A Woman Lived in the Far Country- McCord (MO) 1900
[From Vance Randolph's Ozark Folksongs, Vol. 1, 1946. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2015]
THE THREE LITTLE BABES
This is an abbreviated version of "The Wife of Usher's Well" (Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballad's, 1882-1898, No. 79). For American references see Campbell and sharp (English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, 1917, No. 19), JAFL 30, 1917,p. 305, Pound (American Ballads and Songs, 1922, p. 18), Cox (Folk-Songs of the South, 1925, p. 99), and Davis (Traditional Ballads of Virginia, 1929, pp. 218-289). Buell Kazee has made a very good phonograph record (Brunswick 212). Compare the two Missouri texts reported by Belden (Ballad's and Songs, 1940, pp. 55-57). Also see Eddy (Ballads and Songs from Ohio, 1939, pp. 46-47), Brewster (Ballads and Songs of Indiana, 1940, pp. 97-99), Morris (Southern Folklore Quarterly 8, 1944, p. 152), and the forthcoming Brown (North Carolina Folk-Lore Society) collection.
B. "A Woman Lived in the Far Country." Sung by Mrs. May Kennedy McCord, Springfield, Mo., Oct. 21, 1941. Learned about 1900 in Galema, Mo. Mrs. McCord says that the singers in Galena always called it "A woman Lived in the Far Country."
A woman lived in the far country,
And she had children three
She sent them away to a far off town,
For to learn their grammary.
They hadn't been gone but a week or two,
In fact it was not three,
Till death came a-walking o'er the land
And took her babes away.
It being close to old Christmas time
And the nights being long and cold,
She dreampt she saw her three little babes
Come a-running down the hall.
Lay my table white, lay my table fair
For my three little babes to dine,
Oh mother, we can eat none of your bread,
Neither can we drink your wine.
We cannot sleep on your golden sheets,
Neither eat your bread and wine,
For tomorrow morn at eight o'clock
With our Savior we must dine.
On a frozen pillow we must sleep
With the cold clods at our feet,
And the tears that you will shed for us
Will wet our winding sheet.