Captain, Captain, Tell me True- Junius Davis (NC) 1915 Brown C
[From Brown Collection of NC Folklore Volume 2, Ballads, 1952. Their (Belden and all) notes follow.
R. Matteson 2017]
Brown Collection Notes:
104 The Sailor Boy
This song was printed by Catnach and Such and probably by other ballad printers in England in the last century and is widely known and sung. See BSM 186, and add to the references there given Maine (MWS 56-9), Virginia (FSV 108-11, 118), North Carolina (BMFSB 24-5, SFLQ v 146), Arkansas (OFS I 300), Missouri (OFS I 296-300), Ohio (BSO 97-103), Indiana (BSI 269-70), Illinois (JAFL XL 235-6), and Michigan (BSSM 94, blended with 'The Butcher Boy'). Barry listed it among the ballads in his collection from the North Atlantic States but did not print it. Like other items of the folk song of unhappy love its content is likely to vary; with its central images of the girl bidding her father build her a boat and later demanding of the sailors she meets news of her sailor boy may be combined motives from 'The Butcher Boy,' 'Little Sparrow,' 'The Lass of Roch Royal,' or an elaborate preliminary story may be provided as in version L below.
C. 'Oh, Captain, Captain, Tell me True.' Junius Davis of Wilmington, New Hanover county, reported the following in 1915. Only one of the three stanzas really belongs to 'The Sailor Boy' ; the other two have been imported (the second with something of a wrench) from 'The Butcher Boy.'
1 'Oh, captain, captain, tell me true.
Does my sweet William sail with you?'
*Oh. no, oh, no, he is not here;
He is drownded in some deep, I fear.*
2 The postboy, he came riding by
And spied her on a tree so high.
He took an ax and cut her down,
And on her breast these words he found:
3 'Go, dig my grave both long and deep.
Place a marvil stone at my head and feet
And on my breast a turkle dove,
To show to the world that I died for love.'