Lord Darnell- Paul Clayton (VA) 1956 Recording
[From Paul Clayton (Worthington) recording FolkWays 02110_205; Folksongs and Ballads of Virginia, 1956. This is a compilation of two Virginia versions. Paul Clayton recorded the classic ballads: "Lady Margaret" and "Lord Darnell," his version of "Matthy Groves" whose discovery he'd traced in his article for the university magazine, on Folksongs and Ballads of Virginia; 1956 Folkways.
His notes and text from liner notes of his Folkways 1956 recording follow.
R. matteson 2012, 2015]
PAUL CLAYTON- ABOUT THE SINGER
PAUL CLAYTON was born in the great whaling port of New Bedford, Massachusetts, where at an early age he became interested in ballads through the singing of his grandparents and relatives. By the time he was fifteen years old, he had acquired a guitar with which to accompany himself, and started his first series of radio programs. He has continued his programs at most of his stopping-off places, and has performed on radio shows in New York, Canada, Cuba, and various countries in Europe, as well as having given concerts in various parts of the United States.
Largely because of his desire to absorb the great southern tradition of folk music, he went to the University of Virginia to study. His education has been frequently interrupted by his desire to travel and collect folk songs, and within a year after entering school he decided to strike out for Europe in order to come into first hand contact with British Ballads. The result was an extended. hiking trip with a guitar and pack on his back. Though he collected numerous German, French and Spanish songs, the main addition to his collection and repertoire was in British balladry. He appeared in a series of Television programs for the British Broadcasting Corporation in which he compared British and American folk Bongs. Before he returned to the United States and school, he had found time to swap ballads while washing dishes in the Lake District of Britain, collecting waste paper in Paris, or during the course of street singing in such places as Rome, Paris, Nice and Florence.
After a year abroad, he returned to the University of Virginia. He has since made several long hiking and collecting trips through the far west and the deep south as well as to Canada and Cuba. He has also managed to acquire a college degree and is, at the time of this recording, pursuing another. He has recorded several commercial albums, including, for Folkways, an album of BAY STATE BALLADS, FP 47/2. In addition he has recorded some of the traditional songs of his family for the private recording files of the BEC and for the Flanders Ballad Collection at Middlebury College, Vermont.
Included among his many activities involving Virginia folksongs and ballads is the preparation of a Master's thesis on rare Child ballads found in that state. He is also editing, for publication by The Folklore Press, a number of the songs and ballads he has collected in Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina.
Edited and Notes by KENNETH S. GOlDSTEIN Photos by ORNDORFF
AN INTRODUCTION TO FOLKSONGS AND BALLADS OF VIRGINIA
By Paul Clayton
For a number of years I have spent much of my time, when not travelling, in Charlottesville in the foothills of the Blue Ridge of Virginia, and I have had unusual opportunities to acquire a familiarity with the great ballad singing tradition of Virginia. Unquestionably one of the richest collections of folk music in the United States is the material collected by the Virginia Folklore Society, and it has been my privelege to study with its archivist, Professor Arthur Kyle Davis, Jr., of the University of Virginia. I have listened to and transcribed song texts from hundreds of recordings of traditional singers made by him in the 1930s, and I am, at this writing, completing a thesis under his direction on some rare Child ballads found in Virginia.
SIDE II, Band 5: LORD DARNELL (Child #81) The earliest appearance in print of this ancient ballad was in Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle (ca. 1611). Child gives as the ballad title for the variants in his collection the name Little Musgrave and lady Bernard. The ballad has come down to us in an almost completely oral tradition for few broadside versions of this ballad are known to have existed. Phillips Barry was of the opinion that the American texts of this ballad, being more vivid and incisive than Child's, were probably older and that the ballad had been sung in this country for over 300 years.
American variants show certain traits in common with each other which either do not appear or appear only rarely in British variants. The lady is never as aggressive in English texts as in American. The expression "they cost me deep in the purse", when the lord is telling of his two swords, appears in only one of Child's texts, though it appears almost universally in American texts. The attempts to bribe the page, found frequently in Child's texts, appear nowhere in America, nor do any American texts indicate a past affair between the lovers.
The text Mr. Clayton sings here is a composite made by him from the singing of Boyd Bolling (eee photo) and Finley Adams, both relatives and both of Wise County. Their texts varied in length and inclusiveness, and Mr. Clayton has combined the two for completeness.
One day, one day, one holiday,
The very first day of the year,
The little Mathy Groves to the church did go
Some holy words to hear.
The first came in was lily white,
The next was pink and blue,
The next cane in was Lord Darnell's wife,
A flower among the few.
She placed her eyes on the little Mathy Groves,
These words to him did say,
''you must come home with me this night,
This livelong night to stay."
"I can't go home with you this night,
I cannot for my life,
For by the rings that's on your fingers
You are Lord Darnell's wife."
"Oh, what if I am Lord Darnell's wife,
Lord Darnell ain't at home,
He's off in some foreign country
A-learning the tailor's (?) trade."
She looked at him, he looked at her,
The like had never been done;
Lord Darnell's footpage went to tell
Before the rising sun.
He rode till he came to the broad river side,
He bowed his breast and he swum,
He swum till he came to the othsr side
Am. hs buckled his shoes and he run.
He went all to Lord Darnell's hall,
He tingled at the ring,
No one came but Darnell himself
To rise and bid him come in.
"What news, what news you bring to me,
What news you bring to me,
Has any of my castle walls fell down
Or any of my work undone?"
"Oh, none of your castle walls fell down,
Nor none of your work's undone.
Little Mathy Groves in the North Scotland
In bed with the gayly one."
He rode till he came to the broad river side,
He bowed his breast and he swum,
He swum till he came to the other side
And he buckled his shoes and he run.
"I must get up, I must get up,
I must get up and go,
Lord Darnell he's a-coming now,
I heard his bugle blow."
"You shan't get up, you shan't get up,
You shan't get up and go.
It's nothing but my father's boys
A-blowing the shepherd 's horn."
Then they fell to huggin' and a-kissin',
And then they fell asleep,
When little Mathy wakened up
Lord Darnell was at their feet.
"Get up, get up," Lord Darnell said,
"Get up and put on your clothes;
Won't have it to say in North Scotland
I murdered a naked man."
"I can't get up, I can't get up,
I cannot for my life,
For you have got two glittering awords
And I have nary a knife."
"Well, if I have got two glittering swords,
Which cost me deep in the purse,
You may have the very best one,
And I will take the worst.
"And you can strike the first blow,
And strike it like a man;
And I will strike the next blow
And I'll kill you if I can."
Little Mathy struck the first lick,
Which hurt Lord Darnell sore;
Lord Darnell struck the next lick
Brought Mathy to the floor.
He called his true love to his knee,
These words to hsr did say,
"Oh, which do you love the best now,
Little Mathy Groves or me."
"Very well I like your red rose cheeks,
Very well I like your chin,
But I like Mathy Groves in his gore of blood
Mors than you and all your kin."
He took her by the liiy white hand
And led her through the hall,
And with his sword he cut off her head
And he kicked it against the wall.
For additional texts and bibliographical material, see: Child, francis James, THE ENGLISH AND SCOTTISH POPULAR BALLADS- Cambridge, Mass., 1882 -1898. (Reprinted in 1956 by The Folklore Press, 509 Fifth Avenue, New York City)
Coffin, Tristram P., THE BRITISH TRADITIONAL BALLAD IN NORTH AMERICA, The American Folklore Society, Philadelphia, 1950.
Davis, Arthur Kyle, Jr. , TRADITIONAL BALLADS OF VIRGINIA, Harvard, 1929 .