Lady Margaret- S. Hensley (KY) 1917 Sharp MS; Bronson 72.
[My title. From Sharp's MS 3886/2831; Bronson TTCB, No. 73, 1962.
This is from the same family of singers as Sharp B, provided by Campbell to Sharp from an unknown collector in 1910. An additional opening stanza is found in Bronson 16. This stanza is Sharp MS 3870/. Sung by Mrs. Sophie Annie Hensley, Oneida, Ky., August. 17, 1917.
Sweet William rose up one bright May morning
And dressed himself in blue
What do you know of long love lying
Between Lady Margret and you?
R. Matteson 2014]
Yates: They (Ramseys) reminded me of something that Cecil Sharp had once said about the Hensley family of Carmen. "My experience has been very wonderful so far as the people and their music is concerned...I spent three days, from 10a.m. to 5p.m., with a family in the mountains consisting of parents and daughter, by name Hensley. All three sang and the father played the fiddle. Maud and I dined with them each day, and the rest of the time sat on the verandah while the three sang and played and talked, mainly about the songs." One ballad, collected from Rosie Hensley, was Fair Ellender and Sweet William, a version of which I recorded from Evelyn. [Are KY families related? Sharp D and E were taken from the Carmen, NC Hensley family.]
[Lady Margaret]- Sung by Mrs. Sophie Annie Hensley, Oneida, Clay County, Ky., August 20, 1917.
[Sweet William rose up one bright May morning
And dressed himself in blue
What do you know of long love lying
Between Lady Margret and you?]
1. Lady Margaret was sitting in the new church door
Combing her yellow hair.
Down she threw her high-row comb
And out of door she sprung.
2. Saying: Mother, O mother, I saw a sight
I never shall see no more.
She saw nothing but her own true love
And the preacher a-riding by.
3. She died, she never lived any longer,
And she never drew another breath.
It was but seeing the preacher and her love
Which caused Lady Margaret's death.
4. So Willie rode on home that night
And quickly fell asleep.
He was bothered and troubled in his sleep
By the dreams that he dreamed that night.
5. It's early, early as he rose up
And dressed himself in blue.
He ask-ed of his new wedded wife
To ride one mile or two.
6. They rode on to Lady Margaret's gate
And tingles at the wire;
No one so ready to turn them in
But Lady Margaret's own mother so dear.
7. O is she in her souling-room,[1]
Or in her chamber asleep,
Or is she in her dying room,
A lady before us all?
8. She is not in her souling-room,[1]
Or either in her chamber asleep;
Although she's in her dying room,
A lady before us all.
9. Her father opened up the coffin lid,
Her brother unwrapped the sheet.
He kneeled, he kissed her cold clay lips
And died all on his feet.
10. They laid Lady Margaret in the old church-yard
And Willie closely by her;
And out of her breast sprung a red rose
And out of his a green brier.
11. They grew and grew so very high
Till they could not grow any higher;
They looped and tied in a true lover's knot,
The red rose and the green brier.
1. sewing-room