Bluegrass Messengers

Recordings & Info 3A. The Constant Farmer's Son

[See print sources

R. Matteson 2016]

CONTENTS:

1) Alternative Titles
2) Traditional Ballad Index
3) Excerpt from Belden

ATTACHED PAGES: (see left hand column)
1) Roud No. 675 ( Listings, currently not attached)

Alternate Titles

The Contented Farmer's Son
Merchant's Daughter
The Country Farmer's Son (parody)

Traditional Ballad Index: The Constant Farmer's Son

Constant Farmer's Son, The [Laws M33]
DESCRIPTION: Her parents consent to let their daughter marry a farmer, but her brothers will not agree. The brothers take the farmer out and murder him, claiming he has fled with another girl. The daughter finds the body, has her brothers executed, and dies of grief
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1845 (broadside, Bodleian Harding B 11(3995))
KEYWORDS: homicide family
FOUND IN: Britain(England(Lond,South),Scotland(Aber)) US(MA,MW) Canada(Mar,Newf) Ireland
REFERENCES (14 citations):
Laws M33, "The Constant Farmer's Son"
GreigDuncan2 221, "The Constant Farmer's Son" (2 fragments, 2 tunes)
Wiltshire-WSRO Mi 632, "Merchant's Daughter" (1 text)
BroadwoodCarols, pp. 28-29, "The Merchant's Daughter or The Constant Farmer's Son" (1 text, 1 tune)
OShaughnessy-Yellowbelly1 11, "The Constant Farmer's Son" (1 text, 1 tune)
FSCatskills 47, "The Constant Farmer's Son" (1 text, 1 tune)
SHenry H806, pp. 434-435, "The Constant Farmer's Son" (1 text, 1 tune)
Morton-Maguire 17, pp. 40-41,108,163, "The Constant Farmer's Son" (1 text, 1 tune)
LPound-ABS, 32, pp. 76-78, "The Constant Farmer's Son" (1 text)
Creighton/Senior, pp. 141-142, "Constant Farmer's Son" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton-Maritime, p. 118, "The Constant Farmer's Son" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lehr/Best 25, "Constant Farmer's Son" (1 text, 1 tune)
Mackenzie 26, "The Constant Farmer's Son" (1 text)
DT 309, CONSTFRM (JEALBRO5 incorrectly listed as Laws M32)
Roud #675
RECORDINGS:
Josie Connors, "Constant Farmer's Son" (on IRTravellers01)
Tom Lenihan, "Constant Farmer's Son" (on IRClare01)
John Maguire, "The Constant Farmer's Son" (on IRJMaguire01)
James McDermott, "The Constant Farmer's Son" (on IRHardySons)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 11(3995), "The Merchant's Daughter and Constant Farmer's Son," J. Pitts (London), 1819-1844; also Johnson Ballads 1223, Harding B 16(148a), Firth c.18(183), Johnson Ballads 1947, Harding B 11(2402), "The Merchant's Daughter and Constant Farmer's Son"; Johnson Ballads 2675, "Merchant's Daughter" or "Constant Farmer's Son" ("It's of a merchant's daughter in London town did dwell"); 2806 b.9(265), "The Constant Farmer's Son"
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Bramble Briar (The Merchant's Daughter; In Bruton Town)" [Laws M32]
NOTES: At the end of Tom Lenihan's version on IRCLare01, the brothers' bodies are given to doctors "for to practice by" "but Mary's thoughts both night and day On her dead love did run; In the madhouse cell poor Mary dwells For her constant farmer's son." See the notes to "A Maid in Bedlam" for other women driven to the asylum. - BS

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Excerpt from Boccaccio, Hans Sachs, and the Bramble Briar by H. M. Belden
PMLA, Vol. 33, No. 3 (1918), pp. 327-395

VI
The Constant Farmer's Son, tho it tells essentially the same story as The Bramble Briar, is a distinct ballad. Its versification-stanzas of four seven-beat lines riming in couplets, without feminine endings and with pretty regular internal rime in the third and fourth lines--is quite distinct from that of The Bramble Briar.^[93] The hero is not a "servant man" or apprentice, is not attached in any way to the family, but is a farmer's son. There is no overhearing of the lovers by the brothers; indeed their
love is not a hidden one:

Long time young William courted her and fixed the wedding day,
Their parents all consented . . .

But her brothers have determined that she shall wed a lord who has "pledged his word," and therefore plan to make away with her lover. The occasion they find not in an excursion into the forest, whether for hunting or merely "a diletto," but in a trip to a fair " not far from town." ^[94] The scene of the murder is not described; it was done on the way home, with a " stake "-a favorite instrument of murder in vulgar ballads. When they reach home the sister asks no questions, but they proffer the information that her lover has fallen in love with another girl, and "therefore we came for to tell the same of the constant
farmer's son." To this she makes no reply. At night

she had a dreadful dream,
She dreamt she saw his body lay down by a crystal stream.

The ghost's appearance is not described, as it is in Boccaccio and The Bramble Briar; indeed it is not a ghost that comes in answer to her lamentations and tells her what has befallen, but merely a dream of him lying dead. She runs straightway to the place (not further described), and there

dead and cold she beheld her constant farmer's son.

The salt tears stood upon his cheeks all mingled with his gore
She shrieked in vain to ease her pain and kissed him ten times o'er,
She gathered green leaves from the trees to keep him from the sun,
And night and day she passed away with her constant farmer's son.

But "hunger it came creeping on," and she went home to find his murderer,"

Crying, Parents dear, you soon shall hear a dreadful deed is done,
In yonder vale lies dead and cold my constant farmer's son.

Up came her eldest brother and said it is not me,
The same replied the younger and swore most bitterly,
But Mary said don't turn so red nor try the laws to shun,
You've done the deed and you shall bleed for my constant farmer's son.

These villains soon they owned their guilt and for the same did die,
Young Mary fair in deep despair she never ceased to cry,
Their parents they did fade away the glass of life was run,
And Mary cried in sorrow died for her constant farmer's son.

The natural inference is that The Constant Farmer's Son is a working over of The Bramble Briar by some hack for the ballad press. Taylor of Waterloo Road, who printed ballads about 1830-40,^[95] issued a copy^[96] to which is appended the name of G. Brown; and worthless as such signatures to printed ballads generally are, he may have been the fashioner of this version. At any rate it is just such a ballad as he might be expected to write. And it was successful, too; it was printed by Catnach, Forth, and others in London as well as by Taylor, by Gilbert in Newcastle, Cadman in Manchester, and Wehlman in New York; ^[97] and as we have seen, it was still sung in Sussex a few years ago.^[98]