An Index to Borrowing in the Child Ballads of America
by Tristram P. Coffin
The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 62, No. 244 (Apr. - Jun., 1949), pp. 156-161
AN INDEX TO BORROWING IN THE CHILD BALLADS OF AMERICA
By TRISTRAM P. COFFIN
THE MANNER IN which material flows from one folk song to another is a phenomenon that has caught the eye of every student of balladry. In the field of Anglo-American folk song this flow assumes particular importance, for it is through a study of corruption that the reasons for the variants, versions, even stories, of certain ballads come to light and that much of the
miracle of folk art becomes clearer.
There is no way to account for the phenomenon of ballad corruption, because every instance possesses its own particular history. However, flow of ballad material constitutes a problem that every ballad scholar has to face. In my recent studies of the Child ballad in America, I was annoyed to find that no indexing of corruption had ever been made, and I set about to correct this lack. The following is an attempt to chart simply a large number of the corruptions that may be and have been found in the American Child texts. Exchange of actual lines, but not of proper names, refrains, or cliches is included. In certain cases, where the direction of change is doubtful, I have followed the opinions of Child, if expressed, and the editor of the work in which the particular text appears. In other cases I have been unable to identify specifically the song from or to which the material has come or gone. When the corrupting or corrupted song is a native American ballad or other British or American song, a typical title has been used.
The chart is so arranged that the titles of the corrupted and corrupting ballads are placed alphabetically (cross-indexed) in the second column. All flow of material is from left to right, and the reference, in every case referring to the corrupted text, is printed in the final column. The abbreviations used can be clarified by a consultation of the bibliography at the end of the article.
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1. A list of songs that have corrupted "James Harris" would include: "The False Young
Man," "The True Lover's Farewell," "The Rejected Lover," "The Wagoner's Lad," "Cold
Winter's Night," "Careless Love," and other songs.
2 A list of songs which have been corrupted by the "shoe my foot" stanzas of "The Lass of
Roch Royal" would include "Kitty Kline," "The False True Lover," "Carolina Mountains,"
"John Henry," "John Hardy," "Wild Bill Jones," "The Gamblin' Man," "I Truly Understand,"
"Careless Love," "The Foolish Girl," "My Dearest Dear," "The Storms are on the
Ocean," "The True Lover's Farewell," "The Rejected Lover," "Cold Winter's Night," "The
False Young Man," "The Irish Girl," "Turtle Dove," "Bright Day," a Negro dancing song,
"James Harris" (243), "Lord Randal" (12), and others.
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