Billy Murdered John- Carr (ME) c1868 Barry
[Fragment from British Ballads from Maine. Sung and from a manuscript book compiled at least twenty-five years ago by Mrs. Susie Carr Young of Brewer to preserve the old songs sung by her grandmother, mother, and others of the family. Mrs. Young says she learned this song at least sixty years ago from her Grandmother Carr (b. 1793), the wife of Hugh Hill Carr of Bucksport, who was born Mary Soper of Orland, where the Sopers were very early settlers. It has without doubt been a long time traditional in that family, and Mrs. Young thinks the first emigrants of some branch in the ancestry brought it to this country with them.(BBM)
This version is considerably older than the 1868 date when Mrs. Susie Carr Young of Brewer learned it from her grandmother. It's impossible to accurately date but early 1800s is a reasonable guess, making it one of the earliest US versions.
Barry's and all's extensive notes follow. They give the entire Kentucky text from McGill (c. 1914).
R. Matteson 2014]
THE TWO BROTHERS
(Child 49)
"BILLY MURDERED JOHN." Contributed, February r 1926, by Mrs. Susie Carr Young of Brewer, a fragment of a song sung by her grandmother, Mary (Soper) Carr of Orland. Melody recorded by Mr. George Herzog.
[music]
1. "O Billy, O Billy, [you have] come home ! [1]
And where is my true-love John ?"
"The last time I saw him he was in the greenwood
A-learning the hounds to run."
2. "If you should kiss my cherry cheeks,
Your breath would smell so strong;
If you should kiss my ruby, ruby lips,
Your life would not last long."
3. And Susan came with sobs of pain,
With tears all in her eyes,
She mourns by the flocks of the merry, merry brooks,
For she's been where her own true-love lies.
This fragment of "The Two Brothers," the only trace of the song we have been able to discover in Maine, is best identified by texts and fragments found in the southern mountains by Miss McGill and by Campbell and Sharp. These in turn can be worked out by copies preserved by Professor Child, among which one of the best is a set of verses "taken down lately [?1882] from the singing of little girls in south Boston."[2]
In Folk songs of the Kentucky Mountains (191?), Miss Josephine McGill gives the following (No. 11, P. 55) :
I O John and William walked out one day
To view the iron band.
Says John to William, "At-any price
We'd better turn home again."
2 "O no," says William, "that can never be
That we'll return again,
For I'm the one loves pretty Susanne,
And I will murder thee."
I "What will you tell to my mother dear
When she askes for her son John?"
"I left him at the cottage school
His lessons for to learn."
4 "What will you tell to my father dear,
When he askes for his son John?"
"I left him in the high wild woods
A-learnin' his hounds to run."
5 "What will you tell to my pretty Susanne
When she askes for her truelove John?"
"I left him in the grave-lie deep,
Never more to return."
6 She mourned the fish all out of the sea,
The birds all out of the nest;
She mourned her truelove out of his grave
Because that she could not rest.
7. "What do you want, my pretty Susanne,
What do you want with me?"
"A kiss or two from your pretty bright lips
Is all that I ask of thee."
8 "Go home, go home, my pretty Susanne,
Go home, go home," said he.
"If you weep and mourn all the balance of your days
You'll never more see me."
The resemblance between this Kentucky text and the Maine fragment lies in the identity of the lines about the hounds in the greenwood, in the implication in the Maine lines of a kiss having been asked of the dead, in the intensity of the maiden's mourning, and in the names of John, William, and Susan. The last name is not found in any of Child's texts.
As compared with Child, the Kentucky text resembles all of the three texts from Motherwell (B, C, and E), but most nearly in stanza 6, which runs, in Child B 10:
She put the small pipes to her mouth,
And she harped. both far and near,
Till she harped the small birds off the briers,
And her true love out of the grave.
and in Child B 11:
"One sweet kiss of your ruby lips,
That's all I want of thee."
and in the corresponding lines of Child C 18:
She ran distraught, she wept, she sicht,
She wept the sma brids frae the tree,
She wept the starns adoun frae the lift,
She wept the fish out o' the sea.
These stanzas about the maid's grief do not occur in any other Child text (except two weak lines in D 18, from Jamieson) ; but they are close enough to our Maine fragment to prove their relationship. This is strengthened by the texts recovered by Campbell and Sharp, in English Folk-Songs from the Sowthern Appalachians (1917), who give three texts of from eight to nine stanzas each, and two fragments of four lines each.
One fragment and the opening stanza of A, about combing the sweetheart's hair, have no analogue in Child. Campbell and Sharp C 1 speaks of the brothers wrestling, which is common to several Child texts; while in Campbell and Sharp A 2 and 3 are the lines,
"Brother, won't you play a game of ball,
Brother, won't you toss a stone?
Brother, won't you play no other game
As we go marching home?"
"I can't play no game of ball,
I can't toss no stone,
I can't play no other game,
Brother, leave me alone."
which are only an expansion of Child B 2:
"It's whether will ye play at the ba', brither,
Or else throw at the stone?"
"I am too little, I am too young,
O brother let me alone."
Both Child B and the Appalachian Mountain text have the next stanza closely parallel. Child B 4 corresponds to Sharp A 5. A "little check shirt" replaces the "holland sark," but the word: "gore" meaning the gusset of the shirt, not blood, -occurs in both. Then comes the closest resemblance of all, in Campbell and Sharp A 7 and 8:
"Brother, O brother, go dig my grave,
Dig it wide and deep.
Bury my bible at my head,
My hymn book at my feet."
He buried his bible at his head,
His hymn book at his feet,
His bow and arrow by his side,
And now he's fast asleep.
Compare this with Child B E and 6:
"And make me there a very fine grave,
That will be long and large.
"Lay my bible at my head," he says,
"My chaunter at my feet,
My bow and arrows by my side
And soundly I will sleep."
To the southern mountaineer, what would a "chaunter" be, but a hymn book? The two texts are, at base, identical. Another southern text (Sharp, American-English Folk-Songs, G. Schirmer, p. 8) has "psalter" for "chaunter." But the Campbell and Sharp B and C texts even more closely resemble Miss McGill's from Kentucky and our Maine fragment. One (B 3, lines 3, 4) says:
"I'll tell him you're in the western woods
A-learning your hounds to run."
and the other (C6 lines 3, 4)
You can tell him I'm in some low green woods
A-learning young hounds to run."
which, in the Maine fragment, is:
"The last time I saw him he was in the greenwood
A-learning the hounds how to run."
The Campbell and Sharp B text, stanzas 6-9, goes on:
She took her bible in her hand.,
A-moaning she went on.
She moaned till she came to his silent grave,
In search of her true-love John.
"What do you want, my pretty Susie,
What do you want with me?"
"I want a kiss from your clay-cold lips,
'Tis all I ask of thee."
"If I were to kiss your rosy cheeks
My breath it is too strong,
If I were to kiss your ruby lips,
You would not stay here long.
"So now go home, my pretty Susie,
And moan no more for me,
For you may moan to Eternity,
My face no more you'll see."
There can be no question of the affinity of these southern texts to our Maine fragment, and all are very close to the Motherwell versions (Child B and C). The former, stanzas 11, 12, says:
"What's this? what's this, Lady Margaret?" he says,
"What's this you want of me?"
"One sweet kiss of your ruby lips,
That's all I want of thee."
"My lips they are so bitter," he says,
"My breath it is so strong,
If you get one kiss of my ruby lips,
Your days will not be long."
(Child B, 11, 12)
Motherwell's text (child B), taken down from "widow Mccormick, January 19, 1825," must come from the same original which was dispersed to places as far apart as Maine, Kentucky, and North Carolina. Yet, although it was written down over a century ago, Motherwell's copy lacks some of the details, like "teaching the hounds to run," which are common to the American copies. These could not have come into the song after it reached this country, or they would not have appeared in sections which were so widely separated and practically without intercommunication. The inference is that these delails had already dropped out of the Motherwell versions before these were written down.
Therefore, the American texts are much older than Motherwell's, which are as old as any known to professor Child. There is no known American broadside or songbook which contains "The Two Brothers" and not only were all Professor Child's texts recorded in the nineteenth century, but even then some of them were already breaking down and had been crossed with other ballads, like "Edward," before they were transcribed.
It is impossible to assign an exact date to our Maine fragment, but it is known that it was one of the songs sung by Mary (Soper) Carr, born in Orland, June 29, 1793, the daughter of Justus and Elizabeth (Viles) Soper. It is a Viles family tradition that they brought their songs with them from Massachusetts, and the soper family claim that they brought theirs from England. If any songs can be called ''purely traditional" then are those of Mrs. (Soper) carr to be numbered among them.
The Maine Sopers trace their ancestry only to eighteenth-century immigrants. Yet their kin were here earlier. The oldest record is of the marriage of Joseph Soper of Boston, in 1656. (see appendix.) That was in the period of the great emigration to Massachusetts and to Virginia, so that, with early Sopers known to have been here, we need not be surprised at the discovery of the same text of a given ballad at the termini of both migration routes, -from Massachusetts, traveling northward and eastward to Maine; from Virginia, working southward and westward into the Appalachian mountains.
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1. words in brackets inserted by Mrs. Young to fill out the tune.
2 Child G, "John and William" was given in a fragment by Mr. W. W. Newell from New York, who said.: "I have heard it sung at a picnic by a whole earful of little girls." (Child I, 495.) Child G is somewhat modernized, but still is a good text, agreeing well with those with which we are dealing until it crosses with "Edward." It is probably a late importation, as John and William have exchanged names and it is John who stabs his brother in both Child Ga and Gb.