Introduced by Margaret Nelson

Back in the early 60’s, my oldest sister, Patricia Nelson, was a student at Hanover College in Indiana. She was taken on a class field trip to Berea College, and came back with an LP of the Berea College Choir that included a solo a capella rendition of a Kentucky version of “Earl o’ Bran” (Child #7), the first traditional ballad I’d ever heard. I’d sung in church choirs, junior and senior. I’d also spent a lot of time as a youngster reading all the folk tales and fairy tales I could get my hands on, a pretty wide selection since the Racine Library never bought into the notion that fantasy was bad for kids. When I found out there were rich old stories that had TUNES to them, I was permanently hooked.

According to Child, Earl o’ Bran has many versions and antecedents all over Scandinavia, including Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland; and in Germany as well. In some of them, the hero steals the lady without waking her family, but some person of ill-will sees them, accepts a bribe to say nothing, and then hurries straight to the girl’s family. As I understand this shaved-down Kentucky version, the guy and the girl could have been a long way down the road before anyone noticed she was gone, but our hero is so proud of himself as a fighting man that he blows his hunting horn, his “bugle horn,” deliberately waking up and challenging her father and all seven of her brothers. (The first six notes of the tune are definitely a horn call.)

The bit that makes the folklorists salivate is in many of the versions, including this one. Lord William doesn’t get hurt until Lady Margaret calls his name out loud, breaking (so they say) his battle magic. I think it more likely that her cry breaks his berserker’s concentration, and one of her severely wounded brothers manages to cut him.

Listen to a soloist from the Berea College Choir sing Earl o’ Bran:

Score for Earl o' Bran
Click on the image for a downloadable PDF

Lyrics (as Margaret sings the song):

Wake ye up, wake ye up, ye seven sleepers
And do take warning of me
Take care, take care of your elder sister dear
For the younger is going with me

He put her on a milk-white steed
He rode a dapple grey
With the bugle horn around his neck
So lightly they rode away

As they rode out three miles from town
Lord William, he turned all around
He spied her father and seven brothers all
Come a-galloping over the ground

Keep still, keep still, Lady Margaret he cried
And hold my steed in your hand
While I do fight with your seven brothers all
In yon green meadow they stand

Fair Margaret spoke not any word
Nor made she any sound
Until she saw her own father’s head
Come a-tumbling down to the ground

Oh, hold your hand, Lord William, she cried
For that stroke it was wondrous sore
True lovers I could get me many a one
But a father can never get more

Take your choice, take your choice, Lady Margaret he cried
Stay here, or go and be my bride
I’ll go, I’ll go, Lord William, she said
For you’ve left me no other guide

He’s put her on the milk white steed
He rode the dapple grey
With the bugle horn around his neck
And so they went bleeding away

They rode till they came to his own mother’s gate
He’s tingled all on the ring
It’s O, dear Mother, asleep or awake
Arise and let me come in

It’s O, dear Mother, bind my head
For me you will bind no more
It’s O, dear Sister, make my bed
For I am wounded sore.

Lord William he died all about midnight
Fair Margaret, long before day
Now all sweet lovers that love each other true
May God send them more luck than they

Margaret Nelson learned her first traditional ballad in the early 1960’s. In 1982, she joined musical forces with guitarist and singer Phil Cooper. As a duo, as a trio with singer Kate Early, and as members of two successive Christmas bands, Cooper & Nelson toured, performed, and spent a lot of time recording mostly traditional songs and tunes. They released 24 recordings in 28 years, including cassettes, an LP, and CDs. (Many of the CDs are still available for sale.) In November and December, Margaret still tours with Kate Early, Phil Cooper and Susan Urban as the Bittersweet Christmas Band. In the summer, she is a regular performer at the Evanston Farmers Market, playing bouncy traditional music on her Autoharp so kids and adults can shake and bang along on home made rhythm instruments. She also performs at Memorial Day and Veterans Day gatherings sponsored by Veterans for Peace, and recently has been asked to lead songs at larger Chicago-area rallies for peace, social justice, and environmental sanity. Margaret describes her current condition as “Still vertical, still musical, and INCREASINGLY POLITICAL.” Visit margaretjnelson.com for videos of Margaret in performance.

Margaret served as Board President of the Folk Alliance-Region Midwest (FARM) from 1999-2002. She was booker, host and sound babe for the Sunday Evening Folk concert series, Evanston, Illinois, 2003-2005. She is the recipient of the Folk Alliance Region Midwest Lifetime Service Award, 2006.

Introduced by Gwilym Davies

Mercifully, the days when you could be hanged for poaching are long gone but there must have been times when the scenario of “Georgie” was very real to many. Theories abound as to the historical truth of the events of the song, but none is convincing. The ballad “George Stoole” from the 17th Century sets much the same scene and even shares some verses with more modern versions. The ballad in something approaching its present form has been noted from the 18th century onwards. This version is from Hampshire, England, and was collected by Alice Gillington from an unnamed traveler.

Here’s Gwilym Davies singing the song:

Score Georgie Single Line
Click here for a downloadable PDF

Lyrics:

O, have you heard of a good little boy?
A good little boy as any?
Who will run five miles in one half an hour,
For to carry a letter to my Georgie,
For to carry a letter to my Georgie?

My Georgie has not robbed house, nor land,
Nor church, nor murdered any!
He have only killed six of the King’s fallow deer,
And sold them in Goenni.
And sold them in Goenni.

And when she reached to the King’s fair court,
There were lords and squires many,
Down on her bended knees she fell,
“O spare me the life of my Georgie!
O spare me the life of my Georgie!”

The up and spake the good lord Judge,
Saying, “Madam, you bide easy
For your own confession have hanged him now,
So I pity you, fair lady!
I pity you, fair lady!”

My Georgie shall be hung in a chain of gold
If he is hung in any!
Because he was of royal, royal blood,
And he courted a virgin lady!
And he courted a virgin lady!

I wish I was on Shooter’s Hill,
Where kisses I’ve had many,
With my broad sword and pistol to
I would fight for the life of my Georgie!
I would fight for the life of my Georgie!

Despite his Welsh name and ancestry, Gwilym Davies is a Hampshire man who has been resident in Gloucestershire since the 1970s. He is an experienced singer of traditional songs and, when not singing unaccompanied, accompanies himself on melodeon, concertina, banjo or guitar. For more than 40 years, Gwilym has been tracking down and recording traditional singers, and more that half his repertoire is based on songs from those singers. He sings a large number of songs from the English traveller community which he has learnt first hand. Most of his English songs come from the south and southwest of England, and he also sings a number of songs from his collecting trips to the USA.

Introduced by Denise and Stuart Savage

This song was collected in November 1899 by W. Percy Merrick, and can be found in the Journal of the Folk Song Society Vol.1 – No.3, 1901. Widely collected in Southern England, see the version in the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, attributed to Henry Hills, a farmer from West Sussex who lived in Lodsworth, a village just 3 miles from Petworth, where Stuart was born. We have been singing this simple but lovely song for over 40 years, and still love it.

Listen to Denise and Stuart singing the song:

A Sailors Life
Click here for a downloadable PDF

Lyrics:

A sailor’s life is a merry life,
They rob young girls of their heart’s delight
Leaving them behind to sigh and mourn
They never know when they will return.

Here’s four-and-twenty all in a row,
My sweetheart cuts the brightest show.
He’s proper tall, genteel withal
If I don’t have him, I’ll have none at all.

O, father, fetch me a little boat
That I might on the ocean float,
And every Queen’s ship that we pass by
We’ll make enquire for my sailor boy.

We had not sailed long upon the deep,
Before a queen’s ship we chanced to meet.
You sailors all come tell me true,
Does my sweet William sail among your crew?

“O no, fair lady, he is not here,
For he is drowned, we greatly fear.
On yon green island as we passed by,
There we lost sight of your sailor boy.”

She wrung her hands, and she tore her hair,
Much like a woman in great despair.
Her little boat ‘gainst a rock did run.
“How can I live, now my William’s gone?”

She wrung her hands, and she tore her hair,
Much like a woman in great despair.
She threw her body into the deep.
In William’s arms to lay fast asleep.

November 1899 – W.P.M.

Denise and Stuart Savage became involved in the folk music revival in the 60s while living in West Sussex, England, and have performed in various group combinations, now as a duo. They visited the USA in 2002 and again in 2004 when we were lucky enough to perform in a number of house concerts from Washington, DC, to Vermont.

Introduced by Pete Coe

I went to Ireland in 66, new to all this traditional folk stuff. I ended up in Tralee Co Cork, met up with some chaps who persuaded me to join their folk group for the Tralee Folk Group Competition where they’d planned to sing The Mingulay Boat Song. But they didn’t know the words. I did, hence the invite. We came in 3rd, it would have helped us if the winners weren’t called Finbar, Eddie, Paul & Ted Furey! One of the lads had some interesting songs including Banks of Red Roses which he said he’d learned from his next door neighbour in Belfast. So I learned it from him & it turned out that his neighbour was Sarah Makem. Chris Coe and I recorded the song on our first LP Open The Door and Let Us In in 1971. However, I’ve added a couple more verses recently, from Scottish Travellers, which fill out the grim story.

Listen to Pete playing & singing Banks of Red Roses.

Banks of Red Roses
Click here for a downloadable PDF

Lyrics:

Now when I was a young man, I heard me mother say
That Mary was a foolish girl and easily led astray;
That rather than work, she would sooner sport and play
With her Johnny on the banks of red roses

By the banks of red roses, me love and I sat down
And I took out me fiddle, for to play me love a tune
In the middle of the tune, o the bonnie lassie cried,
“O my Johnnie, lovely Johnnie, don’t you leave me!”

He took her to his lodge and he treated her to tea
Saying, “Drink, me dearest Mary, and come along with me.
Won’t you drink me dearest Mary, and come along with me
To the lovely, lovely banks of red roses.”

Well they walked and they talked, ‘til they came to a cave
Where young Johnny all the day had been digging of a grave
Where young Johnny all the day had been digging of a grave
For to lie his lassie low among red roses.

“O Johnny, dearest Johnny, that grave is not for me?”
“O yes, me dearest Mary, it’s a bridal bed for thee.
O yes, me dearest Mary, it’s a bridal bed for thee.
For I’ll leave you lying low among red roses.

And he took out his pen knife, it was both long and sharp,
And he plunged it right in to his own dear Mary’s heart.
He plunged it right in to his own dear Mary’s heart,
And he left her lying low among red roses.

Now as he was going homewards, his heart was full of fear,
For every face along the road, he thought it was his dear
Every face along the road, he thought it was his dear
But he’d left her lying low among red roses.

So all you young maidens, a warning take by me
Beware, o beware of this young man’s company
Beware, o beware of this young man’s company
For he’ll leave you lying low among red roses.

By the banks of red roses, me love and I sat down
And I took out me fiddle, for to play me love a tune
In the middle of the tune, o the bonnie lassie cried,
“O my Johnnie, lovely Johnnie, don’t you leave me!”

Pete Coe in many ways represents the backbone of the modern folk revival. A fine solo performer and an energetic activist for the scene as well, founding Ryburn 3 Step, running folk clubs, dances and workshops in Ripponden and beyond while also teaching music and dancing in schools. He’s still one of the most committed, most versatile, most important folk artists in Britain. —Colin Irwin, MOJO

Introduced by Shelley Posen

The Boy That Wore The Blue, also known as The Soldier’s Letter, is an American Civil War song of unknown origin, Roud #4389. For some reason, it found favour in the logging camps of Eastern Canada and the Northeast U.S. over the next century.

I learned it in 1977 from Loy Gavan in Chapeau, Quebec, a village on Allumette Island in the Upper Ottawa Valley. It’s one of the most poignant and eloquent songs I’ve ever heard. The song’s vague and seemingly random provenance gives some insight into how traditional singing worked in a community, how offhand and precarious it could be, and how lucky we are to have what traditional songs we have.

The Boy That Wore The Blue came to Chapeau in the 1930s via an itinerant man-of-all work named Carl Brian—an “Englishman” (from England? an Anglophone?) who came from Quebec, no one knew exactly where. He cleaned the stables at the village hotel and did farm chores. Always short of money, Brian sang in the hotel bar after work for drinks: “He’d sit and sing that song I betcha four times in the night,” said Loy. “He sang lots of songs, but that was the best—the best song, the best story.” Loy’s older brother Cliff learned it from Brian, and Loy learned it from Cliff.

The Boy That Wore The Blue captivated me the first time I heard Loy sing it, and was the first of many songs I learned from him. It was “Loy’s song” in Chapeau: if I asked someone else to sing it, they’d demure: “That’s Loy’s song”—meaning not his property, but that he sang it best.

My Chapeau recordings and field notes, including everything I had of Loy, are in the Archives of the Canadian Museum of History.

The only time I myself was recorded singing The Boy that Wore the Blue was for Global TV, who came to the Canadian Museum of History to interview me about traditional singing in the Ottawa Valley. I was ill that day, but the show had to go on. The song shines through, I think.

The Boy That Wore The Blue sheet music
Click here for a downloadable PDF

Lyrics:

1. Dear Madam, I’m a soldier boy, my speech is rough and plain,
I am not used to writing and I hate to to cause you pain;
I promised him I would do this, he thought it might be so,
But it comes from one who loved him and perhaps might ease the blow.

2. Now in reading this you will plainly see the woes I cannot hide.
If you listen to a soldier boy, I will tell you how he died.
The night before the battle, we were in a crowded tent.
There was many a brave boy to mourn and many a knee was bent.

3. We left the tent at ten to nine, the soldier boy and I.
As we sat freely talking beneath the clear bright sky,
he seemed to want to talk of home and friends he loved so dear.
While I had none to talk about, but always liked to hear.

4. He told me of the morning that he first went away.
How sadly they did mourn for him they never bid him stay.
He named his sisters one by one until a dark blush came.
He told me of another one but never spoke her name.

5. “Oh Johnny, dearest Johnny, if it’s now that I should fall.
Would you write home and tell them that I loved and spoke of all.
Last night I wanted so to live I seemed so young to go.
And last week past my birthday I was eighteen years you know.

6. The morning of the battle, fast came the shot and shell.
I was standing close beside him and I saw him when he fell.
I raised him in my arms and I laid him on the grass.
It was going against the orders but I guessed they’d let it pass.

7. “Oh, underneath my pillow is a lock of golden hair.
There is a name upon it, send it in my mother’s care.
I promise her I did not think my time would come so soon.”
The fight it was three days ago, he died today at noon.

8. We wrapped him up in a soldier’s cloak. We bore him out at night.
We buried him under a bunch of trees while the moon was shining bright.
We carved him out a headboard as skillful as we could.
And if you want to see the spot, I’ll show you where it stood.

9. I am sending you his hymn book and the cap he used to wear.
And a lock we cut the night before from his dark, curly hair.
I’m sending you his Bible the night before he died.
We turned the leaves together and I read them by his side.

10. I kept the belt he used to wear, he bid me so to do.
There is a hole in the left side, just where the ball went through.
And now I’ve done his bidding and I’m sending all to you.
And sure we will all mourn for him, the boy that wore the blue.

Shelley Posen is a retired folklorist and songwriter living in Ottawa, Canada. Formerly Curator of Canadian Folklife at the Canadian Museum of History, his Ph.D. dissertation was based on research he conducted into singing in the Irish-French Ottawa Valley community of Chapeau, Quebec. Shelley has sung at folk festivals, in clubs and kitchens, and on concert stages in the U.S. and Canada. He was a member of the close harmony folk trio, Finest Kind, who toured North America and the U.K. for two and a half decades and recorded some 7 CDs. Shelley has recorded 4 CDs of his own.

Introduced by Harry Tuft

The origin of this song, “The Bay Of Biscay,” eludes me, even after a search of the internet. It appears that versions have been done by Shirley and Dolly Collins and Tim Hart and Maddy Prior, before the version I heard and have used in my own singing, by Norma Waterson on the album Waterson/Carthy. I imagine it would fall into the category of the ghost return of a dead lover. The melody is appropriately haunting, and Ms. Waterson’s version is impressive. I included it on an album I released in 2011, Treasures Untold, on my own label, Manasses Records.

Listen to Norma Waterson singing “The Bay of Biscay:”

Score for Bay of Biscay
Click here for a downloadable PDF

Lyrics:

My true love sailed on board a tender,
And where he is I do not know
For seven long years I have been waiting
Since he has crossed the Bay of Biscay-oh

One night as Mary lay a-sleeping
A knock came to her bedroom door
Saying arise, arise, my only Mary
It is your true love, I, William-oh.

So, Mary rose, put on her clothing
And swift she opened the bedroom door
And there she spied her true lover standing
His cherry cheeks they were as white as snow

Oh, William dear where are your blushes
Your blushes you got so long ago?
Oh Mary dear the clay has changed them
And I am the ghost of your William-oh.

And Mary dear, the dawn is breaking
The time has come for me to go
And, I must leave you broken hearted
Since I have crossed the Bay of Biscay-oh

Oh, If I had all gold and silver
And all the money in Mexico
I would give it all to the queen of England
For just one kiss from my William-oh.

For, my true love sailed on board a tender,
And where he is I do not know
For seven long years I have been waiting
Since he has crossed the Bay of Biscay-oh

In addition to his own label, Manassas, Harry Tuft has been a recording artist for Folk Legacy Records. His album Across The Blue Mountains, recorded in 1977, is currently back in print. Harry says, “I regard myself as a ballad singer, as it is the ballad story and melody that excite me so often. And I’ve been accumulating songs for over sixty years, even during the years as owner of the Denver Folklore Center.”

(Now Westlin Winds)

by Robert Burns
Introduced by Andrew Calhoun

This was first published in the Kilmarnock edition of Robert Burns’ Poems: Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, in 1786. Burns’ first draft was written ten years before in 1776. Robert was then 17 and its addressee, Peggy Thomson, of Kirkoswald, was 13. Burns indicated that it was to be sung to the tune of a humorous Ayrshire ballad, “I Had A Horse, I Had Nae Mair.”

Here is the first verse of the model:

‘I had a horse, and I had nae mair,
I gat him frae my daddy;
My purse was light, and my heart was fair,
But my wit it was fu’ ready.
And sae I thought me on a time,
Outwittens of my daddy,
To see mysell to a lawland laird,
Wha had a bonny lady.’

Mr. Burns later sent his lyric to The Scots Musical Museum, indicating that it could be set to the tune, “Port Gordon.” Scholars for well over a century have taken this gesture as evidence that Burns was disaffected with his original choice, which has never been published with the lyric; but they are missing something. “I Had a Horse, I Had Nae Mair” (I Had No More) had already been published, with its tune, in the second volume of the Musical Museum, where it is song #185; James Johnson (and Burns) preferred not to repeat melodies, hence his flexibility. The tune to which this is now commonly sung is neither of those to which he assigned it. Robert Burns is unique among major poets of his time in composing to melodies; he played fiddle, and needed to become deeply engaged with a tune before he could write lyrics for it; he was also a major collector of traditional lyrics and tunes. I explain in the linked video why this particular tune is of inseparable artistic importance to this particular lyric.

Burns borrows phrases freely from Alexander Pope’s poem, “Windsor Forest,” from these lines written in 1704:

See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs,
And mounts exulting on triumphant wings…

With slaught’ring guns th’ unwearied fowler roves…
Where doves in flocks the leafless trees o’er-shade,
And lonely woodcocks haunt the wat’ry glade.

Burns’ punctuation is as distinctively expressive as Emily Dickinson’s. An example is “all fading-green and yellow.” With the hyphen, only the green is fading, and the yellow stands out. This can be suggested by the singer, with a pause.

Here’s a version by Sheena Wellington, which showcases some of the birds mentioned.

Westlin Winds Score
Click here for a downloadable PDF

Lyrics:

Note: Some of the words Burns uses may be unfamiliar – they translate as:
Westlin – western
Moorcock – grouse
Cushat – wood pigeon
Fell – level area on mountain
Hern – heron

Now westlin winds, and slaught’ring guns
Bring Autumn’s pleasant weather;
The moorcock springs, on whirring wings,
Amang the blooming heather:
Now waving grain, wide o’er the plain,
Delights the weary Farmer;
The moon shines bright, as I rove at night,
To muse upon my Charmer.

The Partridge loves the fruitful fells;
The Plover loves the mountains;
The Woodcock haunts the lonely dells;
The soaring Hern the fountains:
Through lofty groves, the Cushat roves,
The path o’ man to shun it;
The hazel bush o’erhangs the Thrush,
The spreading thorn the Linnet.

Thus every kind their pleasure find,
The savage and the tender;
Some social join, and leagues combine;
Some solitary wander:
Avaunt, away! the cruel sway,
Tyrannic man’s dominion;
The Sportsman’s joy, the murd’ring cry,
The flutt’ring, gory pinion!

But Peggy dear, the evening ‘s clear,
Thick flies the skimming Swallow;
The sky is blue, the fields in view,
All fading-green and yellow:
Come let us stray our gladsome way,
And view the charms o’ Nature;
The rustling corn, the fruited thorn,
And every happy creature.

We’ll gently walk, and sweetly talk,
While the silent moon shines clearly;
I’ll clasp thy waist, and fondly prest,
Swear how I love thee dearly:
Not vernal show’rs to budding flow’rs,
Not Autumn to the Farmer,
So dear can be, as thou to me,
My fair, my lovely Charmer!

And there, upon a mark of blood,
his brother he has slain.
See the widow tear her hair.
Hear her mournful wail;
Beware the lonely hunter’s fate
that makes her weep and rail.
Feel the lonesome summer’s wind.
Hear its mournful cry.
There’s many a youth whose life was spent,
all on the mountains high.

Andrew Calhoun is a gigging singer-songwriter/folk artist since 1975. He’s founder and president of Waterbug Records, Inc. since 1992. In 2012 he received the Lantern Bearer Award from Folk Alliance Region Midwest; in 2014, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Woodstock Folk Festival. He’s currently (2017) at work on a Robert Burns songbook called Glorious Work, which will have 173 songs with background, translations and musical arrangements.

Introduced by Mark Gilston

This song was “gifted” to me by Ben Mendel from New York City in the late 1970’s. He told me he learned it from Bob Beers and that it was originally from Montana. I have been unable to find any other recorded sources or versions, though my understanding is that the huge evil cervine premonition of death is a legend in the northwestern states and in southwestern Canada. It certainly is a wonderfully eerie song, and I always included it in concerts around Halloween.

Listen to Mark sing the tune:

The Devil Buck sheet music
Click here for a downloadable PDF

Lyrics:

It was a lonely summer’s day. Two brothers, they did go
To labor in the stony field, some harvest for to mow.

All in a row the three did reap: the lonely farmer’s wife,
And last of all the eldest son did wield the mighty knife

They scarce had followed once around, when in the clearing stood
The specter of a devil buck come bounding through the wood.

His eye did burn with evil, and his horn was dark with moss;
And on his mighty whistle side, they saw the bloody cross.

Now the brothers, they did shun the field, and threw away the blade;
And there, betwixt the two of them, a bitter oath was made.

“Oh, I will take the mountains high, and you, the river west;
And ere the sun does set again, we’ll snare him in his nest.”

And, oh, the widow tore her hair all on the farmer’s grave,
For it was this dreadful wicked beast did make her weep and rave.

Now the youngest one he did go west, but took the rise instead.
And there he spied the devil buck a-standing in his bed.

Oh he did waver in his spell, and trembled to the ground;
But with a sick and fevered eye, his bloody mark, he found.

The air was torn with thunder, as he took his dreadful aim.
And there, upon a mark of blood, his brother he has slain.

See the widow tear her hair. Hear her mournful wail;
Beware the lonely hunter’s fate that makes her weep and rail.

Feel the lonesome summer’s wind. Hear its mournful cry.
There’s many a youth whose life was spent, all on the mountains high.

Mark Gilston was born and raised in New York City. Both of his parents were steeped in the folk music revival scene of the 1950’s. He grew up listening to 78’s and LP’s of American, Russian, Spanish, Caribbean and Israeli folk music. Learning guitar and taking piano lessons starting at age 5, he was constantly immersed in music. In his youth, Mark gained a love of traditional American ballads and Old-Time songs and instrumentals from recordings and from his father, who often sang the old ballads which he had learned in his youth in Appalachia.

After earning a Bachelor’s degree in Folklore, Mark went to graduate school at SUNY Binghamton studying ethnomusicology and ended up settling there until 1994.

Mark has been giving concerts and leading workshops since 1971. He interned at the Library of Congress Archive of Folk Song, and has worked as a researcher for Alan Lomax. He has published numerous articles and books on music and folklore. Mark is also a multi-instrumentalist with an international reputation in English concertina and mountain dulcimer. He won the prestigious National Mountain Dulcimer Championship in 2016. Mark has 14 CDs on the Ramble Creek and Creative Engineering labels. “Devil Buck” is on Mark’s debut CD, “It Would Sure Be a Miracle.”

Introduced by Matthew Byrne

Variant of a traditional ballad called “The Lumber Camp Song” found all over northeastern North America. Evidence collected on its background suggests a New Brunswick or Maine origin. This variant was arranged and recorded by Jim Payne & Fergus O’Byrne on their 1995 album Wave Over Wave: Old And New Songs Of Atlantic Canada (SingSong Inc). A very similar variant was collected in 1959 from Martin Deveau of Upper Ferry, NL, by Kenneth Peacock and published as Hurling Down The Pine in Songs Of The Newfoundland Outports, Volume 3, pp.750-751, by the National Museum of Canada (1965) Crown Copyrights Reserved.

Listen to Jim Payne & Fergus O’Byrne sing the tune:

Double Sledder Lad sheet music
Click here for a downloadable PDF

Lyrics:

Come all you jolly fellows, come listen to me song,
It’s all about the lumber boys and how they get along;
A crowd of jolly good fellows as ever you may find,
It’s how they spend their winter months in hurling down the pine.

Chorus:

Snap crack goes me whip, I whistle and I sing,
I jumps up on me double sled so happy as a king;
Me horse is always ready, and I am never sad,
There’s no one here so happy as a double sledder lad.

At four o’clock in the morning the boss he will shout:
“Arise all ye teamsters, it’s time that ye are out!”
Those teamsters they all get up in a frightened way:
“O where are me shoes and pants? Me socks are gone astray!”

The next to get up are the choppers, their socks they cannot find,
They blame it on the teamsters and swear it with all their mind;
Some other man might have them on and him be very near,
We’ll pass it off all as a joke and have a hearty cheer.

Chorus

Six o’clock is breakfast and every man is out,
And every man if he’s not sick, he’s sure to be on the route;
Oh, you should hear those axes ring until the sun goes down,
“Hurry me boys! the day is o’er, a-shanty we are bound.”

We all arrive at the shanty, cold hands and wet feet,
We then pull off our logans, our supper for to eat;
We’ll sing and dance till nine o’clock and to our bunks we’ll climb,
I’m sure those months don’t seem so long in hurling down the pine.

Chorus

The sawyers and choppers they lay the timber low,
The teamsters and the swampers drag them to and fro;
The next to come in are the loaders, all at the break of day:
“Load up your sleds five hundred feet, to the riverside away!”

Springtime will roll around, our boss he will say:
“Heave up your saws and axes, boys, and help to clear the way;
The floating ice it is all gone and business has arrived,
Two hundred able-bodied men are wanted on the drive.”

Chorus

Springtime will roll around, and glad will be the day,
When fellows who left their girls at home will wander back that way;
And now me song is ended and don’t you think it’s true?
And if you doubt one word of it, just ask one of the crew.

Chorus (x2)

Matthew Byrne is a traditional singer from St. John’s, Newfoundland, with a lineage of singing and song-finding that runs deep into Placentia Bay. Since bursting on to the trad scene in 2010 with his debut recording, Ballads, Matthew has swiftly earned his place as one of Canada’s most authentic and vital traditional voices. In that time, Matthew’s music has traveled well beyond the rugged shores of his homeland. His role as singer and song-finder in The Dardanelles has brought him to many major international festival stages. Matthew is currently completing his third full-length solo recording, Horizon Lines, which was released in August 2017. His 2015 release, Hearts & Heroes, won “Traditional Album of the Year” at the 2015 Canadian Folk Music Awards.

Introduced by Lisa Null

The version I sing of “Sweet William’s Ghost” (Child #77) is based on the singing of Mike Kent of Cape Broyle Newfoundland. It was collected as “Lady Margaret” in 1951 by Kenneth Peacock in Songs of the Newfoundland Outports, vol 2. I love the way it deals with the continuance of love and commitment after death. William has to be relieved of the promise he made to marry Margaret who follows him over the hills walking and talking, even asking if she can be buried with him. It’s an old ballad, appearing in Allan Ramsay’s The Tea Table Miscellany (1740) and Thomas Percy’s Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765). Bill Shute accompanies this song on a guitar played like a hammered dulcimer.

Listen to Bill and Lisa sing the song on this YouTube clip:

Sweet Williams Ghost Score
Click here for a downloadable PDF

Lyrics:

Lady Margaret was sitting in her own lone home
Made of lime and stone
Lady Margaret was sitting in her own lone home
When she heard a dead man moan.

“Oh is it my father, Lord Thomas,” she said
“Or is it my brother John?
“Or is it my true love, Sweet William,”
“From Scotland home has come?”

” ‘Tis not your father, Lord Thomas,” he said
“Nor is it you brother John?”
“But it is your true love, Sweet William,
“From Scotland home has come.”

“Did you bring to me any diamonds or pearls?
“Did you bring to me any ring?
“Did you bring to me any token at all
“That a true love ought to bring?”

“I have brought to you no diamonds or pearls
“I’ve brought to you no ring
“But I’ve brought to you my white winding sheet
“That my body was buried in.”

“Oh love where are your red rosy cheeks
“That oft times once did bloom?”
“Oh they now are rotten and they will be forgotten
“By the love I lost so soon.”

He took her by the lily-white hand
And bid him company
He took her by the middle so small
Saying “Follow, follow me.”

She lifted her underskirts one by one
Just about the knee
She went over the hills on a cold winter’s night
In a dead man’s company.

They walked and they talked alone together
Till the cocks began to crow
“O it’s time for the dead and the living to part
“Lady Margaret I must go,”

“Is there any room at your head?” she said
“Is there any room at your feet?”
“Is there any room all about your sides
“Where I might lie down and sleep?”

“My father is at my head,” he said
“My mother is at my feet
“And there’s three hell hounds all about my sides
“Where I would lie down and sleep.”

“One is for my drunkenness
One is for my pride
And one is for promising a fair, pretty maid
That she might be my bride

She took a cross all from her bosom
And smoted him upon the breast
Saying “Here is a token for you, Sweet William,
“God grant you a happy night’s rest.”

“I am grateful to you, Lady Margaret,” he said
“I’m grateful unto you;
“If the dead they are bound to pray for the living
Then I’m bound to pray for you.”

“When will we meet?” Lady Margaret she said
“When will we meet?” said she
“Well I hope the very next time we do meet
“In heaven we both shall be.”

Lisa Null co-founded Green Linnet Records with Pat Sky about 1972. She toured widely in England, Canada, and the United States with guitarist Bill Shute, former lead rock guitarist of “Fifth Estate.” An associate lecturer at Georgetown University, she taught all aspects of music’s relationship to American history. She has three albums available through Folk-Legacy Records: “Sweet William’s Ghost” can be found on her ballad album, “Bill Shute & Lisa Null: The Feathered Maiden.”