Jinny Come Gentle- Young (ME) pre1929 Barry B; From: British Ballads from Maine
[My title- Barry and all's notes.]
Barry's and all's notes: When Mr. Priest sang the refrain, "Gentle Jinny fair Rose Marie" (see version A) he said that these words referred to the heroine of the ballad, but he seemed to think, and rightly, that there was something peculiar in the double name given her, each name being preceded by its own adjective.
In Mrs. Young's version there is a similar refrain, "Jinny, come gentle, Rose Marie," and in still another American text, that of Cox, from the south, we have "Gentle virginia my Rosy my Lee." It is significant also, that text F, as printed in the abridged Child, is a New England text, and that it has the refrain, "Gentle Jenny cried rosemaree." This text may throw some light on the probable corruptions undergone by the refrain in question.
In the Jourmal of American Folk-Lore, VII, 232, comment is made on the fact that in another child ballad, 1 B, the words "Juniper gentle (for gentian) and rosemary," constituting a plant-burden, have been taken for names of persons. And in the Journal of the Folk-song society, II, 12-15, Miss Lucy E. Broadwood, in a valuable note on plantbo, mentions the old superstition that plants were regarded' [1] as charms against demons. She says that when a demon disappeared from a song, the plant-burden survived. In the case before us, the ungentle wife may have been regarded as possessed of an evil spirit, so that not only the plant-burden, but also the beating would be part of an exorcising ceremony. We should then have, in "The Wife Wrapped in the Wether's Skin', (Child 277), and "The Farmer's Curst Wife" (Child 278), companion pieces. In the
former the demon is exorcised; in the latter, he meets his match in the person of the cursed wife herself.
The supposition that gentle Jenny used the old plant-burden to ward off the evil spirit, is borne out by the words in Child's refrain, "Gentle Jenny cried, rosemaree." But by Americans such incantations would, sooner or later, have been changed into something more sensible, and so the names of plants became the names of persons in our American texts. Child F may be a possible intermediary between the earlier English and the later American texts, and the word "cried" will then be significant.
B. [Jinny Come Gentle] Fragment recalled by Mrs. Susie Carr Young as a part of one of her Grandmother Carr's old ditties. Melody recorded by Mr. George Herzog. Hexatonic.
1 As Jinny came in from jogging his plough,
Jinny, come gentle, Rose Marie,
He says: "Dear wife, is my dinner done now?"
As the dew flies over the green vallee.
2 "Get you gone, you dirty dog!"
Jinny, come gentle, Rose Marie,
"If you want any dinner, go get it yourself,"
As the dew flies over the green vallee.
3 He threw his old wether skin o'er his wife's back,
Jinny, come gentle, Rose Marie,
And with his long goad-stick went whickerty-whack,
As the dew flies over the green vallee.
4 "I'll tell to my parents and to my kin,"
Jinny, come gentle, Rose Marie,
"How you've bruised my flesh and my skin,"
As the dew flies over the green vallee.