House Carpenter- Buckner (NC) 1916 Sharp B
[From: English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians; Comprising 122 Songs and Ballads, and 323 Tunes With Lyrics & sheet Music; Collected by Olive Dame Campbell and Cecil J. Sharp, published 1917. Sharp's No. 29. is titled, The Daemon Lover. I've changed it to the more appropriate title- House Carpenter.
R. Matteson 2013]
Notes: No. 29. The Daemon Lover.
Texts without tunes:—Child, No. 243.
Texts with tunes:—Journal of the Folk-Song Society, iii., 84. Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Appendix xv., tune 1. Songs of the West, 2nd ed., No. 76. American variants: —Journal of American Folk-Lore, xviii., 207; xix., 295; xx., 257; xxvi., 360; xxv., 274 (with tune). Broadside by H. De Marsan, New York. Musical Quarterly, January, 1916, p. 18.
The Daemon Lover (House Carpenter)
1 Well met, well met my own true love
Well met, well met says he.
I've just returned from the salt water sea,
And it's all for the sake of thee.
2 We've met, we've met, my old true love,
We've met, we've met, says she,
I have just married a house-carpenter,
A nice young man is he.
3 If you'll forsake your house-carpenter
And go along with me,
I'll take you where the grass grows green
On the banks of sweet Tennessee.
4 She picked up her tender little babe
And kisses give it three.
Stay here, stay here, my tender little babe,
And keep your pa company.
5 They hadn't been a-sailing but about two weeks,
I'm sure it was not three,
Till this fair damsel began for to weep,
She wept most bitterly.
6 O what are you weeping for, my love?
Is it for my gold or store ?
Or is it for your house-carpenter,
Whose face you'll see no more ?
7 I'm neither weeping for your gold,
Nor neither for your store,
But I'm weeping for my tender little babe
Whose face I'll see no more.
8 What banks, what banks before us now
As white as any snow?
It's the banks of Heaven, my love, she replied,
Where all good people go.
9 What banks, what banks before us now
As black as any crow?
It's the banks of hell, my love, he replied,
Where I and you must go.
10 They hadn't been sailing but about three weeks,
I'm sure it was not four,
Till that fair ship begin for to sink,
She sank and riz' no more.