Gypsy Davy- Gwynne (TN) 1916 Sharp E
[My title. Single stanza from: English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, collected by Cecil J. Sharp also Olive Dame Campbell. Edited by Maud Karpeles, Volume I, published 1917, 1932. Notes from 1932 edition follow, then Sharp's diary entry.
R. Matteson 2015]
Notes No. 33. The Gypsy Laddie.
Texts without tunes:—-Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, No. 200. C. S. Burne's Shropshire Folk-Lore, p. 550. Gavin Greig's Folk-Song of the North-East, ii, art. 110. Irish and English broadsides. Garret's Merrie Book o' Garlands, vol. i. A. Williams's Folk Songs of the Upper Thames, p. 120. Journal of American Folk-Lore, xix. 294; xxiv. 346; xxv. 171-5. Broadside by H. de Marsan, New York (a comic parody).
Texts with tunes:—-Songs of the West, 2nd ed., No. 50. Folk Songs from Somerset, No. 9 (also published English Folk Songs, Selected Edition, i. 13, and One Hundred English Folk-Songs, p. 13). Gavin Greig's Last Leaves, No. 60. Scots Musical Museum, ii, No. 181. Cox's Folk Songs of the South, pp. 130 and 524. Journal of American Folk-Lore, xviii. 191 ; xxii. 80 (tune only) ; xxx. 323. British Ballads from Maine, p. 269. Davis's Traditional Ballads of Virginia, pp. 423 and 590. McGill's Folk Songs of the Kentucky Mountains, p. 15. Sandburg's American Songbag, p. 311.
Version A is published with pianoforte accompaniment in Folk Songs of English Origin, 2nd Series.
The first two lines of the second stanza of text A provide a good instance of the stereotyped idiom of the ballad. Owing to the almost invariable description of a 'steed' as 'milk-white' the term has come to lose its literal significance, and in the mind of the singer a 'milk-white steed' means merely a horse. Similarly the folk will sing without any sense of contradiction of a 'false true lover.'
Sharp's diary 1916 page 268. Tuesday 5 September 1917 - Rocky Fork — Alleghany
Got luggage off at 7, and then started to walk over the mountains to Alleghany after taking down a good song from the postman first. Called on Mrs Gwynne on the way and got 3 or 4 songs from her. At Devil’s Fork called on Minta Carter who told me to look up a blind girl, Linnie Landers, between there & Carman, in the forest. This we did & got 5 good songs from her. Arrived at Alleghany about 3, changed, called on Hamiltons and wrote out songs before dinner & after dinner. Arrange to go to Spillcorn tomorrow & Asheville on Thursday.
E. [Gypsy Davy] Sung by Mrs. KITTY GWYNNE at Rocky Fork, Tenn., Sept. 5, 1916
Hexatonic. Mode 1, b.
I once had houses, riches and lands,
I once had money plenty;
But now I've come to an old straw pad
And the gypsies all a round me.
Rattie turn a-gypsy, gypsy,
Rattie turn a-gypsy Davy.