Lyr Req: Bluegrass Ritual Sacrifice

Subject: Lyrics Wanted: Bluegrass Ritual Sacrifice
From:
Date: 08 Jul 98 - 11:33 PM

Yeah, I bet you think I'm kidding, too. I heard a bouncy little number that described a boy playing with his ball. It goes into the neighbors back yard. He looks wistfully at the ball, as the neighbor lady comes out and invites him to retrieve it. He knows he's forbidden to go in that yard and refuses. She tempts him with her golden ring with the blood-red stone, saying he can try it on if he'll come. He goes to her front door and she leads him through the house. Instead of the back yard, the door she opens leads into a darkened room where she places a golden mask over his face and cuts his heart out of his chest. As the song ends, the little boy is singing to his parents that he can never come out into the light again. I blew it off at the time since I was fairly new to bluegrass and didn't realize what a DARK and unusual song it was for the genre. Has anyone got the lyrics for this macabre tale?

Subject: RE: Lyrics Wanted: Bluegrass Ritual Sacrifice
From: Barry Finn
Date: 08 Jul 98 - 11:51 PM

Sounds like someone's updating the playing with the ball or rolling of the stones theme, Twa Brothers, murder scenes, seems like these games always leads to no good , Mr Fox. just kids playing innocently, could they be flok 'warning' songs. Keep out of strangers houses, don't climb the hedges into a strange neighbor's yard, watch out from my crazy mother, she'll kill her own kids. You'er right it's more traditional folk than bluegrass, but we all need a good shot of blood once & awhile. Check out ( @murder ) see if you run into any close calls. Barry

Subject: RE: Lyrics Wanted: Bluegrass Ritual Sacrifice
From: Bill in Alabama
Date: 09 Jul 98 - 11:06 AM

What you heard is apparently an updating of a fifteen-hundred-year-old story which exists in western European literature as a miracle of the Virgin, and which exists in the F.J. Child collection as 'Sir Hugh, or The Jew's Daughter' (c.1250). Geoffrey Chaucer included this legend as one of The Canterbury Tales. It does, indeed, refer to the anti-semitic belief that Jews practiced ritual murder of Christian children. In some versions the child's body is thrown into a well; in others, into a jakes (privy) pit. In all versions, Son Hugh aids the folks searching for his body by singing his favorite hymn to the Virgin. I grew up hearing the ballad in its traditional form in the Cumberland Mountains, but I'm surprised to learn that it has been bluegrassed.

Subject: RE: Lyrics Wanted: Bluegrass Ritual Sacrifice
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 09 Jul 98 - 12:12 PM

It's Child Ballad #155. Try a search for #155 in the database; you'll find four variants

Subject: RE: Lyrics Wanted: Bluegrass Ritual Sacrifice
From:
Date: 09 Jul 98 - 09:32 PM

Thanks to all of you for your help! This one has been a bit of an itch, since festival season is here and I want something unique to bring along for those pitch black nights around the campfire. If I hear anyone wake up screaming I'll know I hit my mark. ;)

Subject: RE: Lyrics Wanted: Bluegrass Ritual Sacrifice
From:
Date: 09 Jul 98 - 09:51 PM

Well, unfortunately none of the versions here are anywhere close to the one I heard, but it's a good start. Knowing that it has a traditional basis lets me know it's worthwhile to keep looking.

Subject: RE: Lyrics Wanted: Bluegrass Ritual Sacrifice
From: Nora
Date: 11 Jul 98 - 12:11 AM

Don't know that particular version, but I think there is a similar (but not bluegrass) thing on the Claudia Schmidt /Sally Rogers release 'While We Live.'

Nora