Black Jack Daley- Dean (MO) 1905 Belden A
[From: Old-Country Ballads in Missouri. II by H. M. Belden; The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 19, No. 75 (Oct. - Dec., 1906), pp. 281-299. Also in Ballads and Songs, 1940, version A.
R. Matteson 2012, 2015]
Ballads and Songs Collected by the Missouni Folk-Song Society Notes:
The Gypsy Laddie
(Child 200)
Of the twelve versions of this ballad recognized by Child (five Scotch and two from the north of England, one Irish, one from Shropshire, one from gypsies, one from Massachusetts, and one from New York) the northern broadside, G, is apparently the source of or at least the nearest akin to the American texts. It was also printed by Catnach, and had sufficient popularity in this country to be burlesqued in Dewitt's Forget-Me-Not Songster (New York, 1972, p. 223). Child gives no analogs from other languages ; but since Child's work was completed Olrik, in his continuation of Grundtvig's work, has published (DgF No. 369) a Scandinavian ballad in which a proud girl who has refused princes and noblemen is fooled into marrying a roaming 'skinner,' the Danish equivalent of gypsy or tinker, and ends as a tinker's trull. The jingling refrain commonly found in American versions (as in Miss Laws's text, below) I have not found in British texts. The compelling charm of gypsy music (regarding which see
JEFDSS II 83-91) is fairly well retained in America, north and south, as are also the shoes (or boots) of Spanish leather; the latter derive from the English broadside. But what has apparently most pleased American singers is the contrast between domesticity, security, and luxury on the one hand and the homeless poverty of the wandering gypsies on the other. Few texts miss the comparison between the warm feather bed and the cold, cold ground. Texts have been recorded from tradition since Child's time in Aberdeenshire (LL 126-9; also in Ord), Oxfordshire (FSUT 122), Berkshire (FSUT 120), and Somerset (FSSom 18); and on this side of the water in Newfoundland (FSN 13-6, BSSN 38-9), Nova Scotia (JAFL XVIII 191), Maine (BBM 269-77), Vermont (GGMS 7B-9, VFSB 220-1), Massachusetts (JAFL XVIII 191-3, XXX 324-5), Rhode Island (JAFL XVIII 194), Nantucket (by way of New Jersey, JAFL XVIII 193), Pennsylvania (JAFL XXIV 846), Virginia (TBV 423-31, SharpK I 294-9, SCSM 219-21), West Virginia (FSS 180-6), Kentucky (FSKM 14-7, SharpK I 237-9), Tennessee (ETWVMB 59-60, sharpK I 233-4,236, FSSH 110-2), North Carolina (SharpK I 234-6, 237, 219, FSSH 112, BMFSB 6-7, TBSSG 4-5, SCSM 216-9), South Carolina (SCSM 221-3), Mississippi (FSM 117-9), Ohio (JAFL: XXV 174-5), Illinois (JAFL XLVIII 385-6, TSSI 140-1, SCSM 223-4), Iowa (MAFLS XXIX 11), and Missouri. It is given without precise location in FSSM 4-5.
BLACK JACK DALEY- Contributed by Finis Dean of Cedar County, whose mother used to sing it. Some of the stanzas having slipped his memory, he has supplied connections in parentheses. [Given to Belden in 1905]
Black Jack Daley a-crossing the sea,
He sang and he sang most beautifully;
He sang and he made the green woods ring,
And he charmed the heart of a lady,
And he charmed the heart of a lady.
"Oh, will you leave your house and lands,
Oh, will you leave your baby,
Oh, will you leave your own true lover
And go with Black Jack Daley?"
"Oh yes, I'll leave my house and lands,
Oh yes, I'll leave my baby,
Oh yes, I'll leave my own true lover
And go with Black Jack Daley."
(Own true lover finds it out.)
"Go saddle up my coal black pony
And saddle her up in a hurry,
I'll ride all night and I'll ride all day
And I'll overtake my lady."
(He overtakes her.)
"You take off those high-heeled shoes
Made of Spanish leather,
You put on these low-heeled shoes
And we 'll walk the road together."
"Last night you lay on a warm feather bed
By the side of me and the baby;
To-night you 'll lie on the cold damp ground
By the side of Black Jack Daley,
By the side of Black Jack Daley."