Down by the Greenwood Side-e-o: Millet (ME) 1934; Barry BFSSNE
[From BFSSNE Volume 8; British Ballads, 1934. Designated Maine I, although Maine G is a compilation and not from tradition (see BBM, 1929). Barry's informative notes are found following the ballad text. See also Barry's notes in BBM.
R. Matteson 2014]
THE CRUEL MOTHER.
(Child 20)
Maine I. "Down by the Greenwood Side-e-o." Text and melody sent in, January 26, 1934, by Mrs. Susan M. Lewis, Brownville, Maine, as sung by Fannie Millett, of Brownville, later, Mrs. Fannie Millett Bradman.
1. As I was pacing father's hall,
All alone, aloney-o;
I saw three infants playing ball,
Down by the greenwood lide-e-o.
2 One's name was Peter, and the other's name was Paul,
And the other little infant had no name at all.
3 Said I to this infant, "Will you be mine?
I'll dress you in silks and satins fine."
4 Then said this infant, "When I was thine,
You dressed me in neither coarse nor fine."
5 Then she took her pen-knife long and sharp,
And pierced it through his tender heart.
6 And then she dug a little grave,
and neither sheet, nor blanket gave.
7 Then she stuck her pen-knife in the clay,
And there it sticks to this very day.
We suspect that originally, stanzas 5-7, describing the murder, preceded stanzas 1-4, describing the apparition of the slain infant, guided to heaven by St. Peter and Paul, in the guise of children (cf. Dives and Lazarus, 10-11). Mrs. Lewis's version of this fascinating old ballad is both textually and musically unique in Northern tradition. None of Child's nineteen versions mention the two saints: of American texts beside Maine I, only Sharp-Karpeles B, B; L, 2, from Georgia and North Carolina respectively, have this trait. A number of versions, both old-country and American, have three babes in the story, due to misunderstanding of the part of the saints in guiding the unbaptised, and therefore nameless infant whose salvation has been effected by "baptism in its own blood." Only Maine I makes the slain babe nameless; Sharp-Karpeles B, L, make it naked. Stanza 7 is a link between Maine I and the Super Family version (Maine A, 6, British Ballads from Maine, p. 81), Child Q (ESPB., III, 502), Sharp-Karpeles B, Newfoundland B, 6 (Greenleaf Mansfield, p. 16), Creighton, A, 8-9 (Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia, p. 4).
The melody is a set of the Balgonie form of the Scando-Scotic after Biniorie, belonging originally to The Two Sisters (FSSNE, Bulletin B, p. lB; 2, p. 11; cf. Greig, Last Leaves, p. 22); by its form it appears as a connecting link with the music to the Scoto-Irish tradition of the same ballad. We have already called attention to such arbitrary tune-substitution, with textual re-creation as a by-product, in the case of the "Edinburgh" type of Scottish tradition of The Two Sisters (FSSNE., Bulletin 3, pp. 13-14), sung to an air belonging originally to The Cruel Mother. The Scando-Scotic air associated with the "Binnorie,' type, will not fit the text of the "Edinburgh" type. So strongly is ballad tradition indivldualised against the habit-pattern of the folk.
The eyidence is cumulative that the history of The Cruel Mother is not to be separated from that of The Maid, and the Palmer (Child 21) which belongs to the Mary Magdalene cycle. The Magdalene, whose sins include infanticide, is saved by penance, as is the cruel mother in Miss Creighton's unique text (op.cit., p. 5, stanza 17). Moreover, the burial under oak leaves, Maine B, 4, lO, is a clear reminiscence of the Magdalene's vision of the leaves fouling the water which she offers to her Lord (Child, ESPB., I, 230). The Reformation effected a revolution in popular religious concepts: its influence on balladry is a subject much needing investigation.
P. B.