Lord Thomas & Fair Elinor- Compton (SC) c. 1835; collected 1913 Smith A
[My date. From: South Carolina Ballads by Reed Smith; 1928. His notes follow,
R. Matteson 2012, 2014]
Campbell and Sharp give eleven texts and eleven tunes, and Cox gives nine texts and mentions two others. Sharp gives one full text and tune, and refers to this as a very common ballad. He notes that the three lines between the twentieth and twenty-first stanzas of his variant are always spoken and never sung. The lines are:
Make me a grave both long and wide,
And lay fair Ellinor by my side
And the brown girl at my feet.
"This is the only instance of the kind," he adds, "that I have come across."
A. "Lord Thomas and Fair Elinor." Communicated by Mr. W. B. Compton, from Aiken County, S. C., Nov. 5, 1913. He stated that it was transcribed by Mrs. Alice Day Compton "to whom it was sung by her mother Mrs. Martha O'Neall Day, who was born in 1829, and who learned it when a girl."
[music]
1. Lord Thomas rode up to Fair Elinor's gate,
And there he did knock and ring.
There was no one so ready as Fair Elinor
To let Lord Thomas come in.
2. "What news! What news! Lord Thomas?" she cried.
"What news have you brought unto me?"
"I have come to invite you to my wedding,
That will be sad news unto thee."
3. She dressed herself in rich array;
Her garments were all of green;
And every town that she passed through,
They took her to be some queen.
4. Fair Elinor rode up to Lord Thomas's gate,
And then she did knock and ring.
There was no one so ready as Lord Thomas,
To let Fair Elinor in.
5. "Is this your bride, Lord Thomas?" she cried;
"Methinks she is wondrous brown.
When you might have had as fair a lady,
As ever the sun shone on."
6. This brown girl having a knife in her hand,
Which was both keen and sharp.
Between the short rib and the long,
She wounded Fair Elinor's heart.
7. "Oh! are you blind, Lord Thomas," she cried.
"Or care you nothing for me,
That you stand and see my precious heart's blood,
Come trickling down to my knee?"
8. Lord Thomas having a sword at his side,
Which was made of a metal so free.
He cut his wife's head off of her body,
And threw it against a tree.
9. And then he planted the hilt in the dust,
The point towards his heart.
And there never were three true lovers met,
As quick as these three did part.