Merchant's Daughter- Mayhew (MO) 1870 Belden A
[My date. From: The Vulgar Ballad by Henry M. Belden; The Sewanee Review, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Apr., 1911), pp. 213-227. Reprinted in Ballads and Songs; Belden 1940, version A, where informants full name is supplied.
This version was one of two used in Porter's regeneration of the ballad. It's surprising because this is not one of the best US versions.
R. Matteson 2016]
THE MERCHANT'S DAUGHTER- (Written down [in 1910] by Carl Mayhew, a high-school pupil in West Plains, Mo., at the suggestion of his teacher, Miss G. M. Hamilton, who sent it to me. Carl Mayhew learned it from his mother, who in turn learned it from hers. The mother, and so far as I know the grandmother, were reared in Missouri.)
1. In a seaport town there lived a merchant,
He had two sons and a daughter fair.
An apprentice-bound boy from all danger[1]
Courted this merchant's daughter fair.
2. Five hundred pounds was made her portion;
She was a neat and cunning dame:
Her brothers were so hard and cruel,[2]
All of this was to the same.
3. One evening they were silent, courting,
Her brothers chanced to over hear,
Saying, "Your courtship will soon be ended,
We will send him hither to his grave."
4. Next morning early, breakfast over,
With them a hunting he did go;
They went over hills and lofty mountains
And through some lonely valleys too,
Until they came to a lonely desert,
There they did him kill and throw[3].
5. When they returned back home that evening
Their sister asked for the servant man;
"We lost him in the woods a-hunting
And never more we could him find."
6. Next morning she was silent, weeping,
He came to her bedside and stood
All pale and wounded, ghastly looking,
Wallowed o'er in gores of blood.
7. Saying, "Why do you weep, my pretty fair one?
It is a folly you may pawn[4]
Go over hills and lofty mountains,
This lonesome place you may me find."
8. She went over hills and lofty mountains,
And through some lonesome valleys, too,
Until she came to a lonesome desert,
And there she found him killed and thrown[5].
His handsome cheeks the blood was dyeing,
His lips were salt as any brine;
She kissed him o'er and o'er crying,
"This dear beloved friend of mine."
Three days and nights she did stay by him,
'Twas on her bended knees she stood[6];
All in the height of her great anger
She uttered forth such words as these:
"My love, I thought I would stay by him.
Until my heart should break with woe;
But I feel sharp hunger growing on me,
Which forces me back home to go."
When she returned back home that evening
Her brother asked her where she'd been.
"You hard and cruel and unkind creatures!
For him alone you both shall swing."
And then to avoid all shame and danger
Away to the sea they both did go.
The wind did blow and it was no wonder
The roaring sea proved both their graves.
1. firm indenture= for all danger
2. The last two lines make no sense. If the third line is replaced and the fourth changed:
For the young man that crossed the ocean
She bestowed on him the same.
3. The wording of this has been changed from 'killed and thrown' as it appears later in stanza 8. The beginning of the line would also need to be changed, "Where this young man was killed and thrown" or similarly.
4. Belden offers no explanation. Clearly "pawn" is "pine" as in repine." Reworded slightly the line becomes, "It is folly for you to pine."
5. In 1911 when first published "thrown" appears as "thro." It was changed in Belden's 1940 edition.
6. It's hard to stand on bended knees!!