Murdered Sweetheart Ballads- Tom Pettitt
[This is a fairly detailed study of this ballad group. He begins with Berkshire Tragedy, not yet proofed,
R. Matteson 2016]
THE MURDERED SWEETHEART BALLADS: A PROVISIONAL DISCURSIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY--THE BERKSHIRE TRAGEDY
by Tom Pettitt; Centre for Medieval Literature and Cultural Studies Institute, University of Southern Denmark
THE BERKSHIRE TRAGEDY
Roud 263 (+ 409)
INTRODUCTORY SURVEY
BROADSIDES
PERFORMANCE TRADITIONS
HISTORICITY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
CATALOGUE OF VERSIONS (separate document)
This song can be located in the Roud Folksong and Broadside Indexes (excluding American variants) under the following titles: No. 263
Berkshire Tragedy
Wittam Miller
Wittham Miller
Cruel Miller
Bloody Miller
No. 409
The Butcher(‘s) Boy
As first published this ballad offers a classic instance of the Murdered Sweetheart paradigm, to whose consolidation it may indeed have been early enough to contribute. A miller courts a local young woman, and seduces her on promise of marriage. When the sweetheart becomes pregnant she (seconded by her mother) importunes the lover to marry her, but instead, subject to an evil impulse, he resolves to be rid of her. Fetching her from her sister’s home in the evening he invites her out for a walk, ostensibly to discuss their wedding arrangements. Reaching a lonely spot he grabs a stick from a hedge and strikes her to the ground. Ignoring her pleas for mercy he kills her, then drags her by the hair to a nearby river, and throws her in. Returning home to the mill he successfully explains away his bloodied appearance as the result of a nose bleed, but when he retires to bed he is haunted by thoughts of what has occurred. The sweetheart’s disappearance, reinforced by the recovery of her corpse downstream outside a relative’s house, arouses suspicion of his guilt, confirmed at the trial by evidence of his taking her out, and the blood observed on his hands and clothes. He is found guilty, sentenced to hang, and eventually confesses and repents his crime. As often with crime and execution ballads, the narrative is couched as the perpetrator’s anguished account of his action and its results on the eve of execution (a ‘last goodnight’), concluding with a warning to others against following his example, and a prayer for salvation. The song survives both in print (distinct, ‘long’ and ‘short’, broadside versions) and as recorded or transcribed from performance. Most known versions are registered in the Roud Indexes under no. 263, but in Scottish performance tradition the lover-murderer has become a butcher-boy, and versions from Scottish singers have in error been registered under 409, “The Butcher Boy”, a quite unrelated song (about a girl who commits suicide when cast off by her lover).
BROADSIDES
BRITISH BROADSIDES THE LONG VERSION
(first line: “Young men and maidens all give ear”)
The earliest known version of the song was printed several times in England from the early eighteenth century to the early nineteenth, under titles comprising various permutations of “Berkshire Tragedy”; “Witt(h)am Miller”, “With an Account of his Murdering his Sweetheart”, with the exception of Catnach’s “Discovery of an Extraordinary MURDER Committed by a Respectable Miller, of Wittam in Berkshire”.
Several printings include illustrative woodcuts, and the ballad itself is invariably comprised of 44 quatrains -- if often printed as 22 8-line stanzas. The stresses (or musical pulses) per line generally conform to ‘common measure’ (4.3.4.3.), the rhyme-pattern varying between abab (‘cross-rhyme'):
1. Young men and maidens all give ear,
Unto what I shall now relate;
O mark you well, and you shall hear,
Of my unhappy fate: and abcb (the ballad quatrain’):
3. My tender parents brought me up,
Provided for me well,
And in the town of Witt[a]m then
They placed me in a mill.
Quantitatively the narrative is characterized by the emphasis (typical of crime and execution ballads in general) on the judicial aftermath: the investigation of the crime, the formal procedures leading to the condemnation, and the perpetrator’s anguish, not least in relation to his family (represented by his father). Equally striking are the specific (and realistic) details with regard to the location of the various events in the narrative, and the coherence with regard to judicial procedure giving altogether very much the impression of a journalistic report on an actual murder case (see separate section below for discussion). Qualitatively, to judge by their retention in later versions, the specifics of the murder were eminently memorable.
The broadsides with this long version were issued by printers from both London (e.g. Sympson; Howard & Evans; Pitts; Catnach) and the provinces (e.g. Coventry; Birmingham; Banbury), while others are without imprint. But there is also an eight page chapbook (with variant issues from York and Edinburgh, both dated 1744), “The BERKSHIRE TRAGEDY, OR, The WHITTAM Miller, Who most barbarously murder’d his Sweet-heart: With his whole Trial, Examination and Confession; and his last dying Words at the Place of Execution”.
In the upshot this actually means nothing more than that the ballad text (pp. 2-7) is accompanied by a short “Last Dying Words and Confession’ of the perpetrator (p. 8), as well as (p. 1) a vaguely relevant woodcut illustration (in the one issue of a mill, in the other of an execution). The broadside variants all comprise the same number of stanzas, and the same stanzas, in the same order; the chapbook follows suit, except for omitting one whole stanza. Variation among the broadsides is therefore exclusively within stanzas, usually within individual lines, and mainly involving single words or short phrases with the same import. The variations in the chapbook are of the same order but a little more frequent (see my article on the ballad’s transmission). This aside, there does not seem to be any systematic correlation between these textual variations and the variant titles with which the long broadside was published. With the exception of whichever was the original (and this remains in doubt), each printing was evidently based directly on a predecessor, and indeed quite uncritically, no printer or compositor paying sufficient attention to spot correct a blatant error (in both sense and rhyme) in the second stanza (omitted in the chapbook):
2. Near unto famous Oxford town,
I first did draw my breath,
Oh! that I had been cast away,
In an untimely birth.
BRITISH BROADSIDES THE SHORT VERSION
(first line: “My parents educated me”)
At some point in the early nineteenth century the long broadside version was supplemented, and in due course superseded, by a derivative short version, which rendered the same narrative in 18 quatrains, now all rhyming abcb (ballad quatrains): 5.(10 )
I went unto her sister’s house at eight o’clock at night
And little did this fair maid know I ow’d her any spite.
The abbreviation is achieved by a general reduction in detail, but more particularly by a massive excision in the judicial aftermath (effectively dropping the long broadside’s last 13 stanzas). The process by which this reduction was achieved is significant for our understanding of ballad tradition more generally (see article). This version was issued by many printers, both London (e.g. Disley; Such; Fortey; Pitts; Catnach) and provincial (e.g. Birmingham; Worcester; Newcastle; Liverpool; North Shields; Manchester), plus several issues with no imprint. Several have illustrative woodcuts, but the reduced nineteenth-
century ‘slip’ format leaves little room for anything elaborate.
A Glasgow printer (James Lindsay) included this ballad (under the title “The Cruel Miller”) in his 1856 Catalogue, but no copies seem to have survived.[ http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B5457] Nor is there any evidence of an Irish printing, which is surprising given that the action in many printings is set in or near “Wexford”. The overlap between the long and short broadside is more than merely chronological, two London printers (Pitts and Catnach) having issued both (making them prime suspects as perpetrators of the revision, if that was the process involved). The short broadside appeared under a greater variety of titles, and with substantially greater variation between their texts, but here too it is just feasible to assert that (with the exception of one variant that omits two stanzas, and some variation in distributing lines between stanzas) the short broadside printings encompass the same stanzas in the same order, with variation otherwise confined to words and phrases within stanzas and, mostly, within lines. But in this instance it does seem possible to discern a correlation between variation in the texts and their respective titles -- i.e. it is possible to speak of sub-versions of the short broadside respectively entitled “The Cruel Miller”,
“The Cruel Miller; or, Love and Murder”, “The False Hearted Miller”, and “The Bloody Miller”. This last has no connection with a quite different murdered sweetheart ballad issued as a broadside much earlier with the same title (first line, “Let all pretending Lovers / take warning now by me), purporting to relate the murder of Anne Nicols by Francis Cooper (who also happened to be a miller).[2]
THE AMERICAN BROADSIDE
The project is devoted specifically to the Murdered Sweetheart Ballads of England– and to a degree Scotland and Ireland– but keeps a watching brief on North America, not least with regard to American balladry derived from English broadsides– as is the case here. A ballad titled “The Lexington Miller”(first line, ‘Come all you men and maidens dear‘) was published (together with “Johnny Jarman’) several times in Boston in the 1830’s: the address of the printer varies, and there are subtle typographical adjustments, but these are all effectively separate issues of the same text. Juxtaposition with the English broadsides demonstrates that “The Lexingon Miller” is basically a revision of the Long Broadside, the latter’s 44 stanza’s rendered in 23 stanzas, only two of which comprise completely new material (and only four lines within the other 21 are totally new). The English short broadside nonetheless contributed one complete stanza, two separate lines and a few sporadic phrases which are not in the long version.
PERFORMANCE TRADITION
This is one of the most frequently recorded ‘folk songs’ from Anglophone performance traditions, with versions from England, Scotland, Ireland and Tristan da Cunha (misleadingly titled “Maria Martini’), Canada and the USA.
BRITISH ISLES
There is no doubt that the performance traditions of the British Isles derive from the antecedent broadsides, and overwhelmingly from the nineteenth century short broadside: all the stanzas in versions recorded from performance which coincide with stanzas in the broadsides occur in the short version, while none are exclusive to the earlier long version. But there are a very few instances where the formulation within a performed stanza seems closer to the long version’s than that of the short version (see Bibliography for my articles on transmission). The English singers are largely from the South and West (Hampshire, Somerset, Dorset, Devon, Sussex, Gloucestershire– probably reflecting early patterns of collection rather than the song’s actual distribution) plus East Anglia (Suffolk Norfolk), and include several Gypsies.[3]
Paradoxically none of the Irish versions follows the tendency of the short broadside to locate the action in Wexford. In Scottish performance tradition the song is invariably known as ‘The Butcher Boy' or ‘The Cruel Butcher’, reflecting a shift in the trade of the lover-murderer.
NORTH AMERICA
The North American broadside “The Lexington Miller” seems to have had only limited influence on American performance tradition, which like British traditions seems mainly to have been based on the short English broadside, with few (but perhaps relatively more) phrases going back to the earlier long broadside. Otherwise American performance tradition provides an interesting display of continuity within change by persistently associating the events with place names including an ‘x’ [4] (Lexington; Woxford; Waxford; Knoxville, Expert, Rexford, Lexton), doubtless deriving ultimately from the long broadside’s ‘Oxford’, in some cases via the short broadside’s ‘Wexford’. Some American singers claim that this ballad is actually about a local and more recent case in McDonald County, Missouri, the murder in 1892 of Mary Lula Noel by her lover, William Simmonds. It is accordingly referred to as ‘The Noel Girl’, but as sung the text shows little adjustment to suit the circumstances, apart from relocalization to Pineville. But there was already a close match facilitating the equation, as in both cases the body, after a murderous attack, was disposed of in a nearby river. For an account by a local historian only 5 years after the events, see: Sturges, Judge J.A. History of McDonald County. Missouri. 1897 (a textual reconstruction in the absence of an original by McDonald County Library, 2003), online at: http://www.librarymail.org/genehist/sturgesbookv2_2.pdf, pp. 31-32, “The Murder of Lula Noel”.
HISTORICITY
PERSONS AND EVENTS
The titles of the original, Long Broadside, version of the song comprise variants on “The Berkshire Tragedy; Or, The Wittam Miller. With an Account of his Murdering his Sweetheart”, without the elaborations providing circumstantial details more familiar in the seventeenth century, and while informative, as we shall see, on other aspects, the texts are highly reticent on the individuals involved: the murdered sweetheart is merely “an Oxford lass” (4.1), while she addresses him as “John” (6.1). The latter point is also valid for the variant of the Long Broadside in the 1744 chapbook, whose title both elaborates on (hypes) the contents of the song, “The BERKSHIRE TRAGEDY: OR, THE WHITTHAM Miller. Who mo6 [sic] barbarously murder’d his SWEET-HEART big with Child: With his whole TRIAL, Examination, and Confession”, and promises more: “and his last DYING-WORDS at the Place of EXECUTION”.[5] The latter in the event comprises a prose text which does no more than summarize the ballad, except that the speaker identifies himself as “John Mauge”, and the heading offers more snippets of (purported) information: “The last dying words and confession of John Mauge, a Miller, who was executed at Reading in Berkshire, on Saturday the 20th of last month, for the barbarous murder of Anne Knite, his sweet-heart” (p. 8). However John Mauge and Anne Knite and their case seem as unknown to the criminal record as the chapbook printer, ‘John Keed’, is to the annals of printing,[6] and we are likely in the presence of a piece of astute pseudo-documentary commercialism which should probably be best ignored in relation to pinning down the historicity of the narrative or the date of the events concerned.[7]
Whether similar motivations characterised the composition of the broadside itself remains an open question. Perhaps the most authentic-looking detail in the ballad is the lover-murderer’s remark that when suspicion fell on him after the sweetheart disappeared he attempted to put the authorities off the scent by placing an advertisement in “the post boy” offering a reward for the discovery of her body (27.1-4). There was indeed a newspaper called The Post Boy, published from 1695 to 1736 (from 1728 as The Daily Post Boy),[8] and this may indeed provide our most reliable indication for the date of the original ballad, if not in itself proof of the narrative’s historicity: the alleged advertisement has as yet failed to turn up in explorations of surviving copies of the paper[9]. And indeed no trace of the case has as yet been found in the surviving records of the Reading assizes or in any other historical source.[10]
GEOGRAPHY
Whatever the truth of the matter, in other respects “The Berkshire Tragedy” certainly goes to great lengths to give the impression that it is reporting an actual case, for example in the matter of geography (to avoid repeated circumlocutions the following will speak as if the ballad deals with real events, while aware it could also be a matter of formulating plausible assertions). The ‘Wittam’ / ‘Wittham’ (3.4), ‘near unto famous Oxford town’ (2.1), where the lover-murderer owned a mill was most likely Wytham, 3 miles N.W. of Oxford, on a branch of the Thames (the Seacourt Stream or Wytham Brook) where there is a building still known as Wytham Mill.[11] This is not the location of the crime, although it did occur at a lonely spot by a river, whither the miller had walked with his ‘Oxford Lass’ (4.1.) having fetched her from ‘her sister’s door’ (10.1): so the body was presumably thrown into the Thames (Isis) or one of its complex of tributaries and bifurcations in or close to Oxford, not excluding the Wytham Brook itself.
It is perhaps conceivable that the body in due course would turn up 35 or so miles downstream at Henley on Thames, although this will presumably have taken quite a while,[12] and there is some ambiguity about the latter location. No versions of the long broadside use the modern spelling, but Symson’s ‘Henly’ is good enough, and other variants such as ‘Hendly’, 'Hinley' or even ‘Hindley’ might just be considered alternative spellings for the same place, but not the ‘Hindsey’ that occurs in two variants. It is a complication that whatever the name (they all begin with H and end with y) it is always specified as ‘H...y Ferry Town’, for Henley on Thames is unlikely to have been designated as such, having been celebrated since the Middle Ages rather for its bridge over the Thames. It is perhaps just possible that the chapbook’s ‘Hiley a Ferry Town’ was influenced by a village called Haily just north of Oxford: it too is on the Thames river system , but presumably upstream of the point at which the body was cast into the river. More intriguing is the presence, a little downstream of Wytham, on a continuation of this same river branch, of the village of North Hinksey. It was regularly distinguished from neighbouring South Hinksey as Ferry Hinksey, as a ferry had operated here since the Middle Ages,[13] not replaced by a bridge until 1928.[14] It is just possible, therefore, that this
was the ‘ferry town’ the author had in mind, and which gave rise to some of the variant specifications, with ‘Henl(e)y’ as an attempt at re-establishing plausibility. It delightfully complicates matters that a version of the ballad collected from performance tradition just prior to the First World War, ostensibly deriving from the Short Broadside (where the body mostly turns up in ‘Wexford’), actually designates the place to which the river carried the body as, precisely, ‘Ferry Hinksey Town’. This is in a composite version compiled by Alfred Williams, from the part he attributes to a George Hicks of Arlington, Gloucestershire, which is about 30 miles west of Oxford. There is of course no way of telling whether this reflects something in the original, or, as speculated for Henley, is an attempt to adjust the narrative into conformity with local knowledge.[15]
Following the recovery of the body the lover-murderer is (again) arrested and sent to Reading Gaol, then tried, condemned and executed. Locating the trial at the Assizes in Reading suggests (if the narrative is a fiction) quite detailed local knowledge. Oxford, near where the crime was committed, was also an assize town, but the choice of Reading county gaol and assizes was perhaps determined by where the crime was discovered-- which reopens the discussion of where the body was found. As a result of the historical border between the two counties following the curving line of the Thames, Henley on Thames, although much closer to Reading than to Oxford, was technically in Oxfordshire, and so would report to the Oxford assizes. On the other hand Hinksey Ferry, although within walking distance of Oxford, was technically (before 1974)[16] in Berkshire. And at the period in question the Berkshire assizes took place at Abingdon during the summer circuit of the judges and during the winter circuit at Reading.[17] This may also fit the timeline of the narrative, in which the murder was committed within a month of Christmas (9.1. although variants are ambiguous or contradictory as to whether this was before or after), and the body discovered ‘The very day before the assize’ (29.1): the Reading winter, or more properly ‘Lent’, assizes being as a rule held between late-February and late March.[18]
As this suggests, the way the ballad’s account of the crime’s judicial aftermath reflects the complexities of contemporary procedure adds further to the sense of authenticity. When the sweetheart is missed, her lover is ‘apprehended’ and ‘to the Assizes bound’ (23), that is by the local justices of the peace (magistrates), sitting in Quarter Sessions, and on the basis of the sworn testimony of the victim’s sister that he had invited her out the night she disappeared (24).[19] There follows a hiatus during which he is released on bail (cf. 32.1), as the trial cannot proceed without a corpse to demonstrate a murder has been committed. The situation changes with the discovery of the body, and two procedures are initiated: the coroner’s inquest (‘coroner and jury’, 31.1) sits over the body and reaches a verdict of unlawful killing by a named person (‘That this damsel was made away, / And murdered by me’ 31.3-4), consequent to which the ‘Justice’ (of the Peace; magistrate) rescinds his
release on bail and has the lover-murderer sent to Reading Gaol to be tried at the assizes, which are just starting. And the account of the trial encompasses the decisive evidence from a witness (33), the judge’s directions to the jury (34), the jury’s deliberations and guilty verdict (35).
But doubts remain. In seeking to profit from a lurid crime recently doubtless a matter of rumour and news a broadside printer would have every reason to identify the principals, as was indeed the norm with specific cases in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century: 'The Reward of Murther, In the Execution of Richard Smith, for murtheringe Mary Davis widdow,...’; ‘The bloody Miller. Being a true and just Account of one Francis Cooper of Hocstow near Shrewsbury, who .. kept company with one Anne Nicols ... and ... most wickedly and barbarously murdered her,...’, to mention two very similar ’Murdered Sweetheart’ ballads. Conversely, the near-contemporary murdered sweetheart ballad, ‘The Gosport Tragedy’, similarly offers a plausible and sometimes verifiable historical context for a murdered sweetheart narrative who principals are identified only as ‘Molly’ and ‘William’ and whose climax (her ghost tears him to pieces on board the ship on which he was making his escape) is unlikely to reflect actual events.[20]
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Atkinson, David. The Anglo-Scottish Ballad and its Imaginary Contexts. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2014, pp. 43-47. -- examines the changes to this ballad in the context of the debate on the relative importance of performance tradition and literary intervention in the way such songs change over time.
Dungbeetle. “A veritable dungheap: The Bloody Miller”. English Dance & Song. 65.4 (winter 2003): 22-23. -- a survey of various forms
Henry, Mellenger E.(sic) “The Lexington Girl”. JAF. 42 (1929): 247-253. -- provides several North American versions with some commentary
Laws, G.M. American Balladry from British Broadsides. Philadelphia, 1957. -- standard entry on p. 267 --discussed in chapter IV, “Broadside Ballad Forms and Variants”, # “Ballad Recomposition”= pp. 104-122. -- assigns major role to broadside authors in changing texts
Pettitt, Thomas. "'Worn by the Friction of Time': Oral Tradition and the Generation of the Balladic Narrative Mode". Contexts of Pre-Novel Narrative. The European Tradition. Ed. Roy Eriksen. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1994, pp. 341-72. --
author’s draft at: https://www.academia.edu/5027545/Worn_by_the_Friction_of_Time_Oral_Tradition_and_the_Generation_of_the_Balladic_Narrative_Mode -- argues for the importance of recollection from memory in performance and transmission from singer to singer via performance as the major factors in the way the song changes over time.
Pettitt, Tom. “Memory, Print and Performance ('The Cruel Miller' Revisited)" Paper presented to Folk Song Conference organized by the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Cecil Sharp House, London, 10 October 2015. -- full text (draft) at: https://www.academia.edu/16917625/Memory_Print_and_Performance_The_Cruel_Miller_Revisited -- reiterates thesis of previous item, in the face of discouraging information and insight arising in the interim; includes a thorough review of broadside and performance variants ooo
CATALOGUE OF VERSIONS
BROADSIDES
ENGLISH BROADSIDES (LONG VERSION)
Berkshire Tragedy ...
Berkshire tragedy ...with an account
Berkshire Tragedy ...being an account
Wittham(sic)-miller …
Discovery of an extraordinary murder (catnach) chapbook
ENGLISH BROADSIDES (SHORT VERSION)
Cruel Miller
Cruel Miller Or Love And Murder
Bloody Miller
False Hearted Miller
AMERICAN BROADSIDES
PERFORMANCE TRADITIONS
ENGLAND
with words
tune only
TRISTAN DA CUNHA
SCOTLAND
Wexford Girl
Butcher Boy
IRELAND
NORTH AMERICA
‘Lexington’ Version
‘Wexford’ Version
‘Knoxville’ Version
‘Expert’ Version
‘Oxford’ Version
‘Rexford’ Version
Uncategorized
English Broadsides (Long Version)
Roud 263 -- incl. CHAPBOOK VERSION (which identifies event as murder of Anne Knite by John Mauge in 1744). “Edition” is number assigned by Bodleian Ballads dates for printers are from VWML Street Literature Printers’ Register,
http://www.vwml.org/search/search-street-lit --
arranged according to title:
BERKSHIRE TRAGEDY ...
BERKSHIRE TRAGEDY ... WITH AN ACCOUNT
BERKSHIRE TRAGEDY ...BEING AN ACCOUNT
THE WITTHAM(sic)-MILLER …
DISCOVERY OF AN EXTRAORDINARY MURDER (Catnach)
CHAPBOOK
BERKSHIRE TRAGEDY ...
-- yet to be checked:
The Berkshire Tragedy; Or, the Wittam Miller Madden Collection: Vol.I (Garlands A-E) [VWML mfilm No.70] Item no.46 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B60112 -- nothing on imprint
The Berkshire Tragedy; Or, the Wittam Miller Madden Collection: Vol.I (Garlands A-E) [VWML mfilm No.70] Item no.44 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B60111 -- nothing on imprint
The Berkshire Tragedy; Or, the Wittam Miller Madden Collection: Vol.I (Garlands A-E) [VWML mfilm No.70] Item no.43 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B60110 --‘imprint torn off’
The Berkshire Tragedy, or, the Wittam Miller. [no imprint] 1796 (the date clearly specified on the sheet) Edition– Bod 4690 Hindley White-letter: printed sideways in 4 columns no woodcuts 44 quatrains printed in 8-line stanzas.
Sheffield. Charles Harding Firth Collection, University of Sheffield Library, E14(2).
UCLA Library: Charles E. Young Research Library. Department of Special Collections. Broadside Ballads from England, Ireland and the United States. Box 8, Folder 13.
Harvard College Library Hollis 012440707
Oxford Bodleian
Firth b.28(40c) -- unreadable
Firth c.17(216)
Harding B 6(97)
Harding B 23(22): good text http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/10000/09186.gif -- no italic text segments Johnson Ballads 2341 -- poor
Johnson Ballads 2342 -- unreadable
BERKSHIRE TRAGEDY ...WITH AN ACCOUNT
The Berkshire Tragedy; Or, The Wittam Miller. With an Account of his Murdering his Sweetheart. To the Tune of, The Oxfordshire Tragedy.
... London: Printed and sold at Sympson's Printing-Office, in Stonecutter Street, Fleet Market. n.d. --1750’s & 60’s
.... the only one to get “Henl(e)y” right?
White-letter Woodcuts: 1. girl lying dead (legs strangely splayed); 2. man hanging. 44 quatrains printed without stanza division London, British Library. Roxburghe Collection. III, 802-3. -- no italic text segments UCSB.EBBA 31475 http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/31475/album
pr. Roxburghe Ballads. Vol. VIII. Ed. J.W. Ebsworth. Hertford, 1895-1901; repr. New York 1966, pp. 629-31. -- not reliable
Madden Collection: Vol.I (Garlands A-E) [VWML mfilm No.70] Item no.42 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B60109 London: Printed and Sold in Stonecutter-street, Fleet-Market. n.d. [early 18th century] Hendly
Cambridge, Mass. Harvard College Library, prob. Hollis No. 004404611 http://id.lib.harvard.edu/aleph/004404611/catalog call no. EB75 P4128C no.19.
pr. Laws, G. Malcolm, Jr. American Balladry from British Broadsides
. Philadelphia, 1957, pp. 104-109. -- says it is "eighteenth-century"
The Berkshire Trgedy (sic), Or, The Wittam Miller. With an Account of his Murdering his Sweetheart, &c.
Printed and sold at No. 4, Aldermary Churchyard -- this is Dicey family, ca 1720 onwards Edition Bod 17528; Edition Bod 14168 -- these are manifestly the same print
White-letter in five columns (a sideways sheet) -- in all cases below text in columns 2 (part) 3 (all) and 4 (part) is in italic type broad (two-column) woodcut depicting, at centre a kneeling women with her arms held out towards a standing man wielding a club: in a continuous outdoor landscape to the right, his fate -- hanging from a gallows; to the left, her fate, floating in a river in front of a house, from where a figure (presumably her father) looks over a fence. [unusually full correspondence with text].
22 quatrains printed as 8-line stanzas
Hindsey
Huntington Library Miscellaneous 289726 UCSB.EBBA. 32449 http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/32449/citation catalogue says 1779-85? -- text in columns 2 (part) 3 (all) and 4 (part) is in italic type
ditto, lacking colophon
Edition Bod 17528; Edition Bod 14168
-- these are manifestly the same print Oxford Bodleian (search WITH spelling error) Edition Bod 17528 - catalogue says ca 1700 Antiq. c. E.9(125) http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/15000/14485.gif -- text in columns 2 (part) 3 (all) and 4 (part) is in italic type Edition Bod 14168 -catalogue says ‘1780?’
Harding B 6(96) http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/05000/00710.gif -- text in columns 2 (part) 3 (all) and 4 (part) is in italic type
ditto, lacking colophon but with correct title
Huntington Library Miscellaneous 289727 UCSB.EBBA. 32450 catalogue says ‘1780?’
http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/32450/citation -- text in columns 2 (part) 3 (all) and 4 (part) is in italic type UCLA Library: Charles E. Young Research Library. Department of Special Collections. Broadside Ballads from England, Ireland and the United States. Box 8, Folder 13. catalogue says between 1780 and 1850 -- text in columns 2 (part) 3 (all) and 4 (part) is in italic type
-- closely related:
The Berkshire Tragedy, or the Wittam Miller, With an Account of his Murdering his Sweetheart &c.
no date or printer Edition Bod 24073 two woodcuts: 1) man and woman holding hands; 2) man hanging from gallows
Oxford Bodleian ---Douce Ballads 3(1b) catalogue says 18th cent. http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/20000/15553.gif -- although with different woodcuts and a different distribution of lines among its four columns, the text here is typographically identical to the above (Bod 17528; 14168), with the same block of italicized lines (and occasional phrases in italics elsewhere), and with letters above or below line. -- only difference is that both prints have the same problem with small case r (evidently a shortage of type), but solve it in different ways (e.g. italic r; gap; another letter)
BERKSHIRE TRAGEDY ...BEING AN ACCOUNT
The Berkshire Tragedy; or, The Wittam Miller. Being an Account of his Murdering his Sweetheart.
Turner, Printer, Coventry. n.d. (18th century) Roud says 1832-1846 Edition– Bod 18748 White-letter no woodcuts
Hindsey
Sheffield. Charles Harding Firth Collection, University of Sheffield Library, E92. [sheet so numbered: Carnell's Catalogue states E91.]
Oxford Bodleian Harding B 6(100) http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/05000/00714.gif <<slow loading Madden Collection: Vol.I (Garlands A-E) [VWML mfilm No.70] Item no.50 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B60116
The Berkshire Tragedy, Or the Wittam Miller. Being the Account of his Murdering his Sweetheart.
London: Howard & Evans 1800-1811 Edition- Bod7715
Hindsey
Oxford. Bodleian. Firth b 28(40a) http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/20000/17443.gif -- same as?: Madden Collection: Vol.I (Garlands A-E) [VWML mfilm No.70] Item no.47 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B60113
The Berkshire Tragedy, Or the Wittam Miller. Being the Account of his Murdering his Sweetheart.
London: J. Pitts Edition– Bod 18931 -- first half of 19th cent. (1800- 1844) --this places the ”long” broadside within chronological distance of the ”short” broadside (which Pitts also published, q.v.)
Hindley
Oxford Bodleian. -- catalogue says 1802-1819 Harding B 6(101) http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/05000/00715.gif --collated as ‘Pitts’
Johnson Ballads 730 http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/25000/20433.gif <<pretty unreadable presumably same as:
Baring-Gould Broadside Collection (BL L.R.271.a.2) Vol.3, No.71 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B1947
Baring-Gould Broadside Collection (BL L.R.271.a.2) Vol.1.2, No.15 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B1948
Madden Collection: Vol.I (Garlands A-E) [VWML mfilm No.70] Item no.48 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B60114
Madden Collection: Vol.I (Garlands A-E) [VWML mfilm No.70] Item no.49 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B60115 Cecil Sharp Broadside Collection Vol.3 (Acc. 1991, Mfilm 97) (VWML) p.22 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B137302
Ditto but with “Acccunt” in title
Edition-Bod 5998 Oxford Bodleian catalogue says 1819-1844 http://bodley24.bodley.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/acwwweng/regsrch.pl?wert=berkshire+tragedy+or+the+wittam+miller+[title]&recnums=:9366:20941:35233:37313:46881:46883&index=1&db=ballads
Harding B 6(102)– readable text http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/05000/00716.gif
Johnson Ballads 726 -- unreadable (technical fault)
Johnson Ballads 727 -- damaged on right edge
Johnson Ballads 728 -- ditto
Johnson Ballads 729. -- ditto more so. Minneapolis: Wilson Library, University of Minnesota. Collection of Ballads, Songsheets, Wilson Rare Books Quarto 820.1Z. Vol. 2. transcr. http://mh.cla.umn.edu/wittam.html. http://mh.cla.umn.edu/pitts.html
THE WITTHAM-MILLER…
THE WITTHAM-MILLER, Being an Account of his Murdering his Sweetheart, &c. OR THE BERKSHIRE TRAGEDY.
[sic: sole version with Wittham-with-an-h]
Printed and Sold by D Wrighton [sic] 86 Snow Hill Birmingham. n.d. [18th century] Edition Bod 19038 White-Letter Woodcut(composite): man with knife, mill; prostrate bleeding girl (abdomen slashed open), man on gallows. -- this is the woodcut that may have been used from another ballad, since in the text she is bludgeoned on the head.
Hinley
Sheffield. Charles Harding Firth Collection, University of Sheffield Library, E14(1).
Madden Collection: Vol.I (Garlands A-E) [VWML mfilm No.70] Item no.51 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B88944
Oxford, Bodleian. Harding B 6(98) “19th century” http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/05000/00712.gif
The Wittham Miller; Or, the Berkshire Tragedy
Cheney (Banbury)
Madden Collection: Vol.I (Garlands A-E) [VWML mfilm No.70] Item no.45 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B88943
DISCOVERY OF AN EXTRAORDINARY MURDER
Discovery of an Extraordinary MURDER Committed by a Respectable Miller, of Wittam in Berkshire
J. Catnach, Printer, 2 & 3, Monmouth-court, 7 Dials. Hindley white letter in four columns, the first opening with an elaboration of the title (after the specification of the date clearly based on the ballad text itself): Upon the body of his sweetheart, in December last, he first by false promises seduced her, and got her with child, after which under the pretence of taking a walk and settling when they should be married.(sic) He led her into a field, and struck her with a stick and beat her till she lay a corpse before him ....
two woodcuts side by side beneath title: # man beating a recumbent woman with club (holding her by hair; she bleads from head) under a tree by a river leading from a mill # a generic country cottage two woodcuts embedded in text: # second column: village scene, incl. river and mill; two women sitting outside cottage; # bottom of fourth column, above colophon; close-up of a water mill 44 ballad quatrains, printed as 8-line stanzas.
London. St Bride Printing Library. Broadside Collection S194
BERKSHIRE TRAGEDY (LONG BROADSIDE): CHAPBOOK VERSION
-- this is a fairly standard version of the long broadside, but printed as an 8-page chapbook:
Hiley
p. 1: title page, incl. woodcut. pp. 2-7: text (without stanza division: white letter, with italics for names and speech)
p. 8: prose “last dying words and confession” of murderer, which largely follows the
ballad narrative, but supplies specific details (varies between prints): name of murderer: John Mauge name of murdered sweetheart: Anne Knite date of execution:
Saturday 20 ‘of last month’, 1744.
-- October is only month this fits in 1744 vthe “complete listings of British executions” in capitalpunishmentuk.org has no executions in Berkshire or Oxfordshire in 1744, nor any murderers called Mauge or victims called Knite/Knight in the period 1735-1799. -- and 1744 is hard to reconcile with the advertizement in the Postboy, which ceased publication in 1728
The BERKSHIRE TRAGEDY, OR, The WHITTAM Miller, Who most barbarously murder’d his Sweet-heart: With his whole Trial, Examination and Confession; and his last dying Words at the Place of Execution
. Woodcut of blindfolded man hanging from goal-shaped gallows, with soldiers holding pikes on each side. Edinburgh: printed for John Keed, in the Swan-Close, 1744. incl. (pp. 2-7) song: “The Berkshire Tragedy” incl. (p. 8) prose: “The last dying Words and Confession of John Mauge, a Miller; who was Executed at Reading in Berkshire, on Saturday the 20th of last Month, for the barbarous Murder of Anne Knite, his Sweet-heart.”
British Library copy accessed via Gale, “Eighteenth Century Collections Online”
(Gale Document number: CW106210361). Harvard College Library HOLLIS 012468496
The BERKSHIRE TRAGEDY: OR, THE WHITTHAM Miller. Who mo6 [sic] barbarously murder’d his SWEET-HEART big with Child: With his whole TRIAL, Examination, and Confession; and his last DYING-WORDS at the Place of EXECUTION
Woodcut (not very clear in reproduction) of three or four people (in two groups) standing by an industrial-looking water-mill. York: Pirnted [sic] for John Keed, 1744. incl. (pp. 2-7) song: “The Berkshire TRAGEDY” incl. (p. 8) prose (poor reproduction hard to decipher):
“The Last Dying Words and Confession of John Mauge, a Master Miller; who was Executed at Reading in Berkshire, on Saturday the 20th of last Month 1744, for the barbarous Murder of Ann Knite, his Sweet-heart big with Child.”
Huntington Library copy accessed via Gale, “Eighteenth Century Collections Online” (Gale Document number: CW105541609
Harvard College Library HOLLIS 012380355
* * * *
English Broadsides (Short Version)
Roud 263 -- by title:
CRUEL MILLER
CRUEL MILLER OR LOVE AND MURDER
BLOODY MILLER
FALSE HEARTED MILLER
CRUEL MILLER
The Cruel Miller--[no imprint][19th century] Cambridge, Mass. Harvard College Library, VII, 45 pr. G.M. Laws.
American Balladry from British Broadsides. Philadelphia, 1957, pp. 111-12.
The Cruel Miller no imprint --
"Wexford Town" Frank Kidson Broadside Collection Vol. 7 p. 42: FK/15/87/1 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B193063 full text is here: http://www.vwml.org/record/FK/15/86/1
The Cruel Miller--
together with "Murder of Maria Marten by W. Corder" [!] London: H. Disley, 1860-83 Edition Bod9289 indistinct woodcut --
"Wexford Town"
Oxford: Bodleian Library. Firth c.17(110). http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/20000/18796.gif Crompton Broadside Collection Vol. 8, No. 547 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B5460
ibid. vol. 8, No. 550 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B5461
Madden Collection (London Printers 8) [VWML mfilm No.81] Item no.150 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B63767
Cruel Miller
together with "Silly Young Maid" London: H.P. Such, Machine Printer and Publisher, 177, Union Street, Boro'. 1863-85 Edition Bod13966 woodcut of hatted man standing, arm outstretched, beside gnarled tree in rural setting "Wexford Town"
Oxford: Bodleian Library. Harding B 11(752). http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/05000/01643.gif UCLA Library: Charles E. Young Research Library. Department of Special Collections. Broadside Ballads from England, Ireland and the United States. Box 6, Folder 12.
BL. Crampton Broadside Collection Vol. 4, No. 67 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B5459
Baring-Gould Broadside Collection (BL L.R.271.a.2) Vol.5, No.209 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B5454
Baring-Gould Broadside Collection (BL L.R.271.a.2) Vol.9, No.111 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B5455
Frank Kidson Broadside Collection Vol. 11 p. 90: FK/19/90/1 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B193064
full text here: http://www.vwml.org/record/FK/19/90/1
Frank Kidson Broadside Collection Vol. 6 p.47: FK/14/48/1 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B194159 full text here: http://www.vwml.org/record/FK/14/48/1
The Cruel Miller
together with "The Wandering Savoyard" and "O tell me in which gin shop" Edition Bod 20105 no imprint (Bod says Fortey & Pitts) woodcut of a gabled house or barn "Wexford Town"
Oxford: Bodleian Library. Harding B 11(753). http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/05000/01644.gif
The Cruel Miller together with "The Wandering Savoyard" and "O tell me in which gin shop" London: W.S. Fortey, Printer and Publisher, 2 & 3 Monmouth Ct 1858-85 Edition Bod7195 woodcut of a gabled house or barn
Oxford: Bodleian Library. Harding B 11(754). http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/05000/01645.gif
The Cruel Miller together with "The Wandering Savoyard" and "O tell me in which gin shop" London: Pitts, Printer, 6, Great St. Andrew Street, 7 Dials 1819-44 Edition Bod4396 woodcut of a gabled house or barn --
Pitts also printed the ”long” broadside (q.v., Minnesota) Oxford: Bodleian Library. Harding B 11(755). http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/05000/01646.gif
<<collated as ‘Pitts’
-- the following from Pitts may be different issues: Madden Collection (London Printers 2) [VWML mfilm No.75]
Item no.891 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B63765 Madden Collection (London Printers 3) [VWML mfilm No.76]
Item no.406 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B63766
CRUEL MILLER OR LOVE AND MURDER
The Cruel Miller; or, Love and Murder
London: J. Catnach, [1813–38]‘ --- town’ -- Atkinson’s preferred version (says it’s among earliest)
Baring-Gould Broadside Collection (BL L.R.271.a.2) Vol.4, No.384 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B5463
Madden Collection (London Printers 4) [VWML mfilm No.77] Item no.358 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B63768 -- typographical catastrophe of a text: printed all in italics, and in a narrow columns, so most lines spill over and last words appear on line above
The Cruel Miller or Love & Murder
Jackson and Son (late Russell.) Printers, Moor Street, Birmingham Edition Bod2816‘---town’
Harding B15(74a) http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/10000/06388.gif
Cruel Miller or, Love & Murder together with "Woodland Mary" Birmingham: W. Pratt, 82, Digbeth, Birmingham Edition Bod9477 ca 1850 woodcut (above second song) of two fantastic creatures by a parapet' ---town’ CUL.
Madden Collection Vol. 21 (Country Printers VI), No. 105 --” -- town”
Oxford: Bodleian Library. Firth c.17(109). http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/20000/18795.gif --”-- town”
<<last 1½ stanzas illegible
The Cruel Miller, or, Love and Murder together with ”Weel may the Keel Row”
Taylor & Co., Worcester- town’-------------
CUL. Madden Collection Vol. 21 (Country Printers VI), No. 617. <<VWML
BLOODY MILLER
-- there is no doubt that the following are "Berkshire Tragedy" / "Cruel Miller", and not the ”Bloody Miller” (on the murder of Anne Nicols by Francis Cooper)
Bloody Miller
[no imprint] [19th century] White-letter no woodcuts
‘Waterford town’
London. Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. Broadwood Ballad Sheet Collection, p. 57
it’s also here:
http://www.vwml.org/record/LEB/9/147/1
The Bloody Miller
together with "James & Flora; or, the United Lovers" W. & T. Fordyce, Printers Dean Street, Newcastle, No. 111. [19th century] White-letter woodcut: cottage and windmill
‘Wrexham town’
Sheffield. Charles Harding Firth Collection, University of Sheffield Library, B112 (sic). Madden Collection (Country Printers 1) [VWML mfilm No.83] Item no.256 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B60617 Madden Collection (Country Printers 1) [VWML mfilm No.83] Item no.255 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B60616
Bloody Miller
Imprint: Thompson, Printer, no. 156, Dale-Street [Liverpool] 1789-1820 Edition Bod21671
‘Wexford town’
Oxford. Bodleian Library 2806 c.17(40) http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/15000/13778.gif --
a slip, originally formed a sheet with Bodl. 2806 c.17(171), ”Human Life”
Bloody Miller together with “New York Streets”
Liverpool: W. Armstrong [1820-24] Edition Bod 4130 woodcut of a windmill (!)
‘Wexford Town’
Oxford. Bodleian Library. Harding B 28(224) http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/15000/11058.gif
FALSE HEARTED MILLER
False Hearted Miller together with "Bang her well Peter" North Shields: J.K. Pollock 1815-1855 woodcut on man standing by barrels and crane on quayside; ship in distance "Wexford Town" Oxford: Bodleian Library. Harding B 11(135). Edition Bod 11670 http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/05000/01017.gif Oxford: Bodleian Library. Harding B 25(609). Edition Bod13577 http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/10000/09560.gif -- same as prec., but a slip without the second song -- texts identical
False Hearted Miller
Swindells, Manchester Madden Collection 18 (Country Printers 3) [VWML mfilm No.85] Item no.222 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B66071
Scottish Broadsides
nothing at NLS under “miller” or “butcher”
--
all Roud’s entries under “Butcher” Boy” are for 409 or other songs
“The Cruel Miller”
James Lindsay (Glasgow)
Printer’s Catalogue (1856) http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudBS/B5457 --
this is Roud’s only Scottish reference under this title
Irish Broadsides
--
none in Roud (two “Bloody Miller” printings in Liverpool)
American Broadsides
“Lexington Miller” (with Johnny Jarman)
[Boston] : Sold wholesale and retail by Hunts & Shaw, no. 2 Mercantile Wharf, and head of City Wharf, [between 1837 and 1840] Harvard Library HOLLIS Number: 013806036 http://id.lib.harvard.edu/aleph/013806036/catalog
“Lexington Miller” (with Johnny Jarman) Boston: Sold wholesale and retail [by William Rutter] corner of Cross & Fulton Sts, [between 1829 and 1834] Harvard Library, HOLLIS Number: 013809745 http://id.lib.harvard.edu/aleph/013809745/catalog Brown University Library. Harris Broadsides 10458 http://library.brown.edu/cds/catalog/catalog.php?verb=render&id=1304600841593752&colid=58 #
G.M. Laws. American Balladry from British Broadsides. Philadelphia, 1957, pp. 109-111.
# Henry, Mellenger E.(sic) “The Lexington Girl”. JAF . 42 (1929): 247-253, at pp. 249-50.
“The Lexington Miller” (with “Johnny Jarman”)
Boston: Sold wholesale and retail, by L. Deming, no. 1, Market Square., [between 1829 and 1831] Brown University Library. Harris Broadsides No. 20507 http://library.brown.edu/cds/catalog/catalog.php?verb=render&id=1304600875859377&colid=58 -- with link to facs.
“The Lexington Miller” (with “Johnny Jarman”)
Boston: Sold wholesale and retail, by L. Deming, no. 1, Market Square., [between 1832 and 1836] Brown University Library. Harris Broadsides No. 10458 http://library.brown.edu/cds/catalog/catalog.php?verb=render&id=1304600804640627&colid=58 -- with link to facs.
PERFORMANCE TRADITION
ENGLAND (versions with texts)
ENGLAND (tune only)
TRISTAN DA CUNHA
SCOTLAND
IRELAND
NORTH AMERICA
Performance Tradition: ENGLAND
to do list: http://www.mtrecords.co.uk/lists/360.htm no. 2 (from Gypsy tradition)
unknown singer
Cecil Sharp’s notes at Clare College
http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudFS/S184045 FRAG -not worth it? -- interesting rendition: http://www.vwml.org/record/CJS2/9/272
unknown singer
Cornwall The Berkshire Tragedy / A Farmer there lived in the north countree Anne Gilchrist MSS Collection (Vaughan Williams Memorial Library) AGG/7/263b NOT THIS SONG
Chalk, Mrs.
(Twyford, Winchester, Hampshire) The Prentice Boy/My parents reared me tenderly Collected George Gardiner, August, 1906. London. Vaughan Williams memorial Library. Gardiner MSS., H488. Full English: http://www.vwml.org/record/GG/1/8/488 --
a note says she “was too nervous to sing”, so text prob. spoken
--
“fair pretty maid”
-- lover not named --
“curly, curly locks”
32
--
“
sweet Annie Wax
was found” (presumably corrupted from an ‘–xford town’)
Costello, Cecilia Birmingham The Wexford Murder/ You young and old I now make bold Peter Kennedy, August 1951 NOT THIS SONG Folktracks FSA 098 (`The Greenwood Side-I-O') Roud (despite numbering it 263): Wexford : James Brennan : Courting Jane O'Riley : Susan tempts lover away : Lover murders Jane : Found by shepherd still alive : Identifies killer
Cox, Harry
Catfield, Norfolk # collected by Peter Kennedy, 19 July 1956 The Prentice Boy BBC recording 22915 EFDSS LP 1004 / Folktracks FSA 034 (`English Folk Singer' / `The Barley Straw') # collected by Mervyn Plunkett, 1960 Ekefield Town
Topic Records ”Bonny Labouring Boy” transc. http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~zierke/peter.bellamy/songs/theprenticeboy.html -- which now links to: http://mainlynorfolk.info/lloyd/songs/theoxfordtragedy.html
Roud & Bishop, New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs
(2012) pp.316-317 -- the girl (aka pretty fair maid) -- lover not named -- curly locks -- Ekefield town
Elliott, Joseph (Todber, Dorset) The Prentice Boy
Collected H.E.D. Hammond, September 1905.
London. Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. Hammond MSS., No. D188. = HAM/2/8/20 FULL ENGLISH: http://www.vwml.org/record/HAM/2/8/20 -- pretty girl -- Jimmy dear -- curly locks -- Ensmore town = from Love & Death
Giles, Robert (Portsmouth, Hampshire) The Prentice Boy/The Prentice Lad Collected George Gardiner, 31 August, 1907. TWO STANZAS ONLY London. Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. Gardiner MSS., H909. http://www.vwml.org/record/GG/1/14/909 -- a pretty girl
Haynes, Mary Ann
Gypsy
Brighton, Sussex Waxford Town / There was a pretty girl in Waxford Town -- from grandmother collected Mike Yates, 1972-75 Musical Traditions MTCD 320 ('Here's Luck to a Man'), track 11 http://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/luck.htm --
“pretty girl”
--
‘John’
-- omittted -- Waxford town
Hicks, George
Arlington, Gloucestershire Ferry Hinksey Town / I fell in love with a pretty girl collected Alfred Williams Alfred Williams MSS No.Gl.44 (Bathe/Clissold Index) Alfred Williams Manuscript Collection (AW/2/17) full text: http://www.vwml.org/record/AW/2/17
-- includes a stanza from' Maria Marten'
-- actually a composite, the first half from an ’old woman’ near Bampton.
--’pretty girl’
-- Jimmy --
so from ’Love & murder
-- curly locks --
which doesn’t specify Wexford or etc.
-- Ferry Hinksey town --
from ’Berkshire’ ???
-- none of the short broadsides have ’Henley Ferry’ variants
Hooper, Mrs. Louie & Mrs. Lucy White: (Hambridge, Somerset) The Miller's Apprentice, or The Oxford Girl. Collected Cecil Sharp, September 1903. (Roud Index says: Cecil Sharp MSS, Folk Words pp.46-47) Full English: Cecil Sharp MSS, Clare College Cambridge, Folk Words pp.41-42 / Folk Tunes p.25. full text is here: http://www.vwml.org/record/CJS2/9/41
pr.
Cecil Sharp's Collection of English Folk Songs
. Ed. Maud Karpeles. 2 vols. London, 1974, No. 65A. -- superseded by above (some minor discrepancies) --
lover is “Jimmy”:
--
takes her by ‘curly locks’:
= derives from “Love and Murder”
-- Oxford Lass = memory of Long Version? (none of the short broadsides mention Oxford)
Hughes, Carolyne
(English traveller, born in Dorset)
The Prentice Boy / A ‘prentice boy lived in London Town
# Collected Ewen MacColl & Peggy Seeger, 1960's. Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger Archive, Ruskin College, Oxford. Musical Traditions MTCD 365-6 ('Sheep Crook and Black Dog') http://www.mtrecords.co.uk/pdf/hughes.pdf track 2.9 << CDBooklet -- sweetheart not specified -- Jack / Jackie -- curly locks -- London town -- there are discrepancies in pr.
Travellers' Songs from England and Scotland
. Ed. E. MacColl & P. Seeger. London, 1977, pp. 242-6, No. 75 /text pp.244-6 Rod Stradling notes (CD Notes) that in their book MacColl & Seeger have somewhat improved the texts; the Booklet to MTCD 365-6 sometimes includes these, but in italics
# Collected Peter Kennedy, 1968 Blanford (aka Blandford) Dorset The London Murder Folktracks FSA 043 (`Blackdog & Sheepcrook')
–
not to be confused with the above
I’m a Romany Rai. Songs by Southern Gypsy Traditional
Singers
. Selected and presented by Shirey Collins. Classic recordings from the 1950s and 1960s made by Peter Kennedy
. The Voice of the People
. Topic Records. TSDC672D (1911). CD 2, track 4. <<CD booklet. Booklet, p. 45:
’Carolyne said she’d learned it from
her grandmother, Alice, who lived to be ninety-
eight, and had died forty years back.’
Marlow, David
Basingstoke, Hampshire My Parents Reared me Tenderly (Hanged I shall Be) recorded by George B. Gardiner, 1906 George Gardiner Manuscript Collection
(GG/1/10/553) full text: http://www.vwml.org/record/GG/1/10/553 -- a bonny lass -- lover not specified -- curly locks -- location not specified
Overd, Mrs. (Emma)
Langport, Somerset
Miller’s Apprentice
/ I courted her six long months Cecil Sharp Augst 1904 ONE STANZA ONLY Cecil Sharp MSS, Folk Tunes p.379 http://www.vwml.org/record/CJS2/10/379
Powell, Mrs.
Herefordshire 1906
“Miss Betty Wilster” / Now all you maidens
FRAG.NOT THIS SONG Ella M. Leather MSS Collection (VWML): Scrapbook p.7: EML/1/11 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudFS/S331860
Smith, Phoebe
(Gypsy, at Woodbridge, Suffolk) # Collected Peter Kennedy, 1956 (8 July) The Oxford Girl London. BBC Sound Archives 23099 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudFS/S186869 Folktracks 60-029 (`Black Velvet Band') (Roud says Kennedy without year) http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudFS/S218080 Folktracks FSA 100 (`I am a Romany') (Roud says Kennedy, 1956-62) http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudFS/S218078 Topic TSCD 673T ('Good People Take Warning'), CD1 track 18 http://www.topicrecords.co.uk/good-people-take-warning-tscd673t/ (Roud specifies Kennedy 1956(8 July) http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudFS/S339058 -- copy of recording at: http://www.last.fm/music/Phoebe+Smith/_/The+Oxford+Girl pr.
Folksongs of Britain and Ireland
. Ed. Peter Kennedy. London, 1975, p. 713, No. 327. http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudFS/S157404 <<englib -- many discrepancies in relation to recording -- designed for singing, so texts may be changed) -- Oxford girl (also at end) (<< Long Version?) -- lover not named -- curly locks (= Love & Murder?) -- Oxford Town -- has formulas and external contamination # collector not specified, 1969 I fell in love with a Wexport Girl (yes; she sounds older
–
and even more like Jeannie Robertson --
and it’s 2 minutes (50%) longer)
Topic 12T 193 (`Once I Had A True Love') http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudFS/S164983 copy of unknown status: http://www.last.fm/music/Phoebe+Smith/_/The+Wexport+Girl
-- quite a few discrepancies from 1956 and book
Spearing aka Spearman, William
(Ile Brewers, Somerset) The Miller's Apprentice, or the Oxford Girl / my parents educated me Collected Cecil Sharp, 6 April, 1904. Cecil Sharp Manuscript Collection (at Clare College, Cambridge) (CJS2/9/220)
http://www.vwml.org/record/CJS2/9/220
-- BUT HAS ONLY FIRST 6 STANZAS (ends at bottom of page) -- for some reason 2/9/221 was not photographed pr.
Cecil Sharp's Collection of English Folk Songs
. Ed. Maud Karpeles. 2 vols. London, 1974, No. 65B. -- has 8 stanzas -- lover not named --
‘curly locks’
-- no place specified
Taylor, Mr. "Shepherd"
(Hickling, Norfolk) Hanged I shall be Collected E.J. Moeran, October, 1921. (Moeran not in Full English pr. Moeran, E.J. "Songs Collected in Norfolk".
JFSS
. 7 (1922-26), 1-23, at p. 23. pr.
Everyman's Book of English County Songs
. Ed. R. Palmer. London, 1979, No. 57 -- from Moeran, JFSS
. -- a girl (elsewhere ‘pretty girl)
-- lover not named -- curly locks -- Ekefield town --
suggests ‘Love & Murder’ variant
Woodrich, J.
Thrushelton, Devon
The Cruel Miller / I went unto my true love’s house at eight o’clock at night
collected Sabine Baring-Gould -- evidently a bit of a poet Sabine Baring-Gould MSS collection: Personal Copy 1: SBG/1/1/302 full text: http://www.vwml.org/record/SBG/1/1/302 Sabine Baring-Gould MSS collection: Fair Copy: SBG/3/1/304 full text: http://www.vwml.org/record/SBG/3/1/304
-- girl not specified -- lover not named -- curly hair -- place not specified ooo
Oral Tradition: England: Recordings of Tune Only
Barnard, Mrs. Elizabeth
(Bridgewater, Somerset) The Miller's Apprentice, or the Oxford Girl. Collected Cecil Sharp, 10 April, 1907. London. Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. Sharp MSS.
Cecil Sharp's Collection of English Folk Songs
. Ed. Maud Karpeles. 2 vols. London, 1974, No. 65C.
Russell, Mrs. Marina
(Upwey, Dorset) The 'Prentice Boy Collected H.E.D. Hammond, Jan.-Feb. 1907. London. Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. Hammond MSS., D824.
Perry, J.
(South Perrot, Dorset) The Apprentice Boy Collected H.E.D. Hammond, June, 1906. London. Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. Hammond MSS., D574.
Pike, Mrs. Betsy
Somerton, Somerset
Miller’s Apprentice
Cecil Sharp, 11 April 1906 -- and there are more in Roud
Oral Tradition: TRISTAN DA CUNHA
Repetto, Frances
written down 1937-8 Maria Martini [!!!] ##### -- so not while they were in England ... pr. Munch, Peter A. "Traditional Songs of Tristan da Cunha".
JAF. 74 (1961), 216-29, at pp. 221-22. Munch, Peter, ed.
Song Tradition of Tristan da Cunha
(1979), pp. 71-5, version a.
Green, Lily
Maria Martini / I once did court a Waxford girl collected by Peter Much on the island, 1937-38. Munch, Peter, ed.
Song Tradition of Tristan da Cunha
(1979), version b
Performance Tradition: SCOTLAND
Roud 263 -- plus 409
for “Butcher Boy”
-- this is a quite different song about a girl who was slighted by a Butcher Boy and hanged herself (“In Jersey City where I did dwell”).
for Scottish Broadsides (if and when any emerge) see under EN:BRO (short) Major database: http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/ -- covers school of Scottish Studies, National Trust for Scotland, B.B.C. (but not absolutely everything) arranged by title:
Wexford Girl
Butcher Boy
WEXFORD GIRL
for a close American variant see “The Waxweed Girl”
http://maxhunter.missouristate.edu/songinformation.aspx?ID=8 --
has links to other American ‘Nebor’ variants
Findlater, Ethel
Wexford Girl http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/person/5797 1899-1973 Orkney Mainland http://folktrax-archive.org/menus/cassprogs/063.htm -- says in all three recordings she learnt it from her mother
# 1961.
FRAGMENT (quatrains 1-4) recorded by Elizabeth Nielsen Edinburgh. School of Scottish Studies. SA1961.88.A17 http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/fullrecord/46899/1 -- solo: technically poor recording
# 1966 .08.31
-- accompanied by daughter, Elsie Johnston recorded Alan J. Bruford Edinburgh. School of Scottish Studies. SA1966.44.B6 http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/fullrecord/93277/1 -- good recording
# 1969
.06.24 recorded Alan J. Bruford Edinburgh. School of Scottish Studies. SA 1969.52 http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/fullrecord/64102/1 -- solo: good performance and recording
BUTCHER BOY
unattributed
Butcher’s Boy
collected by James Madison Carpenter 1929-35 James Madison Carpenter MSS Collection pp. 01269-01271 Roud S329441 under 409
unattributed
The Butcher Boy ##### pr. Greig, Gavin.
Folk-Song of the North-East. Articles Contributed to the "Buchan Observer" from December 1907 to June 1911
. 2 vols. Peterhead, 1909 & 1914; repr. as one vol., Hatboro, 1963, No. CXXXVII. -- i.e. article no. 137 (each having several songs), pp. 1-2; pages of volume does not have through-numbering -- does not reappear, oddly, in
Greig-Duncan Collection:, presumably as Greig does not indicate an individual source (may be a construction).
Greig’s accompanying note (p. 2) says only that this song ”is well known in our part of the country, judging from the records which we have got of both words and tune”; further: such ballads of Murder and Execution are numerous, although ”as far as our North-Eastern minstrelsy is concerned, they are mainly importations. They have likely enough been introduced through broadsides”.
unattributed (farm servant)
The Butcher Boy
Copied from farm-servant's notebook and sent to Gavin Greig by Sam Davidson. ##### Roud S140043 under 409 pr.
The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection
. Vol. II. Ed. Patrick Shuldam- Shaw & Emily B. Lyle. Aberdeen, 1983, No. 200D.
unattributed
The Butcher Boy ##### Collected Gavin Greig. ##### Roud S140044 under 409
The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection
. Vol. II. Ed. Patrick Shuldam- Shaw & Emily B. Lyle. Aberdeen, 1983, No. 200F.
Argo, John
(Turriff) The Butcher Boy Collected #####, 1952 Edinburgh. School of Scottish Studies. SA 1952/21 A 5. recording: http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/fullrecord/19665/1 -- includes note:
Gavin Greig was John Argo's wife's grandfather, but Argo's versions are quite independent of Greig's, although he used Greig's 'Folk-song of the North-East' to remind himself of verses.
Christie, Adam
recorded by Hamish Henderson 1963 Edinburgh. School of Scottish Studies. SA SA1963.82.B19 http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/fullrecord/13411/1 FIRST STANZA ONLY
-- nothing of interest except the first line is:
”My father gave me good learning”
Cruickshank, Mrs.
##### Roud S140064 under 409 The Butcher's Boy Collected Gavin Greig ONE STANZA ONLY
pr.
The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection
. Vol. II. Ed. Patrick Shuldam- Shaw & Emily B. Lyle. Aberdeen, 1983, No. 200C.
Fowlie, A.
##### The Butcher's Boy Collected by Gavin Greig ONE LINE ONLY ##### in Roud as S140063 under 409 pr.
The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection
. Vol. II. Ed. Patrick Shuldam- Shaw & Emily B. Lyle. Aberdeen, 1983, No. 200B.
Higgins, Lizzie
(Traveller; daughter of JeannieRoberts) The Butcher Boy Collected Ailie Edmunds Munro, January 1970. Edinburgh. School of Scottish Studies. SA 1970.22 B4. http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/fullrecord/65600/1 (Transcript FGA is superseded by direct transcript from recording) --
it’s also at:
http://mtrecords.co.uk/articles/higgins.htm disk 2 track 12
MacBeath, Jimmy
(Elgin) The Butcher Boy # Collected Hamish Henderson, 1952 Edinburgh. School of Scottish Studies. SA 1952/29 B7 (B12) http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/fullrecord/21772/1
# Collected Peter Hall 1960’s-80’s
Peter Hall Sound Collection (copies at SSS & VWML) Roud S337026 under 409
Mathieson, Willie
(Ellon) The Butcher Boy Collected Hamish Henderson, 1952. Edinburgh. School of Scottish Studies. SA 1952/4 B 13.
<<<Transcript SSS
how did you get this? http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/fullrecord/2972/1
Mitchell, Miss Kate
##### The Butcher's Boy Collected by Gavin Greig. ##### Roud S140062 under 409 pr.
The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection
. Vol. II. Ed. Patrick Shuldam- Shaw & Emily B. Lyle. Aberdeen, 1983, No. 200A.
Reid, Charles
(Fetterangus) from grandmother The Butcher Boy Collected #####, 1972. Edinburgh. School of Scottish Studies. SA 1972/214 B 8. <<not in tobarandualchais
Robbie, Andrew
(Strichen) The Butcher Boy Collected Kenneth Goldstein, 1960.02.03 Edinburgh. School of Scottish Studies. SA 1960/151 A 1 http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/fullrecord/77116/1
Robertson, Jeannie
Aberdeen (Taveller) she learnt it from old woman, ca 1930. The Butcher Boy # Collected P. Kennedy, 1953. London. BBC Sound Archives 21092. Caedmon TC 1163 / Topic 12T 195 (Fair Game & Foul) Roud S139997 under 409 # Collected Hamish Henderson & Jean Ritchie, September 1953. Edinburgh. School of Scottish Studies. SA 1953/196 9. http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/fullrecord/23036/1 # Collected Hamish Henderson, October 1953. Edinburgh. School of Scottish Studies. SA 1953/247 Al. http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/fullrecord/25352/1
<<collated 2015 # Collected #####, 1958. Edinburgh. School of Scottish Studies. SX 1958/4 B12 Transcript FGA # Collected Kenneth Goldstein, 1955? Riverside RLP 12-
633 (‘Songs of a Scots Tinker Lady’)
Roud S171069 under 409 Roud also has: # S200701 (under 409) Porter & Gower,
Jeannie Robertson,
pp. 236-238 # S337192 (under 409) Peter Hall Sound Collection
Robertson, Stanley
(Traveller; nephew of Jeannie Robertson) The Butcher Boy # Collected Peter R. Cooke 1974.11.07 Edinburgh. School of Scottish Studies. SA 1974.223.2 http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/fullrecord/68933/1 # Collected Barbara McDermitt, 1979.07.07 Edinburgh. School of Scottish Studies. SA 1979.133.B4a
http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/fullrecord/67499/1
FRAGMENT # Collected Flemming G. Andersen, 1981 FGA, Private Tape, 1981 II B.
Shirer, Miss Annie
##### The Butcher's Boy Collected Gavin Greig. ##### Roud (who says 1909) S140065 under 409
The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection
. Vol. II. Ed. Patrick Shuldam- Shaw & Emily B. Lyle. Aberdeen, 1983, No. 200E.
Stewart, Jean
(Fetterangus) The Butcher Boy Collected Kenneth Goldstein, 1960 Edinburgh. School of Scottish Studies. SA 1960/145 B 13 http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/fullrecord/55608/1
FIRST TWO STANZAS ONLY -- no variation of interest prob. Roud S345607 under 409
Willox, Mrs.
(Peterhead) The Butcher's Boy Sent by informant to Gavin Greig. ##### Roud S140066 under 409 pr. Greig, Gavin.
Folk-Song of the North-East. Articles Contributed to the "Buchan Observer" from December 1907 to June 1911
. 2 vols. Peterhead, 1909 & 1914; repr. as one vol., Hatboro, 1963, No. CLXXIX, as sent "from a Peterhead lady", "the recollections of a venerable parent and herself". superseded by Shaw & Lyle, q.v. pr.
The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection
. Vol. II. Ed. Patrick Shuldam- Shaw & Emily B. Lyle. Aberdeen, 1983, No. 200G.
Performance Tradition: IRELAND
Roud 263
Doran, Mary
(tinker) Belfast Dublin City Recorded P. Kennedy & S. O'Boyle, 1952. BBC Sound Archives 18581 pr.
Folksongs of Britain and Ireland
. London, 1975, p. 731 (notes to No. 327, "The Oxford Girl"). --
but mill is at ‘Limsborough’
Delaney, Mary
co Tipperary Town of Linsborough recorded Jim Carroll & Pat Mackenzie, 1973-85 Musical Traditions CD 325-6 ('From Puck to Appleby') http://www.mustrad.org.uk/records.htm
Performance Tradition: NORTH AMERICA
-- N.B. Randolph, Vance, ed. Ozark Folksongs
. 4 vols. 1946-50; repr. Columbia, 1980, II, 92, Headnote to No. 150, "The Noel Girl", observes that many people in McDonald County, Missouri, who remember this song, insist that it refers to the fate of Lula Noel, whose body was found in the Cowskin River near Lanagan, Missouri, 10 December, 1892. William Simmons of Joplin, Missouri, was convicted of the murder and sentenced to the penitentiary. As Vance notes, however, the words of the "Noel Girl" song are almost identical with those of "The Wexford Girl", derived from "an old English piece" [i.e. "The Berkshire Tragedy"]. Indeed neither Lula Noel nor William Simmons (and neither Lanagan Nor Joplin) are mentioned in any of Randolph's texts, which (when they are not fragmentary) refer to the usual miller and girl: this is essentially a matter of meta-narrative
–
the packaging with which the songs is presented to listeners/collectors, with no discernible
influence on content: if a “Lula Noel" sub
-category were established, it would not be possible to determine which texts belonged to it (other than in cases where singers use this designation).
–
and
not entirely clear all the singers considered their song “The Noel Girl”
‘LEXINGTON’ VERSION
‘WEXFORD’ VERSION
‘KNOXVILLE’ VERSION
‘EXPERT’ VERSION
‘OXFORD’ VERSION
‘REXFORD’ VERSION
UNCATEGORIZED ooo
‘LEXINGTON’ VERSION
“The Lexington Girl”
Lexington
Riddle, Mary
(related to Almeda?) pretty fair maid Black Mountain, Buncombe County, North Carolina, n.d. -- nothing further collected by Henry
Henry, Mellenger E.(sic) “The Lexington Girl”.
JAF
. 42 (1929): 247-253, at pp. 247-8. ooo
‘WEXFORD’ VERSION
Singer unspecified
“The Wexford Girl”
Waterford + Baltimore undated version collected by Prof. W. Roy Mckenzie Wexford girl Nova Scotia Willie ????? Wexford gaol...Wexford Town
Ballads and Sea Songs from Nova Scotia
. Ed. W. Roy Mackenzie. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1928, pp. 293-4. repr.
The Viking Book of Folk Ballads of the English Speaking World
. Ed. A.B. Friedman. New York: Viking Press, 1956, pp. 225-28 (text pp. 227-28). -- headnote (pp. 225-26) lists differences (seduction & pregnancy; trial) from original "Berkshire Tragedy". repr. (from Mackenzie)
Shantymen and Shantyboys: Songs of the Sailors and Lumbermen
. Ed. W. Doerfinger. New York: Mcmillan, 1951, pp. 289-290. repr. (from Mckenzie)
The Penguin Book of Folk Ballads from the English-Speaking World
. Ed. A.B. Friedman, 1956; repr. Harmondsworth, 1982, pp. 227-8. (Headnote has nothing to add)
“Johnny McDowell”
Woxford ... Woxford
McCourt
,
Miss Snoaf
a pretty fair miss Orndoff, Webster County, West Virginia. Johnny McDowel May 1916. (... Woxford town
–thrown in) # Cox, John Harrington, ed.
Folk-Songs of the South
. 1925; repr. New York: Dover, 1967, pp. ??-?? #repr. from Cox Henry, Mellenger
E.(sic) “The Lexington Girl”.
JAF
. 42 (1929): 247-253, pp. 251-2. The Waxford Girl Waxford ... Wicklow
Galusha, John
Waxford girl (Minerva, New York State) Willie Collected Anne & Frank Warner, 1941 Wicklow jail ... Wicklow town #####
Traditional American Folk Songs from the Anne & Frank Warner Collection
. Ed. Anne Warner. Syracuse, 1984, No. 7.
“The Tragedy”
Wexford girl (passim)
Wiles, Mrs. Drayton.
Johnny
(Morgantown, Monongalia County, West Virginia), ... Wexford town n.d. -- learnt from her mother, who lived many years in the mountains near Rowlesburg, Preston County. -- recorded by Miss Marie Rennar # Cox, John Harrington, ed.
Folk-Songs of the South
. 1925; repr. New York: Dover, 1967, pp. ??-?? #repr. from Cox Henry, Mellenger E.(sic) “The Lexington Girl”.
JAF
. 42 (1929): 247-253, pp-250-251, ooo
‘KNOXVILLE’ VERSION
The Knoxville Girl
Painter, Mr. Fred
Knoxville Girl (Galena, Missouri) Willie Collected Vance Randolph, 26 Sept., 1941 ... Knoxville Town #####
Ozark Folksongs
. Ed. Vance Randolph. 4 vols. 1946-50; repr. Columbia, 1980, No. 150I. "The Miller's Apprentice" [Knoxville Girl]
Wilson, Mrs. Mary, & Mrs. Townsley
a Knoxville girl ... Flora Dean (Pineville, Bell co., Kentucky) Johnny Collected Cecil Sharp 1 May 1917 ... in Knoxville town Sharp MSS Sharp, Cecil.
English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians
. 1917; 2nd edn. ed. Maud Karpeles. 2 vols. London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1932; repr. in one vol. with original pagination, 1960, No. 71A << copy
‘EXPERT’ VERSION
Freeman, Mr. & Mrs. Arlie
Natural Dam, Arkansas Expert Girl Collected Vance Randolph, 14 Dec. 1941 Willie #####
Ozark Folksongs
. Ed. Vance Randolph. 4 vols. 1946-50; repr. Columbia, 1980, No. 150K. The Expert Girl Echo ... Expert
Morris, Miss Lucile
... an Expert Girl (Springfield, Missouri) Sweet Willie Collected Vance Randolph, 22 Feb. 1933 Expert jail ... Expert town #####
Ozark Folksongs
. Ed. Vance Randolph. 4 vols. 1946-50; repr. Columbia, 1980, No. 150D. The Expert Girl
Morris , Miss Lucile [2nd of two versions]
(Springfield, Missouri) -- no names specified Collected Vance Randolph, 22 Feb. 1933 #####
Ozark Folksongs
. Ed. Vance Randolph. 4 vols. 1946-50; repr. Columbia, 1980, No. 150E. ONE STANZA ONLY ooo
‘OXFOR ’ VERSION
Hudson, Mrs. Sula
Oxford Girl (Crane, Missouri) Johnny
Collected Vance Randolph, 15 Sept. 1941. ... Oxford Town #####
Ozark Folksongs
. Ed. Vance Randolph. 4 vols. 1946-50; repr. Columbia, 1980, No. 150L. ooo
‘REXFOR ’ VERSION
The Rexford Girl
Dunaway, Mrs. Georgina
(Fayetteville, Arkansas) ... through Rexford town. Collected Vance Randolph, 30 Jan. 1942 TWO STANZAS ONLY #####
Ozark Folksongs
. Ed. Vance Randolph. 4 vols. 1946-50; repr. Columbia, 1980, No. 150H. ooo
UNCATEGORIZED
"The Miller's Apprentice"
Creech, Mrs. Berry
Greary Creek, Pine Mountain, Harlan co., Kentucky -- none Collected Cecil Sharp 31 August 1917 ONE STANZA ONLY Sharp MSS: VWML (>> Full English?) Sharp, Cecil.
English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians
. 1917; 2nd edn. ed. Maud Karpeles. 2 vols. London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1932; repr. in one vol. with original pagination, 1960, No. 71D (P. 409) "The Miller's Apprentice" [a milk fond girl] In a close town
Knuckles, Mrs. Delie
a milk fond girl (Barbourville, Knox co., Kentucky) Collected Cecil Sharp 18 May 1917 ONE STANZA ONLY Sharp MSS Sharp, Cecil.
English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians
. 1917; 2nd edn. ed. Maud Karpeles. 2 vols. London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1932; repr. in one vol. with original pagination, 1960, No. 71C (P. 408) << copy #####
O'Neill, Mr. Clarence G.
(Day, Missouri) -- no names specified Collected Vance Randolph, 28 July 1941 (heard in 1900) FRAGMENT #####
Ozark Folksongs
. Ed. Vance Randolph. 4 vols. 1946-50; repr. Columbia, 1980, No. 150F.
"The Miller's Apprentice"
Poff , Mrs.
Zorie (Barbourville, Knox Co., Kentucky) Collected Cecil Sharp 8 May 1917 ONE STANZA ONLY Sharp MSS Sharp, Cecil.
English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians
. 1917; 2nd edn. ed. Maud Karpeles. 2 vols. London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1932; repr. in one vol. with original pagination, 1960, No. 71B (P. 408) The Noel Girl
Shockley, Mrs. Eva
Lexton Town (Noel, Missouri) Collected Vance Randolph, 12 August, 1928
?????
Ozark Folksongs
. Ed. Vance Randolph. 4 vols. 1946-50; repr. Columbia, 1980, No. 150B. (p. 94) ONE STANZA ONLY similar to
Stephens
, except for first stanza (quoted)
Short, Mr. J. Will
Orphan Girl (Galena, Missouri) John/Johnny Collected Vance Randolph, 15 August, 1941 Washington (trial) (learnt from mother, ca 1890) #####
Ozark Folksongs
. Ed. Vance Randolph. 4 vols. 1946-50; repr. Columbia, 1980, No. 150G "The Miller's Apprentice" a pretty girl
Small
,
Mrs Dol
(Nellysford, (no county specified) Virginia) Collected Cecil Sharp 23 May 1918 ONE STANZA ONLY Sharp MSS Sharp, Cecil.
English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians
. 1917; 2nd edn. ed. Maud Karpeles. 2 vols. London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1932; repr. in one vol. with original pagination, 1960, No. 71E (P. 409) The Noel Girl Pineville ... Pineville
Stephens, Mrs. Lee
a pretty fair maid (White Rock, Missouri) --- Collected Vance Randolph, 10 August, 1927 --- #####
Ozark Folksongs
. Ed. Vance Randolph. 4 vols. 1946-50; repr. Columbia, 1980, No. 150A. (pp. 93-4) The Noel Girl
Thornton, Miss Laura
-- no names
(Pineville, Missouri) Collected Vance Randolph, 4 October 1926 FRAGMENT #####
Ozark Folksongs
. Ed. Vance Randolph. 4 vols. 1946-50; repr. Columbia, 1980, No. 150C. [Nice Young Girl]
Tuttle, Mrs. Mildred
(Farmington, Arkansas) ... a nice young girl Collected Vance Randolph, 31 December, 1941 (learnt from parents) TWO STANZAS ONLY #####
Ozark Folksongs . Ed. Vance Randolph. 4 vols. 1946-50; repr. Columbia, 1980, No. 150J.
------------------
Footnotes:
2. Having no folk song derivatives, it does not feature in the Roud Index. The two ballads also share the motif of a nose-bleed, but whereas in this other ballad it actually occurs, as a symptom of stress (and so guilt), in ours it is an untruth perpetrated by the murderer to explain away the blood on his clothes.
3. Singled out here and elsewhere for the significance of Gypsy /traveler singers in sustaining a performance tradition into the era of electronic recording.
4. Elegantly formulated by Steve Roud as ‘the x-factor’.
5. Citing the York imprint published by John Keed (Huntington Library via Gale, “Eighteenth Century Collections Online”, Gale Document number: CW105541609). The edition published for the same printer in Edinburgh (British Library via Gale, “Eighteenth Century Collections Online”, Gale Document number: CW106210361) omits ‘big with child’ (and corrects ‘most’).
6. David Atkinson, The Anglo-Scottish Ballad and its Imaginary Contexts (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2014), p. 46.
7. It would also be convenient to ignore it in relation to the ballad itself, being the most idiosyncratic of the texts.
8. British Library Newspapers, p. 2. http://access.gale.com/gdc/documents/Burney%20Early%20Newspaper%20History.pdf
9. Atkinson pp. 46-7, and personal communication.
10 Ibid., p. 46, n. 79. The matter may however require further consideration and exploration: if the assize records typically note merely the name of the accused and (in murder cases) that of the victim, how would this case, in the absence of names and date, be recognized? For example, at the far chronological range established by thePost Boy reference, on 28 February 1737, a William George was tried at the Reading assizes for the murder of Elizabeth Blackford, and duly condemned and hanged (http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/berks.html). Furthermore while Richard Clark, who curates the Capital Punishment register, reported he had found no reference to the case, his project covers the period 1735 onwards, while the Post Boy references suggests the case could have been as early as 1695
11. Vale of the White Horse District Council, Wytham Conservation Area Appraisal, 2008. www.whitehorsedc.gov.uk/vale/
wytham-july-2008tcm4-1714.pdf -- includes several references to the mill and the Seacourt Stream; Geograph. http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/442300 -- photograph of mill (from a distance across a field), accompanied by detailed interactive map; http://www.wytham-village.org.uk/history.htm; The White Hart of Wytham, http://whitehartwytham.com/the-village-of-wytham/ -- restaurant brochure, incl. a description of the area with a reference to the murder case.
12 See the following remarks on the time-line in connection with the trial.
13 http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/berks/vol4/pp405-408.
14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Hinksey
15. Swindon and Wiltshire History Centre, Alfred Williams Manuscript Collection (AW/2/17); full text: http://www.vwml.org/record/AW/2/17
16. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinksey
17. J.S. Cockburn.A History of the English Assizes 1558–1714. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972, p. 34.
18. http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/berks.html – check the only two cases 1735-1799 where a man is hanged for murdering a woman
19 In stating that the sweetheart’s sister ’prosecuted’ the lover-murderer the short broadside (16.1) brings out a legal feature (at most) only implicit in the original: at this period formal criminal prosecutions were undertaken not in the name of the Crown but by individuals (the victims or their closest relatives) in the form of a sworn statement. Following the discovery of the body, however, the verdict of the Inquest naming the culprit automatically constituted an indictment. See David Bentley, English Criminal Justice in the Nineteenth Century (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 1998), pp. 7-8.
20. David C. Fowler, "The Gosport Tragedy: Story of a Ballad". Southern Folklore Quarterly. 43 (1979), 157-96