British Ballads in the Cumberland Mountains
By Hubert G. Shearin
The Sewanee Review, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Jul., 1911), pp. 313-327
BRITISH BALLADS IN THE CUMBERLAND MOUNTAINS
For two hundred years and more, the sequestered valleys of eastern Kentucky have by their very isolation preserved the traditions of our colonial forefathers. Like the belated April snows upon their shady slopes, the folk-lore of the British Isles yet lingers here untouched and unchanged. Borne westward on the tide of emigration from England, Scotland, and even from Ireland, to Jamestown and Philadelphia, it has radiated by oral transmission thence through the 'gaps' and 'breaks' of the Alleghany ranges into its present seat, the land of the 'Lonesome Pine' and 'Kingdom Come,' already glorified by the pen of a well known living writer of Cumberland Mountain stories.
My pastime for some years has been to gather the folk-songs of this region: over three hundred are now in the collection. In spite of recent changes, industrial and educational, in the lives of these people, the spirit of balladry is vigorous even yet. Not only are old songs transmitted, but new ones are created. A disaster in forest or mine, a murder or a quarrel, a county political campaign, in short, any unusual incident, is a ready source of inspiration to another 'song-ballet,' which in lieu of newspaper or telegraph becomes a very practical disseminator of local happenings and a real moulder of public opinion. Any social gathering, whether a group around a banjo-picker by the stove in a cross-roads store, or a 'frolicking' among the young folks at their games and dances, is sure to call forth songs that thrill the lover of these native lyrics. To the thrum of banjo or 'dulcimore' they are sung; or maybe it is fiddle or accordion or mouth-harp; even in these latter degenerate days one finds an occasional cabinet organ from the metropolitan mail-order emporium.
The 'dulcimore,' better known to dictionary folk as dulcimer, is an instrument indigenous to this region. It resembles a violin with greatly narrowed and elongated body and shortened neck ; it is made of walnut or maple wood and is strung with three strings plucked by a crow-quill held in the right hand. The melody is produced by the pressure of a bit of reed in the left hand upon the proper fret in the finger-board lying under neath the strings, as in a mandolin. Of the three strings, only the first is thus touched, and with the left hand. The other two, tuned an octave apart, are always open, and keep up a bourdon nement not unlike that of the bagpipe, to the thread of melody played on the third string. Simple one-part tunes prevail, rarely reaching an octave in compass.
The subjects of these mountain songs are legion: old romance, with knights in armor and ladies on milk-white steeds before ancestral halls, gold-seekers afloat upon the Spanish Main, Thames boatmen, London apprentices, and thieves transported for their crimes, lovers returning from the French wars, kings and queens and court intrigues, voyages to America, canal building in Pennsylvania, captures, raids, and battles of the Civil War, railroad-making, mining, 'moonshine' distilling, teamsters, peddlers, impromptu jigs and number-songs, even dialogues like the tengon of old Provence all this and more is needed to suggest their manifold variety of theme.
But one group alone must engage attention here. Songs coming from the Mother Country on the lips of pioneers, to live for three hundred years thereafter by oral transmission solely, and in all their pristine fullness, merit more than passing notice. Of these I have found thirty-seven, or, counting variants, fifty-six. English and Scottish predominate, embracing all but three, which are indubitably Irish. These will be presented in the following order: first, ballads from England and Scotland which can be identified by their parallels as preserved in the numerous printed editions, notably those of Professors Child and Kittredge, easily accessible to all American readers; second, songs whose original British variant is either lost or difficult of identification, yet which from internal evidence are undoubtedly insular; third, ballads from Ireland.
I.
Nineteen belong to the first group. They need no detailed exposition, since anyone may read them in Percy's Reliques, or in other later collections of English and Scottish ballads. The numbers in parenthesis refer to the British originals in the Child edition. Barbara Allen's Cruelty (No. 84) is a favorite in the Cumberland Mountains. Though I have six variants, all recount the same old story of the tragic loves of Sweet William and heartless Barbara: he slights her; she forsakes him; he dies of a broken heart; she dies of remorse:
O father, O father, come dig my grave,
Oh, dig it both deep and narrow ;
For my Sweet William died in love,
And I will die in sorrow."
Sweet William was buried in the old church-tomb,
Barbara Allen in the church-yard by ;
Out of William's grave grew a great red rose,
Out of Barbara Allen's a briar.
They grew and grew to the old church-top,
And till they couldn't grow any higher,
And at the end tied a true-love knot;
The rose wrapped round the briar.
Then there are: Lord Thomas (No. 73) and his bride, the Brown Girl, who in a jealous fit stabs his former love, fair Eilender; Lord Lovel (No. 75) at his castle-gate combing his milk-white steed, and soon leaving his love, Lady Nancybel, to go to the wars, and after a year and a day returning to London to hear St. Paneras' Bell tolling her death; the false Sweet William (No. 74), whose bridal-bed is haunted by the ghost of his forsaken first love, Lady Margaret; Lord Vanner's [Barnard's] Wife (No. 8), who is betrayed by the little foot-page in her perfidious love for the Musgrave, and slain with her paramour by her outraged husband upon his unexpected return from paying his allegiance 'before King MacHenry's Throne'; and The Demon Lover (No. 243), who bears off to her fate in a sinking ship the house-carpenter's false wife. A better fortune attends Lady Isabel (No. 4), called Pretty Polly in each of the six Kentucky versions: the Elf Knight, whose weird pastime is to lure away and drown innocent princesses, finds her wits so sharp that by a clever ruse she escapes and succeeds in drowning him instead. Loving Henry is but a New World variant of Young Hunting (No. 68) ; he dies from the same dagger thrust from his jealous sweetheart, as he bends from his saddle to kiss her. Lord Bateman [Beichan] (No. 53), of Northumberland, is rescued from the Turkish prison by fair Sophia, his captor's daughter:
Then she took him to her father's harbor
And gave to him a ship of fame;
"Farewell, farewell to you, Lord Bateman,
I fear I never shall see you again."
When seven long years were gone and past,
And fourteen days, well known to me,
She packed up her gay gold and clothing
And said Lord Bateman she would see.
She arrives at his castle on the eve of his wedding to an English bride, and is ushered by the 'proud young porter' into the very midst of the festivities. Lord Bateman's old affection is suddenly fired, he sends away the new love, and
Another marriage was prepared
With both their hearts so full of glee:
"I'll range no more to foreign countries
Since Sophia has crossed the sea."
They made a vow, they made a promise,
They made a vow he said would stand:
He vowed he'd court no other woman,
She vowed she'd court no other man.
Due regard for brevity requires that mere mention be made of the rest. They are: Lord Randal (No. 12); Edward (No. 13);
The Two Brothers (No. 49); The Cruel Mother {No. 20); The Jew's Daughter (No. 155); and The Bailiff's Daughter of
Islington (No. 105). Besides these, there are: The Green Willow Tree, an adaptation of The Golden Vanit?e (No. 286); Cold
Whiter s Night, which embodies certain portions of The Lass of Loch Royal (No. 76); a fairly good variant of The Twa Sisters
(No. 10), and another of Earl Brand (No. 7).
The Cumberland Mountain versions, be it repeated, however, have lived their own life, independent of the printed volume, passing from lip to lip through successive generations of the folk who came as pioneers to this region. Indeed, they have never been committed to paper on this side of the Atlantic, save for a few which lately have found their way into such repositories as the The American Journal of Folk-Lore, or else have been recorded in the manuscripts of the collector.
In this century-long oral transmission, they have suffered little change. British proper names of persons and places are faithfully preserved, as well as the Old World customs, costumes, manners, or habits of thought and speech. In consequence, many obsolete words, phrases, and pronunciations survive in these Kentucky songs; for example, 'dinna,' 'good speed,' 'riddle my sport,' 'a month and a day,' 'come her wi,' 'boughing door' for 'arched door,' 'laughen' for 'laughed,' 'hangen' for 'hanged;' 'the hill of heaven,' a Norse conception, perhaps; 'bailiff,' 'squire,' 'apprentice,' 'post-town,' 'merchant;' 'dever,' as verb from devoir, to woo; the Northumbrian plural verb for singular, as in 'At length to Newgate I were brought;' 'thee's' for 'thy;' 'shillings,' 'pounds,' 'guineas;' 'cordelee,' corde-du-laine, a woollen fabric; 'denter' for 'meadow' (?) and 'toise' for 'prop.'
The attitude of the present-day Kentucky minstrel toward such expressions is charming in its na?vet?. Last summer a
gray-bearded old fiddler was singing for me the Bailiff's Daugh ter of Islington. "What does that word Bailiff mean ?" I asked
him. "Oh, shucks," came his prompt and logical reply, "that's just in the song." Occasionally, however, an obsolete word is
made over clumsily into the current vernacular. I recall a curious instance from Lord Randal. The British version has these
lines:
"Mother, make my bed soon;
I am weary of hunting, and fain would lie down."
My singer could not brook the meaningless 'fain,' so he sang, 'and pains me lie down'; while another yet more curiously
phrased it, 'I faint and lie down.' But such manifestations of folk-etymologizing are rare. "It's just in the song," that is all
we know on earth and all we need to know.
II.
The second group demands a fuller exposition, since these songs, unlike those above, are not easily identified, if indeed at
all, by reference to such printed collections as have been mentioned. Some, perhaps, exist for us only in oral tradition. They
number fifteen, or twenty-three, if variants of the same ballad be counted. In five, the scene is laid in London; specific localities
mentioned are London Bridge, Newgate Prison, Katherine Street,
and St. Paneras* Church. Others make mention of Edinboro,
Sheffield, Nottingham, 'Domesse,' and 'Pershelvy.' Among the
characters portrayed are lords and ladies, 'prentices, sailors,
Thames boatmen, stewards, and foot-pages. A summary analy
sis of each of these songs will perhaps best show their indubi
table British origin.
The Rich Margent (merchant) of London had one pretty
daughter, Dinah, sixteen years old, a fit age for her to marry,
he thinks:?
"
Go dress yourself, Dinah, in rich cordelee (corde-du-laine) ;
I'll bring you a husband both gallant and gay."
"
O father, O father, I ha'in't made up my mind ;
For to get married I don't feel inclined."
The obdurate parent cuts her off from her patrimony, and
Dinah a few days later poisons herself in the garden. Here
Felix, her lover, finds her with a half-empty cup of poison in
her stiffening fingers :?
He called his dear Dinah ten thousand times o'er ;
He kissed her cold corpse ten thousand times more.
He drank up the poison like a lover so brave ?
Now Felix and Dinah both lie in one grave.
Jackaro is also a London legend. A rich merchant has one
daughter. She loves a sailor-boy ; the father opposes the union
and causes him to be banished :?
He sailed all over the ocean,
He sailed all over the sea,
So safely he has landed
In the wars of Germany,
Oh, in the wars of Germany.
The maiden then disguises herself as a man and presents herself for enlistment as a soldier on the Continent. The captain
says:
"Your waist it is too slender,
Your fingers they're too small,
Your cheeks too red and rosy
To face the cannon-ball,
Oh, to face the cannon-ball."
But she persuades him to accept her, is enrolled under the name 'Jackaro,' arrives on the battle-field just in time to find her
lover lying at the point of death among the wounded :
She picked him up all in her arms,
She carried him to the town,
Inquiring for a doctor
To heal his bloody wound,
Oh, to heal his bloody wound.
This kipple [couple] they are suited
And always did agree,
And also they got married ?
And it's why not you and me?
Oh, it's why not you and me ?
Jack Wilson is the confession of a Newgate prisoner under
sentence of death for a robbery in Katherine Street, London.
It is full of bitterness against the 'false deluding girl' for whose
sake he had done the theft, and yet who refuses to see or comfort
him in his time of distress. London Bridge is a sentimental
story about a homeless orphaned waif found shivering in the
cold wind on the Thames-side by a passerby who has recently
lost by death his own son. Impressed by the likeness of the boy
to his own,?
He fed and clothed the orphan lad,
And brought him o'er the sea.
"
You're like my boy who died," he said,
11
My boy and heir you'll be."
The Old Woman of London is a picee of coarse humor, de
tailing a scene between husband and wife. She loves another
man, and plots the death of her husband. From an apothecary
she gets two magic marrow-bones which destroy the sight of
anyone who should suck them, and gives them to her un
suspecting husband. Soon he becomes blind. She leads him
for a walk along the bank of the Thames, intending to push
him into the river to drown. Just as she essays this, he
steps to one side, and her momentum carries her into the
water, where she dies in his stead. In a humorous vein also
is Fair Notamon [Nottingham] Town, a burlesque description
of a countryman's visit to this city where he sees the royal
procession
:?
320 The Sewanee Revieiv
I met the king and the queen and a company more,
A-riding behind and a-walking before,
And a stark-naked drummer beating a drum,
With his heels in his bosom a-marching along.
Shearfield [Sheffield] tells the story of an apprentice who runs
away to London and takes service in the household of a "lady
just from Ireland":?
I had not been in Ireland
But some two weeks or three,
Till my old foolish mistress
She fell in love with me.
He, however, has already pledged his troth to Polly Girl, her
serving-maid. The jealous mistress drops a ring secretly in his
pocket, and has him arrested for theft. In spite of his innocence,
he is tried and condemned :?
Come, all you young lovers,
Wherever that you be,
Don't glory in my downfall ;
I pray you pity me.
For now I must be hangen,
And hangen I must be :
But when I think on London,
Oh, cursed be the day !
The Appi'entice Boy is somewhat similar. He falls in love
with the daughter of his master, a rich merchant living in a
'post-town.' Her brothers invite the lad to go hunting with
them, lure him into a lonely valley, and there leave him slain.
That night his ghost appears to her:?
All on that night as she lay sleeping,
He arose and stood at her bed-feet,
All covered over in tears a-weeping,
All wallowed o'er in gores of blood.
Hamlet-like, she plans vengeance upon the perfidious brothers ;
they seek to escape across the sea: ?
The sea began to roar, I think no wonder
That these two villyons should be cast away ;
And broadways they came tosling under ;
The sea did open and provide their grave.
This will at once be recognized as related in plot to Kcats's
Isabella, as already noted by Professor Beiden in the last
British Ballads in the Cumberland Mountains 321
issue of this Review (page 22if.), and as a variant of the two
versions there quoted
? one from British Museum Bks. 3. g. 4,
Vol. I, p. 184; and the other from oral tradition in Missouri.
For the sake of comparison I print the Kentucky version com
plete in the margin below.*
*THE APPRENTICE BOY
In yon post-town there lived a margent,
He had two sons and a daughter fair :
There lived a 'prentice-boy about there,
Who was the daughter's dearest dear.
Ten thousand pounds was this gay lady's portion ;
She was a fair and a camelite [comely] dame ;
She loved this young man who crossed the ocean ;
He told her how he could be so deslain.
One day they was in the room a-courting ;
The oldest brother chanced to hear ;
He went and told the other brother,
They would deprive her of her dear.
Her brothers studied on this cruel matter,
Concluded a-hunting they would go,
And with this young man they both would flatter ;
A-hunting with them he had to go.
They traveled over high hills and mountains
And through strange places where it were unknown,
Till at length they came to some lonesome valley,
And then they killed him dead and thrown.
All on that evening when they returned,
She asked them where's her servant-man ;
"
What makes me ask you ?
"
she seems to whisper,
"
Dear brothers, tell me if you can."
"
He is lost in the wild woods a-hunting ;
His face you never more shall see."
"
I'll tell you in plain, you're much affronted ;
Oh, now will you explain to me."
All on that night while she lay sleeping,
He came and stood at her bed-feet,
All covered over in tears a-weeping,
All wallowed o'er in gores of blood.
He says,
"
My love, it's but a folly ;
For this is me that you may see ?
Aour brothers both being rash and cruel ?
In such a valley you may find."
322 The Sewanee Review
The next ballad has for its theme the tragedy of love. Lovely
Caroline of Old Edinboro is wooed by young Henry, a Highland
man. They marry and go to London to live. After six months,
the husband's devotion cools and he returns to Scotland without
his wife. Caroline wanders forlorn into the woods andesse town.
'
He loves a gay young lady who lives near 'Pershelvy
All on next morning when she arose,
She dressed herself in silk so fine ;
She traveled o'er high hills and mountains
Her own true-lover for to find.
She traveled o'er high hills and mountains
And through strange places where it were unknown,
f Till at length she came to some lonesome valley,
\ Till at length she came to a patch of briars,
And there she found him killed and thrown.
His pretty cheeks with blood were dyed ;
f His lips were as bloody as any butcher ;
I His lips [var., cheeks] were salty as any brine ;
She kissed them over and over, " a-crying,
You dearest bosom friend of mine !
"
Three days and nights she tarried with him,
Till she thought her heart would break with woe,
Until sharp hunger came cropping on her,
Which forced her back home to go.
All on that evening when she returned,
Her brothers asked her where she'd been ?
"
O ye hardhearted, deceitful devillions,
For him alone you both shall swing."
Her brothers studied on this bloody matter,
Concluded the ocean they would sail ;
My friend, I tell you, it's on the morrow
The raging sea there for to sail.
The sea began to roar, I think no wonder
That these two villyons should be cast away ;
And broadways they came tosling under ;
The sea did open and provide their grave.
British Ballads in the Cumberland Mountains 323
town.' To escape the vengeful opposition of her proud parents
to the match, he becomes a sailor. She follows him, and they
meet in a foreign city. He recognizes her, but she fails to
know him. To her inquiry, he relates that he has seen her
lover fall in the French wars. At this news her despair and
sorrow are so manifest that he, after this test of her continued
devotion, reveals his identity and they are married. In The
Lost Glove also the hero is a farmer. A mariner's daughter is
about to be given by her father in marriage to a squire of Lon
don, though her affection has long been set upon the young
farmer. On her appointed wedding day, she feigns illness;
later, disguised as a hunter, she takes dog and gun, and goes
shooting in the fields, where she meets her true love. They
profess anew their mutual devotion, and as they part, she leaves
with him her gold-embroidered glove. This upon her return
home she pretends to have lost, and announces that she will
marry only him who can return it. Of course, the farmer
appears as the lucky finder, and by the ruse she is enabled to
marry him instead of the city squire.
None of these Cumberland survivals is more interesting than
the Jacobite song anent the landing of Prince Charles Edward at
Moidart in Inverness-shire, during the month of July, 1745,
upon the eve of his projected invasion of Britain to further the
claims of the Stuart Pretender. Its brevity will allow its full
reproduction here:?
There's news fro' Mordart yestreen,
Will soon yastremony [sic] ferly ;
For ships o'er all have just come in
And landed royal Charlie.
Come through the heather, around him gather ;
You're all the welcomer early ;
Around her cling with all your kin,
For who'll be King but Charlie ?
Come through the heather, around him gather ;
Come Ronald, come Donald, come all together ;
And crown your rightful, lawful King,
For who'll be King but Charlie ?
My own uncertain knowledge of British folk-song makes me,
a mere collector, duly aware of the danger of dogmatic assertion
324 The Sewanee Review
in regard to the identification of many which I have gathered.
At best, much will be revealed only after a careful study and
minute comparison of the great mass of American survivals,
from varied and widely separated states or sections, with the
correspondingly large corpus which the special student of this
problem may find, published and unpublished, among the an
thologies and among the broadside and manuscript collections
of the Mother Country. To illustrate, in the current April
number of Modern Language Notes, I published a Cumberland
Mountain Version of The Lion's Den, the plot of which is
similar to that of the well-known poems Der Handschuh
of Schiller, The Glove and the Lions of Leigh Hunt, and The
Glove of Browning. During the same week, in the April
number of this Review, Professor Beiden, it will be remembered,
published an English version ? each of us unaware of the work
of the other. And within the last few days, Professor Kittredge
has written me that he is acquainted with the same ballad but
that he had not known of its existence in American folk
song.* In like manner, I was ignorant of Professor Bel
den's two versions of The Apprentice Boy, alluded to above;
while he, perhaps, will find something of novelty in the Ken
tucky version there quoted. I mention these facts, not only to
voice my appreciation of an obvious need for further interchange
and collaboration, but particularly to vindicate in some degree
my presumption in the paragraph following.
Of course, nothing less than the discovery of the British origi
nal positively fixes the identity of an American 'song-ballet;'
even the inclusion therein of British place-names, reference to
insular customs, and such-like, is not a guarantee of its insular
origin. But many of those I have found in Kentucky, though
lacking even thus much of evidence, yet have about them an in
definable something which suggests the Old World as their birth
place. For illustration, I cite just three, that each may judge
as best he may from the scant presentation here possible.
*
Professor Kittredge has just published in the June number of Modern
Language Notes a second English variant, with interesting references to
others.
B?'itisk Ballads in the Cumberland Mountains 325
Cub eck's Garden tells the love of an 'honored lady* for her
father's 'prentice-boy:?
As soon as her old father
Came this to understand,
He swore to have him banished
Unto some forant land.
This lady, broken-hearted,
Lamenting, she did say,
"
All for my handsome 'printest-boy
Oh, may I live and die !
"
All unto a sea-captain
This 'printest-boy was bound,
And by his good behavior
Great honor there he found.
He was first a boating seaman,
A-boating on its fame,
And by his good behavior
A shipmate he became.
All among the ships
Was a lottery to be put down ;
And when the lots were drew en,
He drew forty thousand pound.
His coat with silver buttons,
His hat was laced indeed ;
He was going to Old England
To fight his true-love's speed.
Needless to say that the remaining stanzas picture his return
and their union ?:
'Way down through Cubeck's garden
They rode to church and bound ;
In everlasting union
This couple they were bound.
In Rosanna, a fragment, as I have it, is told the tragedy of
two loves. Rosanna renounces Silimentary, her true-love, to
make a marriage of convenience with the squire. The love-lorn
hero goes to sea, and is drowned ; the conscience-stricken maiden,
upon hearing this, stabs herself in most approved style with her
silver dagger.
For its lyric lilt and martial rhythm one could rarely find a
better soldiers' chorus than Pretty Peggy, O ? which I quote
in full:?
326 The Sewanee Review
PRETTY PEGGY, O
As we marched down to Fernario,
As we marched down to Fernario,
Our captain fell in love with a lady like a dove,
And they called her by name, Pretty Peggy, O.
"
What would your mother think, Pretty Peggy, O,
What would your mother think, Pretty Peggy, O,
What would your mother think for to hear the guineas chink,
And the soldiers a-marchin' before ye, O ?
"You shall ride in your coach, Pretty Peggy, O.
You shall ride in your coach, Pretty Peggy, O,
You shall ride in your coach and your true-love by your side,
Just as grand as any lady in the Ario.
"
Come stepping down the stairs, Pretty Peggy, O,
Come stepping down the stairs, Pretty Peggy, O,
Come stepping down the stairs, combing back your yellow hair,
j Take the last farewell of your Sweet William, O,
\ Take the last farewell of your darling Pretty Peggy, O.
"
If ever I return, Pretty Peggy, O,
If ever I return, Pretty Peggy, O,
If ever I return, this city I'll burn [down]
And destroy all the ladies in the Ario.
"
Our captain he is dead, Pretty Peggy, O,
Our captain he is dead, Pretty Peggy, O,
Our captain he is dead and he died for a maid,
And's buried in the Louisiana County, O."
III.
Third and last are ballads transplanted from Ireland, three in
number, so far as I have found them. Irish Molly O, quoted in
full in Brooke and Rolleston's Treasury of Irish Poetry, I have
traced back to the base of the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia
in the forties, whence it has passed westward by oral tradition
into the eastern Highlands of Kentucky. Young MacDonald,
a Scotch lad, comes as a stranger to Ireland; 'all in the month
of May,' he falls in love with pretty Irish Molly, upon whom he
lavishes his guineas. Her father opposes the match; and the
maiden yielding to his wishes, forsakes her lover, who, though
banished from his 'rose of Dublin,' is yet true to her:?
When that I am buried, there is one more thing I crave,
To lay a marble tombstone at the head of my grave,
And on the marble tombstone a prayer shall be said,
That young MacDonald lies here for his bonny Irish maid.
British Ballads in the Cumberland Mountains yi7
The Wexford Girl need not detain one long. She is brutally
beaten with a club by her heartless lover one night and thrown
into the stream that flows through Wexford town. William
Reilly (also quoted in the volume just mentioned) is indigenous
to County Ulster, in Ireland, and rests upon an historic basis.
Reilly was a young Catholic farmer of this district. The
daughter of a neighboring squire, named Foulard, a wealthy
man of high Orange principles, falls in love with him, induces
him to accept rich presents from her, and to fly with him by
night from her father's house:?
"
I'll leave my father's dwelling, forsake my mother's fee,
So through the howling wilderness, and married we will be."
Her old father followed after them with seven well-armed men ;
Overtaken was poor Reilly with his lovely Polly Ann.
At the ensuing trial, the outraged squire tries to have Reilly
hanged for seduction, but an aged lawyer, named Fox in the
original version, so ably defends him that transportation, not
death, is the verdict. The father then accuses him of theft:?
Then up spoke her old father, these words that he did say :
"
He's taken from me gold watches, he's taken from me gold rings ;
He took a silver broochpin, 'twas worth a thousand pounds;
I'll have the life of Reilly, or spend ten thousand pounds."
But the loyal maiden before the judge and jury frees him
from this second charge, swearing that she had herself given
them to him as a present, and thus securing his release.
In the above paragraphs I have purposely spared comment to
gain space that the reader may be brought face to face with the
fact itself ? the persistence in twentieth century America of the
songs of our British ancestors ?
believing that curiosity, if noth
ing deeper, will be evoked by acquaintance with them before they
have faded into the shadows of the past. In another generation
or two, they will be but a memory in the Kentucky Highlands;
the clank of the colliery, the rattle of the locomotive, the roar
of the blast-furnace, the shriek of the factory-whistle, and, alas,
even the music of the school-bell, are already overwhelming the
thin tones of the dulcimore and the quavering voice of the Last
Minstrel of the Cumberlands, who can find scant heart to sing
again the lays of olden years across the seas.