a verse in George Dunn's Child #78

Subject: a verse in George Dunn's Child #78
From: Roberto
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 02:25 PM

From COLD BLOWS THE WIND sung by George Dunn (Chainmaker, Musical Traditions MTCD317-8).

In your opinion, what is the note in this verse, a musical note or a letter?

"Go fetch me a note from the dungeon so deep
Fetch water from a stone"

Thanks. R

Subject: RE: a verse in George Dunn's Child #78
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 05:07 PM

Neither of the above, I should think. Although some later broadside texts have 'note', others have 'nut' (this is mentioned in the Chainmaker notes), as do some examples from oral tradition.

These are supposed to be impossible tasks, so 'nut' seems more likely; though it isn't a particularly impressive image even by broadside hack standards. In the discussion at http://www.folkinfo.org/forum/topic.php?topicid=306, someone quoted (in all seriousness) a rather more extravagant mishearing:

'Go fetch me a Nun from the dungeon deep'

Now, there is an image to conjure with.

I don't doubt that George Dunn sang 'note'; whether he had any particular meaning in mind I wouldn't know (he doesn't seem to have commented on that detail; perhaps nobody asked him). On the whole I'd think that's just how his father sang it, and that neither of them worried about it.

Subject: RE: a verse in George Dunn's Child #78
From: Peace
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 05:12 PM

Any chance that it is the Middle English word?

Subject: RE: a verse in George Dunn's Child #78
From: Peace
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 05:19 PM

"2.

A drinking cup made from a coconut; ?also, a cup of similar shape made of other material; ~ de dogeon, cup made of dogeon.


Look at this site (click the three 'notes' definitions). Interesting read whether it helps or not.

And, best of the season to you, Malcolm and Roberto.

Subject: RE: a verse in George Dunn's Child #78
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 30 Dec 06 - 06:51 PM

Interesting, but probably beside the point. We don't have any examples of the ballad prior to the 19th century; though Child pointed to various earlier European analogues and Bronson quotes the opening verse from a 15th century carol which is vaguely similar in a conventional manner (the rest of the song is entirely different). Maybe it has early roots, and maybe it doesn't. We can't base commentary on that vague possibility.

Worth quoting, perhaps, a few lines from Ruth Harvey, 'The Unquiet Grave', in Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, vol IV part 2 1941, 49-66:

"... it seems highly probable that the 'magic task' stanzas which occur in several versions are survivals of the lost troth-plight motif." [here Harvey assumes that the troth-plight redemption in 'Sweet William's Ghost' must necessarily have been present in notional 'earlier' forms of 'The Unquiet Grave'; without actually producing any evidence]. "The fulfilment of these tasks would be the condition upon which the troth would be returned. At least six versions (footnote: versions noted by Ella M Leather in Herefordshire, Charlotte Burne in Shropshire, Alfred Williams from the Upper Thames, one of Cecil Sharp's, and one of Baring-Gould's versions, and that from Gypsy Tents, by F Hindes Groom) contain this stanza, and they agree so closely as to preclude any possibility of casual interpolation from another ballad." [Harvey fails to take account of -or even to mention- the broadside editions from which all these appear to derive.] "The following is a typical form of this stanza:

'Go fetch me a nut from a dungeon keep,
And water from a stone,
And white milk from a maiden's breast
That babe bare never none.'

"The first impossibility usually concerns the fetching of a nut from a dungeon, although Sharp's version has 'Go fetch me water from the desert'. In two versions the 'nut' has been corrupted; in Groome's version to 'note,' and in the song from the Upper Thames to 'naught,' whereby the whole stanza has been turned into a negative, and has become perfectly meaningless. In Baring-Gould's version the word has been altered to 'light'."

Subject: RE: a verse in George Dunn's Child #78
From: Roberto
Date: 31 Dec 06 - 02:06 AM

Who poses the impossible tasks in this ballad, the ghost or his lover? I thinks it is the ghost, that won't give a kiss to his lover not to hasten her end...

(best of the season from me too, to Malcolm, Peace and all the people at the Mudcat). R