Lady Margret- Boone (NC) 1918 Sharp Q
[My title. Single stanza with music from: English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians I; Sharp/Campbell, 1932 edition, edited by Karpeles; additional text Sharp MS. All of Sharp's versions use the generic title, Fair Margaret and Sweet William. Fair Margaret is not the name that is sung, usually it's Lady (Liddy/Lydia) Margaret (Marget/Margret).
Notes from the 1932 edition follow. Additional text from Sharp's MS 4684/3262; Bronson II, p. 187.
R. Matteson 2014]
No. 20. Fair Margaret and Sweet William.
Texts without tunes: — Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, No. 74. Ashton's Century of Ballads, p. 345. W. R. Mackenzie's Ballads and Sea Songs from Nova Scotia, No. 7. Journal of American Folk-Lore, xix. 281; xxiii. 381; xxviii. 154; xxx. 303.
Texts with tunes : — Christie's Traditional Ballad Airs, i. 117. Journal of the Folk-Song Society, ii. 289; iii. 64. Folk-Songs of England, i, No. 14. Rimbault's Musical Illustrations of Percy's Reliques, pp. 117 and 118. Kidson's Garland of English Folk Songs, p. 30. ChappelPs Popular Music of the Olden Times, i. 382. C. Sharp's English Folk Songs (Selected Edition), ii. 13. Cox's Folk Songs of the South, pp. 65 and 522 (see also further references). Wyman and Brockway's Lonesome Tunes, p. 94. journal of American Folk-Lore, xxxi. 74; xxxv. 340. Musical Quarterly, January 1916. British Ballads from Maine, p. 134. Davis's Traditional Ballads of Virginia, pp. 221 and 570. McGill's Folk Songs of the Kentucky Mountains, p. 71.
Q. Lady Margret. Sung by Mrs. JULIE BOONE at Micaville, N. C, Sept. 25, 1918
Pentatonic. Mode 4.
Sweet William a rose, and he put on his clothes
And[1] dressed himself in blue.
I want to know betwixt Lady Margret and you.
No harm, no harm I know.
2. Lady Margaret sitting in her dining-room
Combing her long yellow hair,
And the first thing she spied Sweet William and his bride
Drawing near the old church-house.
3. O down she threw her ivory comb,
O down she threw her long yellow hair;
She fell back from her dining-room door,
She's been see'd there no more.
4. Strange dreams, strange dreams, said he,
Strange dreams, strange dreams, said she.
I dreamed that my true love was a-floating
With wild chamberee.
5 O how do you like this bed of yours?
And how do you like your sheet?
And how do you like that pretty little woman
That lies in your arms and sleeps?
6. Very well, very well I like my bed,
Likewise I like my sheet,
Much better do I like that pretty little woman
That stands at my bride's feet.
7. He rode up to Lady Margaret's gate,
He knocked so clear it rang;
But Lady Margaret was nor there
For to rise and let him in.
8. O where is Lady Margaret today?
O where is she, I pray?
She's sitting back in her own room
In her own coffin dear.
9. Go draw the winding sheets back,
For I know that they arc fine;
I want to kiss her red, rosy cheeks,
Oft-times as she's kissed mine.
10 And first he kissed her red, rosy cheeks,
And then he'd kiss her chin,
And then he'd kiss her sweet ruby lips,
Where there was no breath within.
11. Go bury lady Margaret in the new churchyard,
Sweet William by her side.
And out of her grave was a blood-red rose
And out of his a briar.
They wrapped and they tangled in a true love's knot,
The rose round the briar.
1. MS has: He dressed