Seven Brothers- Johnson (NC) 1941 Brown 4C
[From the Brown Collection; 1952, version 4C in Brown Vol, 4 (music) one of 11 Versions. Brown includes music from Greer and Abrams housed at Appalachian State University- available online (some recordings like this one).
This is version C in the Brown Collection Vol. 4, and it should by by Mrs. Avery (not Anna) Johnson, 1941 when Abrams started making recordings. I've transcribed the text as below. It seems likely the recording was cut short at the end.
R. Matteson 2011, 2014]
3. Earl Brand (Child 7)
This admirable specimen of the tragic ballad seems to have held its place in the favor of ballad singers better in America than in the old country. Greig reports it from Scotland, to be sure, both in the Folk-Songs of the North-East and in Last Leaves, and Ord has it in his Bothy Songs; but the absence of any mention of it in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society seems to show that it is extinct in English tradition. On this side of the Atlantic it has been reported as traditional song in Newfoundland (BSSN 7-8), Nova Scotia (BSSNS 9-11), Maine (BBM 35-40), Virginia (TBV 86-91, SharpK I 21-3, 25), West Virginia (FSS 18-19), Kentucky (SharpK i 24-5), Tennessee (FSSH 36-7, BTFLS viii 64-5), North Carolina (JAFL xxviii 152-4, SharpK 1 14-19, SSSA 45-6, BMFSB lo-ii, SCSM 115-16), Georgia (SharpK I 19-20), Mississippi (FSM 66-8), Florida (SFLQ viii 136-8), the Ozarks (OMF 219-21, OFS I 48-9), Indiana (BSI 37-8), and Illinois JAFL IX 241-2). 'The Soldier's Wooing,' reckoned by some as a secondary form of "Earl Brand,' is dealt with later in the present volume. The American texts follow in general the tradition of Scott's form of the ballad ('The Douglas Tragedy' of the Minstrelsy, Child's version B), clinging in particular to the '"buglet horn" that "hung down by his side," recognizable through a variety of transformations. Old Carl Hood has vanished entirely. Most of the North Carolina versions, and also that from Georgia, have introduced a new element, the question of the hero's origin. *When scornfully described by the girl's father as "a steward's son" (transformed in texts A, C, F below into "Stuart's son"), he proudly declares that his father is a regis king and his mother a Quaker's queen. Possibly this has been picked up, and corrupted, from the English stall ballad of 'The Orphan Gypsy Girl,' the opening line of which in Cox's West Virginia version (FSS 335) runs: "My father is king of the gypsies, my mother is queen of the Jews."
Seven Brothers- Mrs. Avery Johnson, North Wilkesboro, c.1940 (see music below) Transcribed Matteson 2014
Listen: http://contentdm.library.appstate.edu/docapp/abrams/field_recordings/earl_brand3.html
1. A young man entered an old man's gate
So boldly he did say,
"The older daughter you can keep at home,
But the younger one I'll take away."
2. "Light down, light down, Lord William," he said
"And hold your steed by the reigns,
For I never could have said that a daughter of mine,
Has laid with a lord all night."
3 I thank you sir, that's very fair,
I am a Stuart's son;
My father is a raging [1] king,
My mother she's a Quaker's queen
4. He jumped on his milk-white steed
And her on the dappled gray
He swung his bugle horn around his neck,
And they went riding away.
5 They'd not [got] more than one mile from town,
When he looked behind again.
She saw her father and all seven of her brothers
A-coming over the plain.
6 "Light down, light down fair Ellender," said he,
"And hold my steed by the rein,
Till I fight your father and seven of your brothers,
A-coming over the plain."
7 She got down; and she stood right still,
And she never returned a word,
Till she saw her father and seven of her brothers
A-rolling in their own heart's blood.
8 "Slack around, slack Sweet Willie," she said
For your wounds are very sore.
Your blood flows free from every vein,
But a father I can have no more.
9 "If you don't like what I have done,
Go hunt some other one,
Or stay at home in your mother's chamberee
While I'm so far from home."
10 So he mounted on his milk-white steed,
And she on the dappled bay.
He swung his bugle horn around his neck,
And he went bluding [1] away.
11 They rode till they came to his mother's gate.
He tingled there at the ring.
"Oh mother, are you asleep or awake?
Oh arise and let me in."
12 "Oh, mother, mother, come bind my head,
My wounds are very sore.
So the blood runs free from every wound,
My head you'll bind no more."
[recording ends]
1. reigning, in this case. Most are derived from the Old English (originally Latin) regis which is "regal."
2. bleeding away
C. 'Seven Brothers.' Sung by Mrs. Anna [Avery] Johnson. From the recording of Dr. W. A. Abrams in North Wilkesboro, Wilkes county, September 14, 1941. At least in the first four and somewhat in the last measures this version is related to the Sutton version 3G; likewise to some extent to the anonymous 3B(i), Byers 3D, Prather 3D(1) and M. B. Miller 3F versions. The text is varied, combining B and F versions. For further text variants cf. BB 6-7 ('The Douglas Tragedy').
For melodic relationship, cf. **BMFSB 10, first four measures. Scale: Mode II, plagal. Tonal Center: c. Structure: abcb1 (2,2,2,2) =. ab (4.4).