John of Hazelgreen- Herndon (VA) 1920 Davis E
[From Traditional Ballads of Virginia; Kyle Davis Jr.; 1929.
One area (although it was found in other locations) of Virginia became the repository for a version of this ballad. At the time Traditional Ballads was being completed (c.1928) there were no other versions of John of Hazelgreen collected in the US (that would change as Barry published a version from Maine in 1929).
George Foss, who wrote an excellent article titled, From White Hall to Bacon Hollow, collected an excellent version in 1961 from Robert Shiflett, who was Raz Shiflett's son (see also Davis H; collected from Raz). Here are some excerpts:
From White Hall to Bacon Hollow is about a place and about its culture and people. I have granted myself the author's indulgence of selecting a title significant in its double meaning. White Hall to Bacon Hollow is a stretch of twisting country road, Virginia route 810, crossing the line between Albemarle and Greene Counties.
The earliest settlers of importance to the area were members of the Brown family. The patriarch of the Virginia Browns was Benjamin Brown, who began acquiring land in Albemarle County in 1747. He amassed six thousand acres of what was to become known as Brown's Cove. Included in these holdings was a tract patented to him by King George III in 1750.
It is of importance at this point to mention Arthur Kyle Davis, Jr., who was a collector of ballads and folksongs specifically of Virginia. He was not a collector in the same sense as Sharp, that is a field worker and face-to-face gatherer of songs. He was more in the mold of Francis James Child, the great collector-editor of English and Scottish Popular Ballads, that is, he served to gather and organize, to sift and evaluate the field work of numerous amateur, hobbyist and professional collectors. As early as 1929 he produced Traditional Ballads of Virginia; in 1949 he published Folksongs of Virginia and More Traditional Ballads of Virginia, all three under the auspices of the Virginia Folklore Society. A courtly gentleman “of the old school,” he was professor of English literature at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville for a great span of time. It was professor Davis who was Paul Clayton Worthington's teacher at the University during the 1950's and inspired Paul's interest in balladry and folksong.
Two later collectors who visited and worked in the White Hall-Bacon Hollow area were Richard Chase and professor Winston Wilkinson whose manuscripts are now kept by the University of Virginia. They were the first collectors to record the songs of some of the finest singers in the region, Ella Shiflett and Victoria Shiflett Morris as early as 1935.
Some of the family names still found in northwest Albemarle County and Greene County date from pre-Revolutionary times: Brown, Frazier and Jones. Other names commonly found are Walton, Powell, Sandridge and Wood. But by far the most commonly found are Morris and Shiflett. This makes the tracing of relationships very difficult since various branches of the family are only very distantly related but share the same name. Robert Shiflett (designated “Raz's Robert,” i.e. Erasmus' son Robert, to distinguish him from the region's numerous other Robert Shifletts) speculates that the family was originally descended from French mercenaries brought over by Lafayette to aid the colonies in their War of Independence.
The Davis J version dates back to c. 1850. Below are the notes of Kyle Davis Jr. Title probably assigned by Stone, who had a habit of using generic titles.
R. Matteson 2014]
JOHN OF HAZELGREEN
(Child, No. 293)
The ten texts and three melodies here given seem to be the only traditional copies of this ballad to be printed from America. One repetitive text has been excluded. The Virginia variants A to I evidently belong to a single version which is not particularly close to any Child version, Virginia J, on the other hand, is fairly close to Child E and to the "Jock of Hazeldean" that Scott built upon the traditional Child E. The first stanza of all three is practically identical, but the beginning of the second Virginia stanza is more like the beginning of Scott's third stanza than like the traditional second stanza. But the traditional name "Hazelgreen" is retained for the hero and as the contributor assures us that the version was " known and sung in Louisa Co., Va., in the '50's," the song was surely, in spite of its semi-Scottish language, traditional in Virginia.
The story of the ballad is more fully told by the A to I variants, but even there it is a bit fragmentary. A walker discovers a fair maid in distress, and offers her his eldest son in marriage. She scorns his offer, saying that she longs for John of Hazelgreen, whom she describes in glowing terms. She rides to the town, where she is met by her lover with kisses and promises of fidelity. How much of the story has been dropped out in the Virginia versions will be sown by a comparison of this with the Child summary: "A gentleman overhears a damsel making a moan for Sir John of Hazelgreen. After some compliment on his part, and some slight information on hers, he tells her that Hazelgreen is married; then there's nothing for her to do, she says, but to hold her peace and die for him. The gentleman proposes that she shall let Hazelgreen go marry his eldest son, and be made a gay lady; she is too mean a maid for that, and anyway, had rather die for the object of her affection Still she allows the gentieman to take her up behind him on his horse, and to buy clothes for her at Biggar, though all the time dropping tears for Hazelgreen. After the shopping they mourn again, and at last they come to the gentleman's place, when the son runs out to welcome his father. The son is young Hazelgreen, who takes the maid in his arms and kisses off the still falling tears. The father declares that the two shall be married the next day, and "the young man shall have the family land." In comparison with the Virginia narrative, the Virginia ballad is simply a maid's lamentation ended by a lovers' union.
These Virginia variants are reported in Bulletin, Nos. 3-7, 10, No other American texts have been printed.
E. "John of Hazelgreen." Collected by Mr. John Stone. Sung by Miss Ruby Herndon, of Mt. Fair, Va. Albemarle County. November 3, 1920. With music. "This song was given to me by Miss Ruby Herndon, one of my pupils. She got it from her mother, who heard it years ago. They sang it for me together" (Mr. Stone).
1 As I was walking out one wondering morn
Down by the greenwood side,
It there I spied a handsome lady,
"I'm all alone," she cried.
2 "You are welcome home, You are welcome home,
You are welcome home with me,
For you may have my oldest son
A husband for to be.
3 "I do not want your oldest son,
He's neither a lord nor a king;
I never intend to be the bride of but one:
That's John over the Hazelgreen.
4 "His shoulders are broad, his arms are long,
He's the fairest of all the king;
His hair swings down like the links of gold,
John over the Hazelgreen."
5 Thirty times he kissed her cheeks,
Forty times her chin,
And fifty times her ruby red lips,
And let the lady in
6 He stepped into his carriage gay
And rode off to the town;
John jumped over the Hazelgreen
And helped his lady down.