I Gave My Love a Cherry- Franklin (NC) 1929 Henry
Folk Songs from the Southern Highlands - A Collection Of Traditional Folk Songs & Ballads, Collected & Edited By Mellinger Edward Henry, 1933.
I GAVE MY LOVE A CHERRY
(Cf. Capt. Wedderburn's Courtship, Child, No. 46) This riddle-song is included here because of its connection with the ballad, Captain Wedderburn's Courtship. Barry-Eckstorm-Smyth (p. 99) discuss the relation of the song to the ballad, pointing out that "It is not a ballad at all, but a series of riddles in verse form." It is allied to Child, No. 46, therefore, only in as much as the ballad has taken over some lines of the old riddle-song. The oldest known version of the song has been found in a fifteenth century manuscript. This version is printed in Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads, I, 415; compare The Cambridge Poets series, edited by Helen Child Sargent and George Lyman Kittredge, page 646. The song is better known in American tradition than the ballad. See Tol-man, Journal, XXIX, 157—158; J. P. MacCaskey, Franklin Square Song Collection, p. 66 (New York, 1881); Bradley Kincaid's My Favorite Mountain Ballads and Old-Time Songs, Chicago, 1928, p. 15, with which the present song is nearly identical, but there are sufficient verbal changes to warrant the printing here of the latter. Cf. also Frank Shay's More Pious Friends and Drunken Companions, p. 126.
For American texts of Captain Wedderburn's Courtship, see Barry -Eckstorm-Smyth, pp. 93—99; Mackenzie, Ballads, p. 14, reprinted from Quest, pp. 108—no and from Journal, XXIII, 377; Barry, Journal, XXIV, (reprinted in Barry-Eckstorm -Smyth, p. 97). Mr. Barry writes (Nov. 14, 1931): "There is one more to add, a fragment with the air, from Vermont,' Captain Wedderburn's Courtship is a late ballad; the first record of it in print according to Motherwell is 1785. Child was never able to find a copy of this print.
A
Obtained from Miss Mary Franklin, Crossnore, Avery County, North Carolina, July, 1929.
1. I gave my love a cherry without a stone;
I gave my love a chicken without a bone;
I gave my love a ring without an end;
I gave my love a baby with no crying.
2. How can there be a cherry without a stone?
How can there be a chicken without a bone ?
How can there be a ring without an end?
How can there be a baby with no crying?
3. A cherry, when it's blooming, it has no stone; A chicken, when it's pipping, it has no bone; A ring, when it's rolling, it has no end;
A baby, when it's sleeping, has no crying.
B
"Riddle Song." The song was recorded near Cumberland Gap, Tennessee, by Ruth Bagwell, a student in Lincoln Memorial University.
1. I gave my love a cherry without any stone;
I gave my love a chicken without any bone;
I gave my love a thimble without any ring;
I gave my love a baby without any crying.
2. How can there be a cherry without any stone?
How can there be a chicken without any bone ?
How can there be a thimble without any ring ?
How can there be a baby without any crying ?
3. The cherry in the bloom, it's without any stone;
"The chicken in the shell, it's without any bone;
The thimble when it's rolling, it's without any ring;
The baby when it's sleeping, it's not crying.
C
Obtained from Miss Ronnie Johnson, of the same address as A. This is the same text. The second line of the third stanza has "peeping" for "pipping".