Lamkin- Morris (ME) 1934 (learned c. 1868) Eckstorm A; Flanders A; Beck
[From: Two Maine Texts of "Lamkin" by Fannie Hardy Eckstorm; The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 52, No. 203 (Jan. - Mar., 1939), pp. 70-74. Her notes follow.
This version is Flanders A version and was printed without attribution in The Folklore of Maine (page 91) by Horace Palmer Beck; 1957.
R. Matteson 2012, 2015]
In the spring of 1934, in my home town in Maine I discovered a fragment of "Lamkin", and by following it up diligently I obtained most of the text. It was what was remembered by the son and daughter-in-law of the woman who used to sing it, but they could not give me the air. When Mr. and Mrs. Phillips Barry came on from Massachusetts in August on their fall collecting trip, we drove up to Kingman, more than ninety miles from my own home, to see the singer, Mrs. Margaret Morris. She was eighty-one years old and so frail that we spent not more than fifteen minutes with her and did not attempt to get the air from her; this was furnished by her son, Mr. Adam Morris. We read over to her the text as given by her son, Mr. William Morris, and she made some corrections and added several stanzas, thus making the text authentic and her own. She lived only a few weeks after this and a few days later we could not have seen her at all. By so small a time limit was this text recovered.
LAMKIN - Text of Mrs. Margaret (McPhail) Morris, of Kingman, Me., August 20, 1934. Mrs. Morris was born in Charlottetown, P.E.I., in 1853, and probably learned the song of her mother, Mrs. Ruth (Hescot) McPhail, who was born in England about 1812 and died in St. John, N.B., about 1905, aged 93. The air was recorded on the dictaphone by Mr. Phillips Barry from the singing of Mr. Adam Morris.
1. Lamkin was as fine a mason as e'er laid a stone;
Built a castle for Lord Warrington and payment he got none.
2. O, he built it all round and he lined it within,
And he left a false window for himself to creep in.
3. The lord of this castle was going away;
"Beware of Bold Lamkin," to his lady did say.
4. "I care not for Lamkin or none of his kin,
For my doors are all bolted and my windows pinned in."
5. In the middle of the night Bold Lamkin crept in;
"Good morning, Bold Lamkin," said the false nurse to him.
6. "Where is the Lord of the castle, or is he within?"
"He's gone over to London to dine with the King."
7. "O, where are his noblemen, or are they within?"
"They've gone over to London to wait upon him."
8. "Where is his lady, or is she within?"
"She's up in her chamber with her windows penned in."
9. "How can we get her down?" the Lamkin did cry;
"Kill her baby in the cradle," the false nurse replied.
Io. "'Tis a pity, 'tis a pity," the Lamkin did cry;
"No pity, no pity," the false nurse replied.
11. The Lamkin did rock and the false nurse did sing,
In four corners of the cradle the red blood did spring.
12. "I can't please your baby with breast-milk or pap,
0, pray, dearest lady, come take it in your lap."
13. "How can I come down this cold, bitter night,
Without one speck of fire or a candle light?"
14. "The moon's on the stairway as bright as the sun;
Why can't a fair lady be lighted by one?"
15. "Nurse, dearest nurse, how cruel you be;
If your head only ached, how sorry I'd be."
16. "Please spare my life till one o'clock,
You shall have my daughter Betsy, she's the flower of my flock."
17. "Call down your daughter Betsy and set her at work,
To scour out the basin that holds your heart's blood."
18. There's blood on the stairway, there's blood in the hall,
There's blood in the nursery, the best blood of all.
19. As Betsy was sitting in her chamber most high
She saw her father come riding thereby.
20. "O father, dear father, don't you blame me,
For the false nurse and Lamkin has slain your ladye."
21. The Lamkin was hung on the gallows so high,
And the false nurse was burnt on the mountain near by.
22. It was Scotland's lamentation and Ireland's loud cry,
"Hushaby, lullaby, hushaby, lullaby."
Mrs. Morris explained that the false nurse was a cousin to Bold Lamkin and that they "stuck a bobkin in the soft spot in the baby's head". These glosses seem more like answers to satisfy a child's questions than like stanzas lost from the original text. In Mrs. Harding's text, the variation of the nurse being hanged and Lamkin burnt is probably only a lapse of memory on the singer's part which she could have corrected had her attention been called to it.