The Ballad of Lord Bakeman- Belden 1904
[As pointed out by Kittredge in the 1917 JOAFL and later Cohen in 2005 (see below), Belden's broadside is from The Forget-Me-Not Songster, circa 1840s.
R. Matteson 2012]
The Ballad of Lord Bakeman
by Henry Marvin Belden
Modern Philology, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Oct., 1904), pp. 301-305
THE BALLAD OF LORD BAKEMAN
THERE has come into my hands recently[1] a humble but very interesting little volume of British and American ballads. The first fifty pages and an unknown number at the end are lost, as well as title-page and cover, so that the title and the date and place of publication can be only conjectured. The pages (24 4A inches in size) have the running head Popular Songs, which was no doubt the title. The date is some time after 1835, for one of the pieces contains that date:
In the month of February, 1835,
She to the port of London in the Sarah did arrive.
That it is an American compilation is abundantly proved by the contents. It contains "The Taxation of America," several pieces celebrating American victories in the War of 1812, and a mournful ballad about Sarah Maria Cornell and the wicked parson Avery, telling us of the latter that Now in Rhode Island, bound is he, In May, to await his destiny.
The facts that only inland victories of the War of 1812 are celebrated and that the Mexican War is not mentioned seem to indicate that it was published in the inland states, and not much later than 1835. It has evidently seen hard service in the state of Missouri, where it has been for at least a generation, and perhaps ever since it was printed. I should be very glad if anyone could supply the title-page of the book. The Congressional Library was unable to identify it. The page-numbering is probably a sufficient mark to know it by; the ballad of "Sarah Maria Cornell" begins on p. 195. The contents are for the most part of the broadside or what Child calls the "vulgar ballad" character, quite innocent of any literary touch, with the exception of two or three pieces. One of these is Holmes's "Ballad of the Oysterman," which seems to have acquired an early and genuine popularity, being printed here within a few years after its composition, and with variations that point conclusively to oral transmission. For the rest, the range of subject and of age is considerable, but there is hardly any range of tone. From "Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor" to "Fannie Blair," from "The Men of Kent" and "The London 'Prentice" to "The New York Trader" and "The Female Sailor," all are thoroughly of the people and for the people. Among them is a version of "Young Beichan"' differing in some respects from any of the versions given by Child.
Child printed as the modern "vulgar" form of "Young Beichan" the "Ballad of Lord Bateman": (1) in Vol. I, p. 476, from a London print of 1839 illustrated by Cruikshank; (2)in Vol. II, p. 508, from a broadside of Pitts of Seven Dials. The two are essentially the same, Child having printed in Vol. I from the Cruikshank copy because he had neglected to secure a broadside, and then printing from the broadside in the "Additions and Corrections" to Vol. II. Finally, in the closing "Additions and Corrections," Vol. V, p. 220, he has this note: "For the modern vulgar ballad, Catnach's is a better copy than that of Pitts. See Kidson, Traditional Tunes, p. 34 for Catnach." Catnach's form of the ballad I have not seen, but if so careful an editor as Child did not find it worth collating with the forms he had already printed, it is no doubt essentially identical with them. Child seems to have found no trace of this ballad in America.
The copy in Popular Songs is more nearly akin to the English broadsides than to the other versions given by Child, but it differs from them in several particulars. Poetically it is of the same class, though a rather better specimen of the class. It is more primitive, simpler. The heroine "round her waist has diamond strings," the hero breaks, not his sword, but "the table in pieces three." In these points it agrees with Child's versions from oral tradition, not with the broadside. But the significant difference is in the loss of traditional localization. As Professor Morf says,[3] "das historische Volkslied ist in steter Umbildung begriffen, und in immer weitere Ferne tritt hinter ihm das geschichtliche Ereignis zurick, um schliesslich unseren Augen vollig zu entschwinden." All marks of British locality are gone in the American version. Lord Bakeman (a form of the name not recorded by Child, and slightly nearer to the Scotch Beichan than is the broadside form, Bateman) is a grandee neither of London nor of Northumberland, but of India. The whole story, loosed from its English moorings, has been attracted to the Orient. Susan Pye of the Scotch versions (possibly a corruption of some oriental name remembered from the time of the Crusades; the broadside had Sophia), is changed to simple Susannah, most likely by association with the biblical character of that name. Released from prison, Lord Bakeman returns to India, and it is at his palace in a city street in India that Susannah finds him. The old historical distinction between "cristendom and hethenesse" is obliterated completely (as it is also in Child's C version, which, however, keeps "Young Bekie" English-lord of "the bonny towrs o Linne). The only exception is the "marble stones" of stanza 25, which stands for the "fountain stane" of Child's A, E, i. e., the baptismal font. The English broadside has lost every trace of this element of the original story, and is by so much farther removed than the American version from the primitive ballad. But it is highly improbable that American hearers or reciters knew the original intention of the passage. Even English social institutions are forgotten or misunderstood. Lord Bakeman's houses, not his kin, are now said to be "of high degree." Like corruptions are to be found in most of the old English ballads still sung in this part of the United States, of which there are a good many, though, so far as I have been able to learn, "Young Beichan" is not one of them.
Inasmuch as "Lord Bakeman" differs in details of language and arrangement, and to some extent of matter, from any of the versions printed by Child, I give a copy of it here.
HENRY MARVIN BELDEN.
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI.
LORD BAKEMAN [4]
1. In India lived a noble lord,
His riches was beyond compare,
He was the darling of his parents,
And of their estate an only heir.
2. He had gold and he had silver,
And he had houses of high degree,
But still he never could be contented,
Until a voyage he had been to sea.
3. He sailed east, and he sailed west,
Until he came to the Turkish shore,
Where he was taken and put in prison,
Where he could neither see nor hear.
4. For seven long months he lay lamenting,
He laid lamenting in iron bands,
There happening to see a brisk young lady
Who set him free from his iron chains.
5. The jailor had one only daughter,
A brisk young lady gay was she,
As she was walking across the floor,
She chanced lord Bakeman for to see.
6. She stole the keys of her father's prison,
And said lord Bakeman she would set free,
She went into the prison door,
And opened it without delay.
7. Have you got gold or have you got silver?
Have you got houses of high degree?
What will you give to the fair lady,
If she from bondage will set you free?
8. Yes, I've got gold, and I've got silver,
And I've got houses of high degree,
I'll give them all to the fair lady,
If she from bondage set me free.
9. It's not your silver nor your gold,
Nor yet your houses of high degree,
All that I want to make me happy,
And all I crave is your fair body.
10. Let us make a bargain, and make it strong,
For seven long years it shall stand,
For you shall not wed no other woman,
Nor I'll not wed no other man.
11. When seven long years were gone and past,
When seven long years were at an end,
She packed up all her richest clothing,
Saying, now I'll go and seek my friend.
12. She sailed east, she sailed west,
Until she came to the Indian shore,
And there she never could be contented,
Till for her true love she did enquire.
13. She did enquire for lord Bakeman's palace
At every corner of the street,
She enquired after lord Bakeman's palace,
Of every person she chanced to meet.
14. And when she came to lord Bakeman's palace
She knocked so loud upon the ring,
There's none so ready as the brisk young porter
To rise and let this fair lady in.
15. She asked if this was lord Bakeman's palace,
Or is the lord himself within?
Yes, yes, replied the brisk young porter,
He and his bride have just entered in.
16. She wept, she wept, and rung her hands,
Crying, alas! 1 am undone;
I wish I was in my native country,
Across the seas there to remain.
17. Ask him to send me one ounce of bread,
And a bottle of his wine so strong,
Ask him if he's forgot the lady,
That set him free from his iron chains.
18. The porter went unto his master,
And bowed low upon his knees,
Arise, arise, my brisk young porter,
And tell me what the matter is.
19. There is a lady stands at your gate,
And she doth weep most bitterly.
I think she is as fine a creature,
As ever I wish my eyes to see.
20. She's got more rings on her four fingers,
And round her waist has diamond strings,
She's got more gold about her clothing,
Than your new bride and all her kin.
21. She wants you to send one ounce of bread,
And a bottle of your wine so strong,
And asks if you have forgot the lady,
That set you free from your prison chains.
22. He stamp'd his foot upon the floor,
He broke the table in pieces, three,
Here's adieu to you my wedded bride,
For this fair lady I will go and see.
23. Then up spoke his new bride's mother,
And she was a lady of high degree,
'Tis you have married my only daughter,
Well she is none the worse for me.
24. But since my fair one has arrived,
A second wedding there shall be;
Your daughter came on a horse and saddle,
She may return in a coach and three.
25. He took this fair lady by the hand,
And led her over the marble stones;
He changed her name from Susannah fair,
And she now is the wife of lord Bakeman.
26. He took her by her lilly white hand,
And led her through from room to room,
He changed her name from Susannah fair,
And she is called the wife of lord Bakeman.
Footnotes:
1 Through the kindness of Mr. W. S. Johnson, of Tuscumbia, Mo.
2. [reference is missing] CHILD'S English and Scottish Popular Ballads, No. 53, Vol. I.
3 Archivfiir das Studium der neueren Sprachen, Vol. CXI (1903), p. 122.
4. Popular Songs, pp. 171-74
______________
The Forget-Me-Not Songsters and Their Role in the American Folksong Tradition by Norm Cohen
American Music, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Summer, 2005)
Excerpt
In 1904 Henry Marvin Belden, already a knowledgeable ballad/folksong scholar though yet to cap a distinguished career with his erudite annotations to the exemplary field collections from Missouri and North Carolina, published a short article in Modern Philology titled "The Ballad of Lord Bakeman." [1] It began:
"There has come into my hands recently (through the kindness of Mr W. S. Johnson, of Tuscumbia, Mo.) a humble but very interesting little volume of British and American ballads. The first fifty pages and an unknown number at the end are lost, as well as title page and cover, so that the title and the date and place of publication can be only conjectured. The pages (2' by 4' inches in size) have the running head Popular Songs, which was no doubt the title. The date is some time after 1835, for one of the pieces contains that date. ... That it is an American compilation is abundantly proved by the contents. ... It has evidently seen hard service in the state of Missouri, where it has been for at least a generation, and perhaps ever since it was printed. I should be very glad if anyone could supply the title-page of the book. The Congressional Library was unable to identify it. [2]"
The contents are for the most part of the broadside or what [Francis James] Child calls the "vulgar ballad" character, quite innocent of literary touch, with the exception of two or three pieces. One of these is Holmes's "Ballad of the Oysterman," which seems to have acquired an early and genuine popularity, being printed here within a few years after its composition, and with variations that point conclusively to oral transmission. For the rest, the range of subject and of age is considerable, but there is hardly any range of tone. From "Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor" to "Fannie Blair," from "The Men of Kent" and "The London 'Prentice" to "The New York Trader" and "The Female Sailor," all are thoroughly of the people and for the people. Among them is a version of "Young Beichan" differing in some respects from any of the versions given by Child. [3]
Belden continued with a discussion of the versions of "Young Beichan" or "Lord Bateman" that Child included in his path-breaking opus magnum, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, other broadside versions, and the way in which the text under discussion related to both. To my knowledge, Belden thus became the first scholar in print whose attention was drawn to the cheaply printed, though widely popular, Forget-Me-Not Songster (FMNS). Widely popular a half century earlier, I should add; note that without a title page Belden found no one in ca. 1904-either in Missouri or at the Library of Congress-who could identify the volume in its mutilated condition.[4] Cheaply printed "songsters," mostly pocket-sized and soft-covered, were collections of the texts of popular songs of the day. Many were sold by performers; others were distributed by manufacturers as effective advertisements of their wares. Some focused on a particular topic, such as temperance, politics, abolition, minstrel songs, Irish songs, pirate songs, the grange movement, or the circus.
I don't know exactly when Belden learned the identity of his "humble but interesting little volume," but a decade later, Child's intellectual heir, George Lyman Kittredge, was festooning published collections of folksong with references to several songsters, including three different editions of the Forget-Me-Not, as well as various American broadside publications. Whereas Belden wrote from a university office in the hinterlands of Columbia, Missouri, where he had been holed up for ten years, Kittredge occupied a position at Harvard, within sniffing distance of the musty pages of the splendid Houghton and Widener libraries, and not a great many leagues from another distinguished repository of popular Americana, the Harris Collection at Brown University, Rhode Island.
As one of the editors of the Journal of American Folk-Lore, Kittredge took the liberty (who could deny him?) of adding annotations to articles by Albert H. Tolman as well as to his own that catalogued the numerous cheap print analogs he had found relating to the field-collected versions of ballads and songs. [5]
Belden did not mention songsters frequently in his later publications, though he became increasingly familiar with broadsides (especially after spending a semester in 1908 studying specimens at the British Museum). Possibly he backed away from his initial enthusiasm after learning more about the variety and extent of nineteenth-century songsters. In his head note to the same ballad ("Young Beichan"), he wrote:
"It has been suggested that the frequent and widespread occurrence of this ballad as traditional song may be due to its frequent appearance in broadside and songbook print. ... The argument may easily, however, be turned the other way: that ballad printers used it because it was known to be a favorite. Cause and effect are not easily distinguished in such cases. [6]
Footnotes
1. Henry M. Belden, ed., Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society (hereafter BSM)(Columbia: The University of Missouri Studies, 1940; r pt., 1955); Belden and Arthur Palmer Hudson, eds., Frank C . Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, vol. 2, Folk Ballads from N orth Carolina, and vol. 3, Folk Songs from North Carolina(Durham: Duke University Press, 1952)( hereafterN CF2 and NCF3 ).
2. Henry M. Belden, "The Ballad of Lord Bakeman, "Modern Philology 2 (1904): 301.
3. Ibid., 301-5.
4. Remarkably, one edition of the Forget-Me-Not Songster (paper, 25c, published by Kenedy) was still in print as of 1902, according to Marion E. Potter, The United States Catalog: Books in Print 1902 (Minneapolis: H. W. Wilson, 1903).
5. Albert H. Tolman, "Some Songs Traditional in the United States, "Journal of American Folk-Lore(JAF) 29 (April-June 1916): 1 55-97; Tolman and Mary O. Eddy," Traditional Texts and Tunes," JAF 35 (Oct.-Dec. 1922): 335-432; George Lyman Kittredge, "Various Ballads," JAF 26 (April-June1 913): 174-82, and "Ballads and Songs," JAF 30 (July-Sept. 1917): 283-369.
6. Head note to "Young Beichan," NCF2: 50-51. I assume Belden wrote this note, though nominally he and Arthur Palmer Hudson coedited the volume.