Lord Thomas- Chrisom (NC) 1918 Sharp C c
[From English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians collected by Cecil J. Sharp and Olive Dame Campbell- Volume I; 1932 edition edited by Maud Karpeles. The 1932 edition notes follow.
R. Matteson 2012, 2014]
No. 19. Lord Thomas and Fair Ellinor.
Texts without tunes:—Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, No. 73. Broadside by Catnach. C. S. Burners Shropshire Folk-Lore, p. 545. A. Williams's Folk Songs of the Upper Thames, p. 135. Journal of American Folk-Lore, xix. 235; xx. 254; xxviii. 152; xxxix. 94. Cox's Folk Songs of the South, p. 45 (see also further references).
Texts with tunes:—Kidson's Traditional Tunes, p. 40. English County Songs, p. 42. E. M. Leather's Folk-Lore of Herefordshire, p. 200. Sandys's Christmas Carols, tune 18. Journal of the Folk-Song Society, ii. 105; v. 130. Rimbault's Musical Illustrations of Percy's Reliques, p. 94. C. Sharp's English Folk Songs (Selected Edition), ii. 27 (also published in One Hundred English Folk Songs, No.28). Gavin Greig's Last Leaves, No. 28. Scots Musical Museum, vi, No. 535. Reed Smith's South Carolina Ballads, No. 6. Wyman and Brockway's Twenty Kentucky Songs, p. 14. Journal of American Folk-Lore, xviii. 128. British Ballads from Maine, p. 128, Davis's Traditional Ballads of Virginia, pp. 191 and 568. McGill's Folk Songs of the Kentucky Mountains, p. 28. Sandburg's American Songbag, p. 156.
Cc. Lord Thomas- Mrs. Ef Chrisom (NC) at Cane Branch, Burnsville, N. C , Oct. 3, 1918; Sharp Cc
Pentatonic* Mode I. (* If G be tonic:—Mode 3.)
1, O mother, O mother, come roll us down,
Come roll[1] us down as one,
Whether I shall marry fair Ellinor,
Or bring the brown girl home,
Whether I shall marry fair Ellinor,
Or bring the brown girl home.
2 He took her by her lily-white hand,
He led her to the hall;
There were four and twenty gay ladies there,
And she was the flower of them all.
3 Lord Thomas, Lord Thomas, are you blind,
Or can't you not well see?
O don't you see my own heart's blood
Come trinkling to my knee?
4 Go bury the brown girl at my head,
Fair Ellender by my side.
If we all had lived to have seen that day,
Fair Ellender'd a-been my bride.