Hangsman- Carpenter (VA) 1920 Davis N
[From Davis, Traditional Ballads of Virginia, 1929. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2015]
27. THE MAID FREED FROM THE GALLOWS
(Child, No. 95)
THE first American text of this ballad to be printed came from Virginia (via North Carolina). Miss Backus, who transmitted it to Professor Child describes it as " an old English song, in the Yorkshire dialect, brought over to Virginia before the Revolution." Child includes it in V, 296, and Professor Kittredge has made it widely known by including it and discussing it in his Introduction to the one-volume edition of English and Scottish Popular Ballads, pp. XXVI. It is this version that, except for its Yorkshire dialect, most of the Virginia variants resemble. In language they most resemble Child B, though their quite universal use of the term "hangman" would link them to the Child fragment G, where alone does the term appear in Child. There is no trace among the Virginia variants of the strong ending of the Scottish version (Child I), in which the released prisoner turns upon her heartless relatives and flays them with curses. At least five Virginia texts (E, F, G, H, and I) are like the version of Child III, 516, in that the prisoner is a man, not a maid.
Child suggests that "this may be a modern turn of the story, arising from the disposition to mitigate a tragic tale." And three Virginia texts (I, J, and K), like Child F, G, and H, give a suggestion of the offense for which the prisoner is in danger of hanging. But despite these other affiliations, the main resemblance is with the Child Y, 296, version. The thirty-one texts and five melodies collected in Virginia show the popularity of the ballad in the state, where it is generally known as "The Hang- man's Tree," or "The Gallows Tree," or "Hangman," or "Freed from the Gallows," or "The Maid Saved," and by various Negro and other perversions of these titles, such as "The Hangerman's Tree," "Hangsman," and " Hanger-man Tree," as well as by its Child title. The ballad is a special favorite among the Negroes, who have all but appropriated it to their own uses. Not only do they sing it; they act it as well.
Several records of its dramatization in Virginia are in the files of the Virginia Folk-Lore Society. Possibly the best account is found in a letter from Miss Mary I. Bell, formerly a teacher in the State Normal School of Harrisonburg, Va., dated May 27, 1913. The performance was at Scottsville, in Albemarle County, only some twenty miles from the University of Virginia:
It was a long time ago- probably twenty-five years - at the Colored school-house, as a part of the closing exercises of the school. We young people always attended these exercises if possible, because we were sure of being highly entertained. This particular play I remember better than any other I ever saw there because we thought it so very funny, though plainly intended to be so very sad. They had on the stage a rather rude representation of the upper part of a scaffold. A rope the size of a man's wrist was thrown over the cross-beam, one end being tied around the neck of a most dejected looking girl and the other end held in the hand of a middle-aged man of sternest aspect. She alone did any singing. The apparently endless procession of relatives recited their parts very glibly until at last when her "true love" arrived he sang his part and then the lovers ended the play with a joyous duet. I did not know then that it was a ballad.
The Negroes use the ballad as a game also. Mrs. Robert R. Morton, wife of the former executive of Hampton Institute, wrote to Dr. Smith, Dec. 2, 1915, saying: "when I was a child in Gloucester county, they used it as a game. And Mr. Stone reports of one of the tunes of the ballad (M), "The old time Negroes used it as the music to one of their games. Three instances of this kind were found in Nelson County." The words of some of the Negro versions, such as E and K, are highly entertaining. Dr. Smith attributes the popularity of this ballad among the Colored folk to "the adaptability of the theme and the easily remembered framework of the stanzas, qualities that mark the intersection of the ballad proper and the Negro camp-meeting song as types." For a fuller consideration of its use among the Negroes of the South, see Scarborough, Chap. II, pp. 34-43. Through the courtesy of Dr. Smith, Miss Scarborough presents a good deal of Virginia material in her discussion.
But white people as well as Negroes are known to have used the ballad as a play and as a game in Virginia. Mrs. James A. Otey writes from Montgomery County., February 21, 1916: "The apple- tree still is here at Walnut-Spring where the white children acted and sang this ballad as I have taken it down - about the- year 1867, they think. It was given to me by two old scholars of the private school here. They never saw it in print." (See Virginia J.) compare Child F, which is a children's game.
The wide currency of this ballad in Continental literature has been pointed out by Child, as has the fact that most of the English versions are defective and distorted in comparison with the European. Seldom is any explanation given of the danger in which the heroine (sometimes hero) finds herself (himself). In many versions in other languages, however , "a young woman has fallen into the hands of corsairs; father, mother, brother, sister,"refuse to pay ransom, but her lover, in one case husband, stickles at no price which may be necessary to retrieve her," says Child. "Another tradition," says Miss Scarborough, " holds that the story is all allegory, the golden ball signifying a maiden's honor, which when lost can be retrieved to her only by her lover. [Gilchrist 1915]. That would explain the sentence of death; for, in old times, death by burning or hanging was the penalty for unchastity on the part of a maid, or wife." Miss Scarborough gives also a more dialetic Negro interpretation, involving a lost golden ball and various magician's tricks. Of the three Virginia texts which attempt any explanation (I, J, and [), one has the sub-title, "The Girl to Be Hanged for Stealing a-Comb," the second also contains the inquiry whether the golden comb has been found, the third introduces the golden ball and the contributor attempts a fuller reconstruction of the story, as follows:
"A man received a golden ball and promised never to part with it. Later he gave it to his sweetheart, but when questioned refused to tell what he did with it. He is to be hanged for this and is saved by his sweetheart who returns the golden ball."
As a guide to the variants following, A to D are normal but interesting Virginia texts; E-to I reverse the sexes of the prisoner and rescuer; I to K give some explanation or inkling of the prisoner's offense; L to O are comprised but complete variants; P to V continue the series A to D, of normal Virginia texts with interesting variations. Nine variants have been excluded as adding little or nothing to the material included. They may be described as normal texts without significant variations from those included.
As appendices, for purposes of comparison, are given three texts which drifted in to the Virginia Folk-Lore Society from three other Southern states (Appendices A, B, and C). A is a quite different version, in which the victim is rescued by the mother; B has interesting verbal changes and a man as victim; C addresses the hangman as "Ropeman," and has other verbal changes. They are from North Carolina, Florida, and Mississippi, respectively.
For other American texts, see Barry, No. 25; Brown, p. 9 (North Carolina); Bulletin, Nos. 2-6; 8-10; Campbell and Sharp, No. 24 (Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia); Child Y, 296 (Virginia via North Carolina), 417 (North Carolina, melody only); Cox, No. 18; Hudson, No. 15 (and, Journal, XXXIX, 105; Mississippi); Journal, XIX, 22 (Hutchinson, Virginia, from English and Scottish, Popular Ballads. Sargent and Kittredge, p.xxv); XXI, 56 (Kittredge, West Virginia); XXIV, 97 (Barry, melody only, reprinted from the Hudson MS. No. 355); XXVI, 175 (Kittredge, Massachusetts, fragment); XXX, 319 (Kittredge, New York, Missouri, text and melody, North Carolina); Pound, Ballads, No. 131 Sandburg, p. 72 (South Carolina); Scarborough, pp. 35 (Virginia), 39 (Florida, text and melody), 41 (Louisiana); C. A. Smith, pp. 6 (North Carolina), 10 (Virginia, fragments); Reed Smith, No. 10; Reed Smith, Ballads, No. 10; Wyman and Brockway, p.44. For additional references, see Cox, p. 115; Journal, XXXI 318. For a recent consideration of this particular ballad, see Reed Smith, Ballads, Chapter VIII, "Five Hundred Years of 'The Maid Freed from the Gallows.' "
N. "Hangsman." Collected by Mr. John Stone. Sung by Mrs. J. D. Carpenter. Madison County. November 3, 1920. With music.
1 "Hangsman, hangsman, hold your rope,
And hold it for a while;
I think I see my father coming
Many and a many a mile.
2. "Father, father, have you any gold?
For gold will set me free;
Or have you come to see me hung
Beneath this hangsman's tree?"
3 "No, no, no, I have no gold,
For gold won't set you free;
Yes, I've come to see you hung
Beneath the hangsman's tree."
4 "Mother, mother, have you any gold," etc. [1]
5 "No, no, no, I have no gold," etc.
6 "Brother, brother, have you any gold," etc.
7 "No, no, no, I have no gold," etc.
8 "Sister, sister, have you any gold," etc.
9 " O no, no, no, I have no gold," etc.
10 " True love, true love, have you any gold," etc.
11 " Yes, yes, yes, I have plenty of gold,
For gold will set you free;
I have not come to see you hung
Beneath the hangsman's tree."
1. According to Mr. Stone's manuscript, the first stanza addressed to the "hangsman" is not repeated for the relatives who come after the father. But more probably he merely failed to indicate its repetition for the later relatives. The eleven stanzas would thus become fifteen.