George J. Edwards (England-VT)
[There are two George Edwards in New England area; one from NY and the other Vermont. This is the ballad singer George J. Edwards from Vermont.]
[George J. Edwards was an informant for Barry, Flanders and I assume others. He was born in England and moved to Vermont, his father's wife was from Vermont. Edwards is well educated (read his letters below) and I assume he studied the ballads in detail after some encouragement from Barry and Flanders around 1931-1932. According to The Flanders Collection (see below) Barry supplied him with some printed ballad texts from Maine (BBM was published in 1919) and elsewhere (I know he also used Cox's version from FSS, 1925).
Edwards letters to Flanders (below) give an overview of his family background. A few bits and pieces of Edwards ballads are the only traces of certain Child ballads found in America. Unfortunately like Lena Borne Fish (New Hampshire), he also wrote ballads based on print and these regrettably are not stated as ballad recreations-- even though they obviously are. It is the responsibility of the collector to ascertain these facts in evidence and to avoid doing so is arguably going beyond misrepresentation to bordering on fraud.
For some of his "ballads" (Edward Ballad; Lord Arnold) he was asked to supply a melody which he obviously created and the melodies appear to not be traditional (See Bronson's comment on The Edwards Ballad- a compilation of Two Brothers/Edward).
Examples of his ballad recreations are include "The Edwards Ballad," "Lord Arnold" and his version of "The Golden Vanity" (Sir Walter Raleigh built a ship). I have not examined Edwards repertoire but its clear he learned ballads from his family and from print sources. According to The Flanders Ballad Collection, Barry sent Edwards texts of ballads to help him job his memory.
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Ballads Migrant in New England, Helen Hartness Flanders and Marguerite Olney, (1953), Farrar, Strauss and Young: New York, pg. 75-76
…We have innumerable songs dating from Elizabethan days. How do we know? Certain ballads were quoted in snatches, in Beaumont and Fletcher’s “The Knight and the Burning Pestle,” in 1611. This is true of “King William and Sweet Margaret” charmingly sung by Mrs. Winifred Haskins of Savoy, Massachusetts, and by Asa Davis of Milton, Vermont; true also of “Lord Banner” which we have found in northern New England states. The version of the latter which seems to have the longest family history was furnished as “Lord Arnold” by Mr. George Edwards of Burlington, Vermont. When I first met Mr. Edwards he told me that his grandfather had always taught the border ballads to his own family, as history. As one example only of the many instances where we record genealogical data for the ballad, I quote from his letter:
The song has been handed down from one to another in our family for nearly two hundred years as follows. My great grandfather, Henry W. Edwards, whose wife was Margaret Douglas of Scotland, was born in Westchester, England, in 1739 and died in 1820, my grandfather, William H. Edwards whose wife was Martha Bennings, a Northumberland girl, was born in the town of Seaton, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, in 1785 and died on the second day of July 1881, the day that President Garfield was shot.
My father, Henry R. Edwards whose wife was an American woman, a native of Vermont, by the name of Wetherell, was also born in the town of Seaton, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, in 1826 and died in 1895.
This song was passed down from my great grandfather, or grandmother, I do not know which, to my grandfather, who in turn taught it to my father, and also to me, as he did many other songs including several of the so-called “border songs.” This is a record for the song that I think few could equal.
Again, it is a matter of history that the royal court was held at Winchester, in the county of Hampshire, in the South of England, prior to the year one thousand, and was known and referred to as the Hampshire Court. It was, however, removed to Westminster by Edward the Confessor for a comparatively short time but was again restored to its former location in Hampshire by King William the Conqueror about 1068 and remained there some time, during the reign of Henry I and Henry II.
Referring to the verse that reads as follows: “Lord Arnold has gone to the Hampshire Court King Henry for to see” seems to me better and more appropriate than anything offered in the other versions. The description of the foot page’s journey to the court is much more natural and lucid than anything the other selections give. Again, as follows, when Lord Arnold arrived at his castle, “Lord Arnold he summoned his merry men all, by one’s, by two’s and by three’s, he ordered them not a drum should be beat, nor a bugle sounded be.” What could be more natural, or plainly stated than this? It seems to me the other versions suffer, in comparison with this.
Again, “Lord Arnold strode through the castle halls and opened the door so wide, they did not know that Lord Arnold had come, till he stood by their bed-side.” Or this, when Motta Grow answered Lord Arnold’s order to arise, “Must I arise, said Mottha Grow, and fight you for my life, while you have a glittering sword at your side and I have not a knife.” And Lord Arnold’s answer, “Yes, I have a sword, here at my side, and others in their place, and you shall have the best one of them and I will take the worst.” The other selections give it as two swords by his side. I never knew of heard of a man wearing two swords at one time, did you?
I never heard this piece sung by anybody outside of my own family and was greatly surprised to learn that it was so widely scattered.
November 1, 1933 /s/ George J. Edwards
Thus we have a family tradition which, authentic history, or no, casts its own illumination on a ballad. Another instance is given regarding the two verses Mr. Edwards remembered of “The Rose of England” from the singing of his grandfather, Mr. William Edwards. He had been told that the Red Rose was Henry VII. Richard was called the “White Boar.” He slew the Red Rose and prophesied that the Red Rose would bloom again. The Earl of Granby took the nephew and hid him in Northumberland. Later he took him to Brittany and kept him there until of age. When they returned to England, the Earl of Saxon “the Blue Boar” fought Richard “the White Boar” and slew him. The the Red Rose bloomed again.
In 1937, I was told by the ballad authority, Phillips Barry, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, that the “Rose of England”- though in the Percy MS- had never been recovered in oral tradition. Incomplete as this is, it should be appreciated thus. The title of this ballad is quoted in a play by Fletcher in 1639.
Another extremely rare ballad was handed down many generations in Mr. Edward’s family as “The Trooper and the Turk.” In the Child Collection a Scottish form is known as “John Thompson and the Turk.” The Northumberland version should be unique to scholars in that it ends differently than the Scottish one.
Also from the Douglas branch of his family, Mr. Edwards recalled the “Edward Ballad.” His grandfather always thought the tragedy occurred at Roslin Castle, one of the famous old castles near Edinburgh, Scotland. A genealogy was compiled by Father Hay from genealogical records from the time of William the Conqueror in English and Latin of the St. Clair family. This gives no generation in which there were two brothers, Edward and John…
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An Index to the Field Recordings in the Flanders Ballad Collection at Middlebury College
Middlebury, Vermont
Another singer with whom Flanders and Barry worked was George Edwards of Burlington, Vermont. In 1933 and 1934, he contributed rarely heard versions of British ballads including "The Bonny Earl of Murray" and "Edward Ballad" ("The Twa Brothers"). It was Phillips Barry's practice to send copies of British and Maine song texts to Mr. Edwards, hoping to help him remember other songs. Helen Flanders in her own field work later used this method of jogging a singer's memory.
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1 This letter is revealing, as it demonstrates how and why an informant will change a song. The stanzas referred to are noted. Edwards' placing of them in the letter corresponds with their position in the text as he originally sent it. [footnote by Flanders]
Dear Mrs. Flanders:
Burlington, Vermont
December 9, 1933
About fifteen minutes ago I received a letter from Mrs. Fannie H. Eckstorm and containing a proof sheet of the "Lord Arnold" ballad that I sent to you, and which she has just had published in the Bangor Daily News. She informs me that you requested her to do this and I want you to know how much I appreciate your thoughtfulness for this pleasure to me, also for her kindness in acceding to your request.
You will recollect that the copy I sent to you was as I used it many years ago. There are, however, six other verses that belong to this ballad as I learned it from my grandfather and which I have omitted for various reasons as follows:
There is a verse between the thirteenth and fourteenth stanzas, as your copy reads, that I sent to you, dealing with a promised reward. from Lord Arnold to the foot page, if what he said was true, and which I thought altogether too generous for the services rendered and so left it out.
Again between the sixteenth and seventeenth verses a stanza that has to do with the bugle call, which I noticed that Mrs. Eckstorm misses and asks about, and which I thought superfluous and hence did not use it. Then again, between the eighteenth and nineteenth verses, there are two stanzas missing which, owing to the sentiment expressed in them, I did not like to use in a mixed audience, the reason for which you will readily see when you read them.
The above missing verses I am sending to you with this letter, but the last two, which should come between the sixth and seventh verses, well, perhaps I will include them, but I am quite sure that you will think as I do that they are incongruous, and to me they seem to disrupt or at least to detract from the even progression of the theme of the ballad that runs so nicely from the beginning to its culmination.
In recording ballads on dictaphone, do you want the entire ballad or a verse from each?
Cordially,
/s/ Geo. Edwards.
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