long lamkin is alright,although it is not in my repertoire.
I judge performance of songs on the actual performance, not on how many times they are sung.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 14 Dec 15 - 05:52 PM

I take it from that, Dick, that you personally find those two ballads tedious. I might agree, when I hear a particular version for the umpteenth time; but the "folk" from whom the many versions were collected evidently found some value there.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Dec 15 - 05:01 PM

I hope Lamkin is sitting on a marble slab with Lord Randall singing their own songs to one another, a sort of musical tedium, and an unusual take on hell.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 13 Dec 15 - 04:54 PM

Then I hope you have someone close at hand who can take down your useless knowledge before you take your leave of us and I also hope that's a long way off yet.

I also have a massive respect for oral tradition which is probably why I start seething when I smell forgery.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Gutcher
Date: 13 Dec 15 - 04:34 PM

Hello Steve.
As my late wife of fifty plus years was wont to put it my head was full of useless knowledge, she herself having a degree in Maths and Science. She also proclaimed that I was never young, this possibly due to the fact that my formative and after years were spent listening to and absorbing the lore of the elderly country people, this may have given me an undue respect for oral transmission, who knows.

The answer to your question is no---I once tried to write but did not get very far.

Joe

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 13 Dec 15 - 02:26 PM

Hi Joe,
I don't know anyone else with your sort of knowledge, and that includes academics. Have you published anything yet?

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Gutcher
Date: 13 Dec 15 - 02:15 PM

It was ever thus EBarnacle---they do not grudge paying for the luxuries and self-indulgencies of life but man they fare hate paying for the necessaries.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: EBarnacle
Date: 13 Dec 15 - 01:07 PM

As stated in the Churchill thread, it would seem the aristos were more assiduous about paying debts to other members of the gentry than they were about paying their debts the "lower classes."

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Gutcher
Date: 13 Dec 15 - 11:28 AM

Ha Steve, unmasked and defrocked !! {my mother always wanted me to be a minister, not of the type who would wear a frock}.

Reason anent posting as a guest in the other thread--in this thread I stated Anderson had claimed that Auchruglen Castle had been burned by Kennedy of Bargany in the 14th.C. Anderson, working in Edinburgh in the first part of the 19th.C. must have had access to a vast number of historical documents in order to compile his monumental 3v. work, why would he state as a fact something he had not seen in these documents.----I have therefore posted as a guest in the other thread until such times as I can locate the source of his information.

As can be seen from my last post in the other thread even highly qualified academics do not have all the correct information.

Joe.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 09:50 AM

Brian,
As far as I know there is no comprehensive account of the fakery. You would generally have to put together bits and pieces from various writers on various collectors. Scott is reasonably well documented. Motherwell, who is rightly praised for his essay on how it should be done, admits to his own mischief in his younger days in letters to others. Child is still the main source for the Peter Buchan accusations. I have an unpublished paper on him. Any cursory study of his material would not fail to throw up all sorts of wonder at how he got away with it.

The problem nowadays is not that they did it, but to what extent they did it. It's almost impossible to prove it beyond all doubt. You really need to look at the material itself in great depth and compare all versions as Child did to come to any conclusions.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Jim Brown
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 07:35 AM

Next question: if Mrs Brown wasn't the inventor of the unpaid mason motif, was it Herd? Obviously it could have been, but given that the opening stanza first appears in the fragment of the ballad in his manuscript and not just in the fuller text he published in 1776 (much of which I'm sure Child was right to regard as "spurious"), I would be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt and accept that a version in which Lambkin is a mason with a grievance at not being paid was probably already in circulation in Scotland by the 1770s.

That means that Mrs Brown (or Anna Gordon as she would have been then) could well have known it long before she saw Herd's book. (Alexander Fraser Tytler sent her a copy of Herd in April 1800, and her letter to him in December suggests that hadn't been familiar with the book before that -- the letters are on pp. 36 and 49 of Rieuwerts's book). On the other hand it is perhaps a little odd that she didn't produce her version of Lamkin until after she had seen Herd's version -- although I like David Fowler's comment that even if she did use Herd's text in putting together her own, she "managed to turn lead into gold".

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Jim Brown
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 04:59 AM

> This might be the work of Annie Brown...

The problem with this is that the opening stanza about the unpaid mason was published by David Herd in 1776 (see Child 93P). That's about seven years before Mrs Brown's first ballad manuscripts were written, and at least 24 years before she gave Robert Jamieson her version of Lambkin (which isn't in any of her surviving manuscripts).

Sigrid Rieuwerts reproduces a letter from Mrs Brown to Jamieson in September 1800, in which she says: "as to the fragment of Lamekin upon reading over the edition of it that is in herds Collection I find that mine differs from it very materially tho the story must certainly have been the same. If you wish to have my way of it I shall send it." (The Ballad Repertoire of Anna Gordon, Mrs Brown of Falkland, p. 47) So it seems clear that she had read Herd's version before she wrote down her own for Jamieson.

(Whether she actually independently knew another version with a similar opening or created her own version influenced what she found in Herd is, of course, another question.)

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Jon Bartlett
Date: 02 Aug 15 - 12:18 AM

The point I wanted to make was that the earliest set in print (Child's K) comes in 1775 from a Kentish churchman to Bishop Percy. Its first verse is:

My lord said to my lady
When he went from home
Take care of Long Longkin
He lies in the lone.

Only one of the Scottish sources follows this incipit - Child's D, from Maidment and ultimately from a ms. copy from oral tradition. All the other sources Child quotes are English F (from Notes & Queries, Northumberland and Northamptonshire); G (Richardson, from Northumberland)and U (Allingham, from Ireland).

All the other Scottish sets (A (Jamieson, from Mrs. Brown), B Motherwell's Ms from a Kilbarchan recitation; C (Motherwell again, also from a Kilbarchan recitation); E (Kinloch Mss.); H (Kinloch again; I (Skene Mss); J (Kinloch again); N (Robertson); P (Herd Mss.); Q (Finlay's Scottish Ballads); and S (Motherwell) speak of a mason.

It looks like we have two distinct versions of the song. It isn't that the English sets have lost the mason - it's clearly that the Scottish sets ADD the mason. This might be the work of Annie Brown (whose set is the only one with the magnificent

There need nae basin, Lamkin,
lat it run through the floor;
What better is the heart's blood
o the rich than o the poor?)

What indeed?

Jon Bartlett

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 10:16 AM

that was from:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/child/ch093.htm

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 10:15 AM

To get back to the OP:

Richie, here's the beginning of Version 93A


93A.1        IT'S Lamkin was a mason good
        As ever built wi stane;
        He built Lord Wearie's castle,
        But payment got he nane.
93A.2        'O pay me, Lord Wearie,
        come, pay me my fee:'
        'I canna pay you, Lamkin,
        For I maun gang oer the sea.'
93A.3        'O pay me now, Lord Wearie,
        Come, pay me out o hand:'
        'I canna pay you, Lamkin,
        Unless I sell my land.'

No doubt your reference to 'paint' came from somebody's misunderstanding of 'payment.'

Note the lameness of the Lord's excuses: So he maun gang o'er the sea. Doesn't he have a factor who can see to paying Lamkin?

So he has to sell his land? Well, he probably doesn't have to sell all of it, does he? Alas, the excuses and evasions will never end.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Brian Peters
Date: 27 Jul 15 - 07:33 AM

"the only academic criticisms I've seen of Harker's work are Chris Bearman on his treatment of Sharp..."

Well, stuff like Harker's unsubstantiated suggestion that Louie Hooper and Lucy White's mother might have been a broadside seller, turning into a 'fact' just a few pages later, doesn't encourage confidence in the work as a whole. Ironic, since he accused Sharp of making exactly that kind of leap from speculation to certitude.

"The problem with the antiquarians is not so much what they published, as they had to tailor this to sell their books..."

I don't have a copy of Harker to hand (so correct me if I'm wrong), but as far as I can remember he didn't raise suspicions about the texts that people like Scott and Motherwell had in their manuscripts, as opposed to their published material. Is there a comprehensive published account of the extent of the 'fakery' we hear so much about?

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: GUEST,Anne Neilson
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 06:04 PM

I'm with Jim and his disquiet at the theory that singers brought nothing to the material but were merely passive recipients, and I like Jon Bartlett's reminder of another theory that there was such a thing as a 'rationaliser' singer -- which chimes with some interpretations of Anna Brown and her contributions to the ballad canon.

I've been singing ballads since the late 1950s and have always found that a completed back-story (often only in my own mind) was essential for a committed performance. I've been singing 'Lamkin' from around the late 1970s and the text I had was basically the Jamieson one with explicit mention of the mason not being paid but some omissions (mention of the lord sailing away and his warning, the whereabouts of the other servants etc.): but I was most taken by the unexplained hatred of the maid for the mistress, and found that I needed some way of making this real in performance -- so, for me, the lines that clinched it were 'What better is the heart's blood / O' the rich than o' the poor?', which became the pivot of the whole plot even to the point of suggesting to me that the nurse worked on Lamkin and poured her bile into his ear, working him up to do the deed.

I personally can't imagine a ballad singer persuading an audience unless (s)he has a clear notion of what the full story "might" be.

And, of course, there may be as many back stories as there are singers!

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 05:00 PM

I'm with Steve here. As with Lloyd, much discussed on other threads, so with some of those older collectors.

There's nothing at all wrong with anyone making what they consider to be improvements in a song before publishing it or performing it. Very often, though not always, the song really is improved. And anyway, whether the modified version is better or worse will be partly a matter of taste.

What is rightly objected to is that they sometimes told lies about the songs' provenance. "Collected from Mr A B" or "learnt as a child from a nurse" or whatever, when in fact they have significantly changed whatever they initially collected, or indeed in some instances Mr A B never existed at all as far as anyone can tell.

Going back to Lamkin: it seems plausible that the earliest versions gave no motive and that someone added the unpaid mason idea, WITHOUT admitting to doing so, though without telling any explicit lies about it either. We can surmise about whether this happened and if so who did it, but we're unlikely ever to know for sure. And whether the story is better with that motive, some other motive, or no motive is a matter of taste.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Jul 15 - 05:38 AM

"The faking tradition is probably as long and vigorous as the oral tradition."
Hoiow can you fake something is a situation where ethics and standards don't exist?
They published as they saw fit - that is not faking, nor does it carry any burden of the blame that is all too common in these threads, "dishonest", "faker", "counterfeit" et al.
As incomplete as these collections are, they are all we have as links to past traditions and should be treasured as such and not denigrated as they are all too often here.
As for Harker - criticism of him and his hit list was so extreme that he refused to accept speaking appointments at conferences - I was there when he said so.
One of the main problems with understanding the tradition is that we have no significant input from our source singers - they've never been considered as having anything important to say.
Th is has led to the situation where modern researchers and academics can float their own theories, however outlandish.
One of the most disturbing is that singers had no part i the making of the songs, but were passive recipients - as of pop songs (as somebody once said)
That was the point when I decided to stay away from these knocking sessions.
Sorry - can't continue this - off for a few days.
Last minute thought on my part
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 04:07 PM

On the contrary, Jim, the only academic criticisms I've seen of Harker's work are Chris Bearman on his treatment of Sharp and the unnecessary political slant Dave put on the motives of the fakers which spoiled what would have been a very well-researched book.

The problem with the antiquarians is not so much what they published, as they had to tailor this to sell their books, but the fact that most of them later admitted their tampering and imitating being passed off as straight from oral tradition. The problem we have now is caused by them not telling us which ones they tampered with and how heavily. In Peter Buchan's case it is obviously very heavily.

Bert Lloyd isn't that long dead, nor Niles. The faking tradition is probably as long and vigorous as the oral tradition.

Some of us are truth seekers, not romantics, and we're entitled to add in what we know. Not criticising the long-dead is a silly idea.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 11:39 AM

"Joseph Ritson, Frederick Furnivall, William Chappell, Robert Chambers, not many admittedly"
Sorry - missed this Steve
Better start piling the books in the back garden while it's not raining
Why do these threads inevitably end up as knocking sites for the long -dead?
We have Buchan the faker, and Walkwer the ignoramous, and Keith, who's in Walkers pocket.
WE seem to be on;y left with a precious few modern genuises.
Sorry, thought Dave Harker and his hit-list had exited, stage left a long time ago!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 24 Jul 15 - 10:20 AM

Stiffing contractors is a way of life for some people. We just had some iron railings installed by a man who told about customers who were on the phone everyday, demanding that their expensive job be done. Then when the work was done, they blocked his calls.

Me, I would leave the last two pieces off until I got paid.

I know a harper who does a lot of weddings, and she tells the family, "When I get my check, I will start playing."

You'd think that in this day and age, the father of the bride would realize that it's bad, bad karma to cheat the harper at your daughter's wedding.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 23 Jul 15 - 02:59 PM

I wasn't aware of any connection between 'Mrs Brown' and 'Edward', Jon. Where does this come from?

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Jul 15 - 12:15 AM

Annie Brown would be one of the usual suspects, yes. Didn't she also provide the "sic counsels ye gie to me" verse in EDWARD/

Jon Bartlett

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 19 Jul 15 - 08:58 AM

Absolutely, Richie.
We have to take into account that some of these antiquarians were pioneers in the field and they had nowhere near as much information to hand as we have.

Without naming any names even modern day professors can get somewhat carried away with their theories.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Richie
Date: 19 Jul 15 - 08:21 AM

Steve, Jim-

You can be honest and with scanty evidence reach erroneous conclusions. Chappell, for one, seemed incline to do this.

Richie

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Richie
Date: 19 Jul 15 - 08:17 AM

Jon-

I assume you are referring to Anna Brown, informant of Child A.

Richie

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Joe_F
Date: 18 Jul 15 - 06:30 PM

"Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal." -- Robert A. Heinlein

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Jul 15 - 03:02 PM

As I recall, the earliest version in print was in the 1780s in Kent - with no mention of the non-payment. My suspicion (see my article above) is that the payment question was added by a type of singer that Eleanor Long,the ballad scholar, called a "rationalizer". Here is a horrible bunch of murders - we need to know why. Because....

There are lots of examples in today's political world of people constructing what might be rational reasons for seemingly irrational acts.

Jon Bartlett

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Gutcher
Date: 18 Jul 15 - 07:54 AM

hello Steve.
As a self taught user of this machine I am not able to bring up the thread which gives the various readings of B.A. having posted as a guest on that thread, I would now need to refresh my memory on the subject.
I am just about to set of to visit a sister in that area and this brought to my mind that a native of the area who broadcasts on historical subjects of a later period [18th. C. plus] may be able to help with the dating question for the 14th. C.. I will email him to see if he can point me to a source where the information can be accessed.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 17 Jul 15 - 03:20 PM

>>>>>>>On the whole I would say that Lambkin would be the least likely of the three to give the experts cause to revisit it to pin down a locale.

Joe
I certainly agree with this.

Which Ayrshire version of BA are we looking at?

Could you please have a look at my posting 14th July 1.18 pm?

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 17 Jul 15 - 02:53 PM

Jim,
Joseph Ritson, Frederick Furnivall, William Chappell, Robert Chambers, not many admittedly. Dishonesty seems to have been the norm. Pretty much like today really (speaking generally, not necessarily re antiquarians)

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Jul 15 - 01:56 PM

There are parallels with the story of the Pied Peper - pay up for services you've purchased, or something pretty nasty might happen to the people you love.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Jul 15 - 01:52 PM

Why should there be any question of honesty or dishonesty in how people remember deatils like that, even when thir memory is affected by stuff they've heard or read or been told?

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Jul 15 - 01:37 AM

"fickle particularly after the antiquarians have been at them."
Was there nobody hoest or reliable back then?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Rumncoke
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 07:02 PM

Grandma used to call mice mousikins - I still do at home. She made bootikins for babies and coddled eggs in a set of pottikins.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Gutcher
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 06:50 PM

Steve.
In the ballad of Barbara Allan, Ayrshire version, do you or others not find traces of an older ballad? I have pointed out local features in previous posts which would fit a version for this area

Captain Carr, it must be now accepted, is localized for the same area and if a 14th.C. date can be established for the burning of Lady Loudon and her nine children this would pre-date the burning of the house of Towie in 1571 by Edom o Gordon or Captain Carr
This does not of course mean that the Ayrshire ballad was composed before Edom o Gordon but having the name Captain Carr included in the latter must surely give the ballad experts food for thought.

Lambkin--when did the name die out in the Loudon area, it certainly would not have died out with the principle land owner when the lands passed to an heiress if other families are any guide.
The first castle of Loudon, so called, given the status of the owners, would be considered the prime castle in the area.

On the whole I would say that Lambkin would be the least likely of the three to give the experts cause to revisit it to pin down a locale.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 16 Jul 15 - 11:20 AM

Villikin: Little Willie
There are also many that have gone out of general usage that survive in surnames like Wilkinson, Tomkinson, Parkinson (Perkin), Jenkinson, Hodgkinson, Dickinson.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: michaelr
Date: 15 Jul 15 - 10:50 PM

Mannequin - a little man?

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Lighter
Date: 15 Jul 15 - 09:14 PM

Occasionally in English too.

Mannikin, pannikin, little Peterkin.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: michaelr
Date: 15 Jul 15 - 06:33 PM

The use of -kin as a diminutive suffix makes sense; in German it's -chen, in Dutch -ken (Heineken = little Henry).

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Jul 15 - 05:16 PM

Hi Joe,
Whilst I appreciate your valuable research, I would need a lot more concrete evidence to tie any of these ballads (excepting Captain Carr) to your local area.

Regarding Lamkin I am personally quite happy with the Flemish connections suggested here and any attempt to attach it to an actual event would be very tenuous.

Personal names and placenames in ballads can be notoriously fickle particularly after the antiquarians have been at them.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Gutcher
Date: 15 Jul 15 - 04:32 PM

Sorry---having read Jacks comment I have taken a look at my copy of the ballad and the name is indeed Rankin, a name well known in the area forming the subject of my posts.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Gutcher
Date: 15 Jul 15 - 04:13 PM

The Lambkins aka Loudons, Crawfords and Campbells all resided in Auchruglan Castle before that edifice was reduced to a ruin in the 14th. C.. The reason for the feud between the Kennedys and the Loudons [so called by title and not by family name] was that the latter both Crawfords and Campbells were Sheriffs of Ayr, now Ayrshire, Shire being derived from Sheriff, an honour that the Kennedys, as one of the oldest indigenous families in what became Ayrshire claimed should be theirs.

The Campbell, Sheriff of Ayr and Earl of Loudon, highest dignitary in the County/Shire understandably abandoned the site at Auchruglen and built what was the first Castle of Loudon on the opposite side of the river Irvine. This would no doubt be the finest Castle in those parts and dare I say it would be counted the Prime castle of any in those parts.
If anyone can produce a better explanation for the name let's have it.
As regards the grave of Lambkin, my copy of the ballad states he was wrapped in lead and melted as was a Lord Soulis in the borders.

Finding a date for the burning of Auchruglen Castle in the 14th. C. is proving to be a bit of a strain on my eyesight as some of the tomes being consulted have rather small print.

There are no Lambkins in the local telephone directory, plenty of Lambs with a not inconsiderable no. of Norman French Agnews.

Honest labour to obtain a living is no disgrace, even for one having aristocratic connections and indeed one of our Scots Earls had a glovers business in Edinburgh and after making and supplying his peers with the gloves which were part of the dress code at the time he would appear with them and cast his vote as a Peer of the Realm.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 Jul 15 - 03:59 PM

I have a 19th century copy of the ballad somewhere which names him as Rankin.

His namesake could probably get a book out of it. A council construction corruption scandal in Edinburgh led to a couple of guys getting jailed about a month ago. And we get as many child murders as anywhere. Rebus is always finding things like that are connected.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Jul 15 - 03:35 PM

Richie,
In the borders 'castles' can vary in size from a simple pele tower of about 3 storeys (which is probably what is being described here) to the enormous Bamburgh Castle built on a coastal promontory.

Whilst a pele tower was easy to defend against marauders in a hurry the most effective way to attack the occupants was to pile up combustibles around the smaller bottom storey and simply cook the occupants if the smoke didn't choke them first.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Richie
Date: 14 Jul 15 - 04:32 PM

Jon Bartlett- I did read your article, in fact it's on my sire :), along with a dozen others :) I liked the psychological insights from that article I've surmised three main emotional forces:

1) The lord's abandonment of his lady, her abandoning her baby 2) his guilt for not paying the mason, his guilt as leaving her unprotected; her guilt about leaving her baby unprotected and 3) his fear of retribution, her fear of death; the fear generated by Lamkin and the nurse.

I recommend you read Adam Ganz's article 'Leaping broken narration': Ballads, Oral Storytelling and the Cinema. Do you agree with these three or are there more?

Jim Brown- Does this mean you are writing an article about colors? :)

Gutcher- Only you could find Lambkins grave. And where was that again?
Turn right at Prime Castle, . . .

* * *

Anyone who would build a whole castle without getting paid anything deserves to die!!

Richie

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 14 Jul 15 - 03:59 PM

It's common even - especially- nowadays to get work done or goods supplied without any intention of paying for it. Simple. Set up a limited company, get what you want on credit, go bankrupt, buy the assets off the receiver for a song, recycle indefinitely. It's happened to me, to the tune of 40000 pounds at the time when that would have bought a moderate house. More fool me, and it never even occurred to me to bleed his children to death.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 14 Jul 15 - 01:18 PM

>>>>>>in the very heart of the area where BURNS produced some of his finest works there was, some 300 plus years prior to his time, an unknown MAKAR producing works of enduring interest.

Hi, Joe.
Could you please put a little meat on the bones of this statement?

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 14 Jul 15 - 05:51 AM

Because he worked for the BBC

RtS

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Gutcher
Date: 14 Jul 15 - 05:09 AM

As Steve says we may never know but it is an interesting speculation to make that in the very heart of the area where BURNS produced some of his finest works there was, some 300 plus years prior to his time, an unknown MAKAR producing works of enduring interest.

Anent the Flemings, this very area became known worldwide for its woven products and the last lace-weaving firm in the country was still producing what are now top of the range luxury items.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Jim Brown
Date: 14 Jul 15 - 03:57 AM

> the reader may be referred to Flemish Influence in Britain (1930) by J. Arnold Fleming

I wonder what attracted him to his subject...

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jul 15 - 01:22 AM

I invite Mudcatters to read the paper Rika and I did a few years back for other theories, etc. It's http://jonandrika.org/articles/lamkin-terror-of-nurseries/

Jon Bartlett

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Richie
Date: 13 Jul 15 - 06:06 PM

Here's another excerpt: The Name "Lamkin" by Albert B. Friedman
The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 90, No. 358 (Oct. - Dec., 1977), pp. 465-466

Now that Niles has raised the issue as to the Flemishness of Lamkin, in fairness to the Gilchrist hypothesis, I should do so. As she failed to realize, the Flemish quality of the name is much more in the -kin than in the Lam-, the connection with St. Lambert. For though Niles finds only one Lambert, we do find in the versions, beside the obvious variants like Lankin, Lambert Linkin and Lampkin, such names as Bold Dunkins where the -kin is determinative.[2] Wileken appears to have been a derisive nickname for a Fleming in a versicle of "black" propaganda against the Flemings reported by the chronicler Matthew Paris about 1250.[3] Ewen observes that -kyn is a common suffix in the personal and surnames of wool mongers from Flanders. Names of this kind in the index to the Hundred Roll "preponderate in the South and East, being those counties most convenient for trading and communication with the Low Countries." The use of-kyn as a diminutive suffix in native English personal names, Ewen believes, was probably imported from Holland and Flanders in the twelfth century, although it had occurred sporadically in personal names even in "pre-Conquest days."[4] Bardsley likewise attributes the increasing commonness of this diminutive in personal names from the twelfth to fourteenth centuries to "incomers from Brabant and Flanders."[5] Thus any likely name in -kin connoted a person of Flemish origin and was therefore an appropriate nickname in a ballad or satire villifying a Fleming.

Certainly names in -kin were employed in this way in the sixteenth century. A satire against the Flemish knights who attended Anne of Cleves on her journey to London has a chorus which begins, "Hoyda, hoyda, jolly Rutterkin!,"[6] a taunt echoed in Skelton's Magnificence.[7] In his "Why Come Ye Not to Court?" he labels the Flemish "Flanderkyns" (1. 922). The clown Frisco in William Haughton's Englishmen for My Money (1598) says that the best way to speak perfect Dutch (Flemish and Dutch are synonymous for the Elizabethans) is to get one's mouth full of food first and then "brumble it forth full-mouth, as 'Haunce Butterkin slowpin frokin' " (I, i). There are also characteristic -kin words in Lacy's Flemish drinking song in Dekker's Shoemaker's Holiday (II, iii).

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: meself
Date: 13 Jul 15 - 03:27 PM

I wonder if that Irish melodeon player would have a theory?

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Joe_F
Date: 13 Jul 15 - 01:56 PM

I gather that the nobility in those days were rather lax about paying debts (other than gambling debts). In a situation like the one described, it was obviously impossible to sue. There was nothing for it but to kill the man's wife & child.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Gutcher
Date: 13 Jul 15 - 01:20 PM

The original name of the Loudon's' of that Ilk was Lambkin. The last male representative of the Loudon's was yeclept Lambkin Loudon whose heiress was married to a Crawford in 1200, another authority states 1212. When surnames came into general use in Scotland at the end of the 11th. C. many land owners assumed the name of their lands, Loudon Hill being a volcanic plug which is visible for a great distance in Ayrshire, Ailsa Craig in the Firth of Clyde being another.

In another thread on this forum I pointed out that there was a local Ayrshire connection to the ballad 'Barbara Allan', could the Ayrshire connection have a much older folk memory attached to it.

In one version of the ballad 'Captain Carr' we have a definite placing of the ballad in the same area with Anderson stating that the home of the Loudon family, by that time by marriage Campbell, Auchruglen Castle, was burned by the Kennedy's of Bargainy in the 14th. C. resulting, as the ballad tells us, in the death of Lady Loudon and her nine children.

All conjecture on my part of course but does it not give food for thought that Skerrington could be Scarlet Town and London a misreading or mishearing for Loudon, this, with the addition of Auchruglen Castle and Lambkin to an area of some five miles radius is surely more than a coincidence.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Jul 15 - 01:12 PM

Thank you Richie.

Gillie, I would also like to see/hear Bill Caddick's version.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Richie
Date: 13 Jul 15 - 12:44 PM

Can you post it?

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: GUEST,Gilly
Date: 13 Jul 15 - 11:12 AM

Anyone heard Bill Caddick's version which tells the story from Lankin's p.o.v. ?

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Richie
Date: 13 Jul 15 - 11:06 AM

Hi,

In 1827 Motherwell suggested the murderous mason's name is Lambert Linkin in his Minstrelsy Ancient and Modern:

To some, the present set of the ballad may be valuable, as handing down both name and nickname of the revengeful builder of Prime Castle; for there can be little doubt that the epithet Linkin, Mr. Lambert acquired from the secrecy and address with which he insinuated himself into that notable strength. Indeed all the names of Lammerlinkin, Lnmmikin, Lamkin, Lankin, Linkin, Belinkin, can easily be traced out as abbreviations of Lambert Linkin. In the present set of the ballad, Lambert Linkin and Belinkin are used indifferently, as the measure of the verse may require; in the other recited copy, to which reference has been made, it is Lammerlinkin, and Lamkin; and the nobleman for whom he " built a house," is stated to be "Lord Arum." No allusion, however, is made here to the name of the owner of Prime Castle. Antiquaries, peradventure, may find it as difficult to settle the precise locality of this fortalice, as they have found it to fix the topography of Troy.
-------------

Here are notes from Lambkin: A Study in Evolution by Anne G. Gilchrist; Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Dec., 1932), pp. 1-17

The above version was noted by Miss Minnie Kininmonth of Kinghorn (Fife), who had heard it "ranted" among the farm folk at Balwearie, where she spent much of her childhood. It first appeared in an MS. magazine "Pipers' News" in I9II, and was sent to the Rymour Club by Mrs. Jessie P. Findlay, one of the editors of the MS. magazine, which circulated in Kirkcaldy. Mrs. Findlay said that Lord Wearie was supposed to be one of the Balwearies of that ilk whose heiress carried the lands by marriage into the Scott family temp. Alexander III (1249- 1286) of Scotland. But as some doubt has been thrown upon the authenticity of this record (in Douglas's Baronetage), it would be idle to speculate whether the murder of an infant heir of the Wearie family in medizeval times might have created his sister an heiress. What is actually known of Balwearie Castle is that, as Mr. W. Mackay Mackenzie (author of The Medieval Castle in Scotland) informs me, it is a fifteenth-century tower, a license for its erection being issued to William Scott of Balwearie in February 1464. (The 'bal' of the name denotes a farmstead.) Whether any real connection with Balwearie existed or not, it seems probable that the ballad had a historical foundation; as far as I am aware it has no European counterpart.

Taking first the Scottish tradition, there is no need to suppose with Prof. Child that the name Lambkin was bestowed ironically. Lambkin (dim. of Lambert) is a Flemish name, constant, though sometimes in a corrupt form, such as Longkin or Dunkins or Rankin, in all of the many versions-about forty-of the ballad which I have seen. Bardsley in his English Surnames says: "Lambert received a large accession in England through the Flemings, who thus preserved a memorial of the patron of Liege, St. Lambert, who was martyred early in the eighth century. Succumbing to the fashion so prevalent among the Flemings, it is generally found as Lambkin, such entries as Lambekyn fil. Eli or Lambekin Taborer being common."
* * *
Lambert and Lambkin, Lampson and Lampkin survive as English surnames to the present day. Assuming a real event to have been the basis of this tragic and circumstantial story, the "mason guid" might well have been a Flemish craftsman. The Flemings were highly skilled workers, as is patent from the fact that Gresham imported Flemish masons and joiners, under the management of their master Hendryk, to build the Royal Exchange in 1566. Flemish as well as French influence may be seen in the old castles and churches of Fifeshire built or re-built in the sixteenth century. Along the east coast of Scotland were colonies of Flemings in the middle ages, there being a close connection between Scotch-grown wool and Flemish wool-merchants and weavers. "In many old and elaborate descriptions of architecture in England constant reference is made to the Flemings." James IV of Scotland employed Flemish craftsmen to plaster the walls and ceilings of his royal castles-gaunt and comfortless as they were for the reception of his "English rose," Margaret Tudor. Without elaborating the point further, the reader may be referred to Flemish Influence in Britain (1930) by J. Arnold Fleming. Though one cannot prove that Lambkin was a Flemish master-mason, this seems, assuming an historic foundation for the ballad, to be a reasonable possibility. And another is that he was neither called Lambkin because he was like or unlike a lamb but because it was his name. A third point is that if he was a "furriner," it would then as now be considered less of a crime to cheat him.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Gutcher
Date: 13 Jul 15 - 09:34 AM

How common would the name Lambkin, in its various spellings, have been in Britain up to say the end of the 14th. C. and what would have been the geographical distribution?

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Richie
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 11:54 PM

Correction: No other version has established, so completely, Lamkin's motive for the brutal killings.

As for Lord Wearie snd his wife, Prime Castle in Balwearie,
and Lambert Linkin who was hung near Doune, I'm afraid we're no closer to figuring out the principles of this murder (and if it really took place) than Motherwell in 1827.

Maybe we should ask Charlie Manson? Wasn't he a ballad writer?

Richie

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Richie
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 11:40 PM

Hi,

Mrry- The informant sang "paint" instead of "payment" so that's the mondegreen. The rest is just standard but I will post later. I just thought it was funny.

Phil- that's the reason Anna Brown gave in Child A:

1 IT'S Lamkin was a mason good
As ever built wi stane;
He built Lord Wearie's castle,
But payment got he nane.

2 'O pay me, Lord Wearie,
come, pay me my fee:'
'I canna pay you, Lamkin,
For I maun gang oer the sea.'

3 'O pay me now, Lord Wearie,
Come, pay me out o hand:'
'I canna pay you, Lamkin,
Unless I sell my land.'

4 'O gin ye winna pay me,
I here sall mak a vow,
Before that ye come hame again,
ye sall hae cause to rue.'

No other version has established Lamkin's motive for the brutal killings. however I believe she may have created the beginning to satisfy her need to a motive. In Adam Ganz's article 'Leaping broken narration': Ballads, Oral Storytelling and the Cinema, he analyzes the ballad narrative of Child A in a section entitled, Storytelling techniques in ballads- it can be read online!!!

Richie

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 07:33 PM

It could be the lord was "land rich" and didn't have the money he'd promised. I have heard of a lot of contract workers who have to jump through hoops to get paid from employers that have money.   I might be off base but, it's a thought.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 07:16 PM

But what about the paint? Is the rest based on a mondegreen?

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Richie
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 03:28 PM

Hi,

Guest, I agree that Lampkin is entirely overblown- and that nothing more could possibly be written about it.

Maybe their payment dispute was because Lampkin, in fact, was the former lover of the lord's wife:

"Ward Lampkin had been in love with the Landlady, before her marriage to the Lord, and had always sworn to get his revenge." [Davis B]

Or perhaps it was because he was the nurse's lover and the lord was tired of him hanging around flicking cigarettes in the moat :)

Richie

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 02:50 PM

Another rude "GUEST" comes along, not only failing to sign his/her name but also failing to engage brain and appreciate the point of Richie's posting. Should we spell it out for him/her? Nah, let's not bother.

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 02:41 PM

Yawn, yawn, bloody yawn...

Are you entirely unaware of how many times this has been debated?

You are masively far from from being remotely original..

Subject: RE: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 02:13 PM

Bol'Akins was a very fine mason as ever laid stone
He built a fine castle, but pay he got none

Hmmm

Did the paintless guy kill anyone over it?

Subject: Origins: Why didn't Lamkin get paid?
From: Richie
Date: 12 Jul 15 - 02:05 PM

Hi,

Why didn't Lamkin get paid? It may have been more than his name (see Child's comments) or the lord's paucity of funds. One reason may be found in Sharp E from Kentucky in 1917:

1. There was a wealthy merchant,
In London he dwelled;
He built a fine castle,
And paint he had none.

He forgot to paint the castle :)

Richie