My Golden Ball- Matthews (ME) 1927 Barry D
[My D designation. From: British Ballads From Maine, p. 206; letter designation is Golden Ball version C. Barry give A-C versions of "The Golden Ball" version. See all of Barry's notes on the front page of US/Canadian versions. Some notes follow.
R. Matteson 2015]
THE MAID FREED FROM THE GALLOWS
(Child 95)
Three of Joseph Gilley's daughters, Mrs. Nancy Stanley, Mrs. Phebe Stanley, and Mrs. Harriet Taylor, aged, respectively, when interviewed, seventy-four, eighty-four, and eighty-eight years, all recalled some part of this old song; but the only other textual fragment found is that of Mrs. Matthews. Yet Mrs. Archie S. Spurling of Islesford could remember having heard it sung, and Mrs. Fred W. Morse of Islesford said that she had heard an old wandering beggar man in Ireland sing "The Golden 8all." Several persons along the border could also recall having heard it long ago.
"The Golden Ball" is related most closely to Child F, G, H (II, 353-354). Of these, F was "sung in Forfarshire. . . by girls during
the progress of some game," while H, of which Child gave two forms, was part of a cante-fable. The view first put forward by Child, and lately reaffirmed by Prof. Reed Smith (South Carolina Ballads, p. 44), that the game-song and the cante-fable represent the last stages in the deterioration of this ballad, is not to be taken unqualifiedly.
A common feature of the "Golden Ball" versions, whether as ballad, game, or cante-fable, consists in the placing of the heroine in such a situation, that the failure to produce some precious article, --golden ball, golden key, golden cup, silver cup, etc.,--entrusted to her keeping, involves, either directly or indirectly, death on the gallows. Thus in Child H b, the golden ball is the property of a rich woman, who obliges her maid to clean it every day. The maid loses it in a stream, and is sentenced to be hanged. The best forms of the cante-fable, however, have been recorded from the tradition of American Negroes.
Form II. The Golden Ball
There is another form of the Hangman Song, characterized by the maid who is to be hanged having lost a golden ball, which must be returned if she is not to suffer the penalty. This also was once known upon the Maine coast, and we have recovered a few fragments but have been unable to find anyone who could sing the air to it.
D. [My Golden Ball] Fragment, taken down, October, 1927, from the recitation of Mrs. Frank Matthews, Eastport.
"Have you found my golden ball ?
Have you thought of me?
Have you come to take me off
This dreadful willow tree?"
"I've not found your golden ball,
I've not thought of thee,
I've not come to take you off
This dreadful willow tree."