Sarah- Nicewander (VA) 1923 Davis D
[Davis: Traditional Ballads of Virginia; 1925; Davis defers to Sharp and classifies these ballads as version of 295 "The Brown Girl." The problem is he and John Stone name all the versions "The Brown Girl" although there is no "brown girl" in the ballad and the classification is wrong. At that time (1925) is easy to see why he would go along with Sharp, still we are left with versions titled, 'The Brown Girl." I've changed the title for all such versions. Davis's 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 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]
50. THE BROWN GIRL
(Child, No. 295)
The Virginia contribution of eleven texts and three melodies more than doubles the- gleanings of this ballad in America. For other American items, see Barry, No. 19 (and melody from Vermont in Journal XVIII, 295; and Campbell and Sharp, No. 36 (six texts and five tunes from North Carolina and Virginia). The Virginia items are reported in Bulletin, Nos. 5, 7, 8, 9,
11. One fragment of this ballad combined with "The Death of Queen Jane" (Child, No. 170) was not reported in the Bulletin but appears as Virginia, No. 35, which see.
The Virginia variants A to J seem to belong to a single version of the ballad, one that has little in common with either of the Child versions, though its phraseology is occasionally reminiscent of Child B, not of A. The Campbell and Sharp texts A to F represent the same version, which we may therefore call the usual American version. In it the girl is no longer brown, and the
lovers have exchanged positions; the man is now the proud one who, once scorned, will not forgive and thus save the life of the sick girl, upon whose grave he will rather dance. These essential changes and others mutt be made in Child's summary, which runs thus: "A young man who has been attached to a girl sends her word by letter that he cannot fancy her because
she is so brown (he has left her for another maid in B). She sends a disdainful reply, He writes again that he is dangerously ill (he is love-sick in B), and begs her to come to him quickly and give him back his faith. She takes her time in going, and when she comes to the sick man's bedside, cannot stand for laughing. She has, however, brought a white band with her, which she
strokes on his breast, in sign that she gives him back the faith which he had given her. But as to forgiving and forgetting, that she will never do; she will dance upon his grave." The Virginia version of the unrelenting male lover over-cruel to the dying Sally because she has rejected him is certainly less moving and less grateful than the picture of the proud brown girl who
refuses the death-bed advances of her once scornful lover. The name Sally or Sarah gives place once to Marthy, in Virginia F. The style of the Virginia ballad shows unmistakably the influence of the broadside-press.
Indeed, it is with some hesitation that these texts have been definitely assigned to "The Brown Girl." But if they are not strictly a version of that ballad, they may well be, and almost certainly are, founded on "The Brown Girl " or perverted from it. Hence, and also following the authority of Campbell and Sharp, they are printed here as variants of the ballad rather
than as appendices to it.
D. [Sarah] "The Brown Girl." Collected by Miss Alfreda M. Peel. Sung by Miss Isobel Nicewander, of Bland, Va., Bland County. September 3, 1923. The sense of this variant is badly confused.
1. "Oh Sarah, Oh Sarah," said he,
"Don't you remember when you first courted me?
2 "Oh, I asked you in kindness, you answered me in scorn,
And now you'll remember the days passed and gone."
3 He lay wounded in love, and they knew not for why;
She sent for this young maid she once did deny.
4 "Am I your doctor, am I your cure,
Am I your doctor you sent for me here?"
5 "Yes, you are my doctor, you are my cure,
And without your assistance I'm ruined, I'm sure."
6 "And the time passed and gone, dear, I hope you'll forgive,
And grant some longer time for to live."
7 "I never will forgive you, as long as I live,
I'll dance on your grave when you're laid in the ground."
8 And off of her fingers her rings, her rings she pulled three,
"Take them and wear them while I'm dancing on thee."
9 "I'd freely forgive him, but he won't forgive me;
My fall is ten thousand times under the sea."