Rich Lady from London- Mahoney (VA) 1950 Leach
[From Songs from Rappahannock County, Virginia by MacEdward Leach and Horace P. Beck; The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 63, No. 249 (Jul. - Sep., 1950), pp. 257-284. Their notes follow.
This ballad is not to be confused with the popular ballad, Child No. 73 Lord Thomas and Fair Annet, which is commonly known in the US, and Canada as "The Brown Girl."
US and Canada versions are based on the hundreds of late 18th century English broadsides sometimes titled "The Sailor from Dover" or "Sally and her Truelove Billy."
Child's B version of 295, "The Brown, Brown Girl" collected by Rev. S. Baring-Gould, introduced stanzas from the "Sally and her Truelove Billy" songs. In his article "Folk Song Tradition, Revival and Re-Creation" Steve Gardham has shown that Baring-Gould's ballad is a re-creation of two ballads and not traditional.
To put it simply, the versions are not closely related to "The Brown Girl" but are part of the "The Sailor from Dover" and "Sally and her Truelove Billy" song group. In the US and Canada some common titles are "Pretty Sally," "Sally," and "A Rich Irish Lady." They have been put here following Bronson and others who have attached them to Child 295, not because they belong here.
R. Matteson 2014]
"Rich Lady from London" ("The Brown Girl") (Child 295)
This is not the conventional type, in that here the boy refuses the girl who then puts the best face possible on the situation before dying. It also suggests Child B in the number of rings, but unlike Child B, the rings are refused. Finally, the sea element is almost entirely lost except for the incidental vocabulary. Davis, Traditional Ballads of Virginia, p. 537; Brewster, Ballads
and Songs of Indiana, p. 164; Sharp, English Folksongs of the Southern Appalachians, I, 295; M. E. Henry, Still More Ballads and Folksongs from the Southern Highlands; JAF, 45 (1932), 53. For a discussion of the relation of this ballad to Child 295, see Hudson, Folk-Songs of Mississippi, p. 128, and Kirkland, Southern Folklore Quarterly, 2 (1938), 79. Barry, Eckstorm, and
Smythe, British Ballads from Maine, ch. 2. (W.H.M)
I. There's a fair English Lady, from London she came
A beautiful damsel, called Sally by name.
2. Her riches were so great, and her honor so high
If I must reward you, she would cross and deny.
3. It's now you may tarry, and go on your course
For I know I'll never marry you, unless I am forced.
4. "No forc'ning, no forc'ning, no forc'ning," said she,
For there's plenty other boys, are waiting for me.
5. For twenty-four days has rolled and passed by
This beautiful damsel took sick at last.
6. She was sick and low. She knew not for a while
She sent for this young man, she once had denied.
7. It's, "Am I the doctor, can kill or can cure?"
Or it's, "Am I this young man, you once had denied?"
8. "Yes, you are the doctor, can kill or can cure,
And without your assistance, I'm ruined I'm sure."
9. She pulled from her fingers, gold diamond rings three
Saying, "Take them and wear them, while you're dancing over me.
10. "No keep your rings, Sally, and lie them on your breast,
For I'll dance on your grave, Love, while you're lying at rest.
11. Well it's Sally is dead, and you all may be exposed
To some of her relations, she has willed her fine clothes.
12. She has taken her lodgings, in the banks of cold clay
Her body, cheeks, lie a-moldering away.
* In the sixth and fourteenth measures, Mr. Mahoney gets an extra beat. This has been compensated for by the pause in measure fourteen and the dotted eighth and thirty-second notes in measure six. His rhythm, other than this, is pretty good. The music is transcribed by Antoinette Manos and Helen Fernald