Seven Gypsies in a Row- Anderson (VT) 1930 Flanders A
[From Vermont Folk-Songs and Ballads; Flanders, Brown 1933; also in Ancient Ballads III, Flanders 1963. The notes from Ancient Ballads follow.
R. Matteson 2012, 2015]
The Gypsy Laddie
(Child 200)
This is a very well-known song, one of the few Child ballads sung by educated persons who have no interest in folklore. It tells a romantic tale that would do justice to an operatic setting. Some gypsies sing bewitching songs at a lord's gate. So fascinating is the music, the lady of the house comes down and finds herself completely charmed. she gives herself to the gypsy leader Johnny Faw, or Johnny the Seer, and they ride off. Her lord finds her gone upon his return and hurries off in pursuit. Sometimes he captures the gypsies and hangs them. More often the tale takes a more sentimental turn and the lady refuses to return with her husband, giving away her baby and feather bed for true love.
Johhnny Faw was a common name for gypsies. Child, IV, 61 f., lists a number of incidents where men called this were sentenced to death, and he also cites the tendency in Aryshire to associate the story with the wife of the Earl of Cassilis. In America, however, the names Faw and Cassilis are never mentioned, and the "gypsies" may become only "a lover" or even "an Indian." The New World texts vary widely as to detail and story. See Coffin, 120-124, for discussion and bibliography. Over here the versions are generally related to the child G-J tradition, but localization of events and corruption by other songs, such as "I'm Seventeen come Sunday" is not unusual. "The Gypsy Laddie" was parodied in The Forget-me-not Songster (New York, 1872), and most American texts, unlike the British, have nonsense refrains.
The twenty-six Flanders texts give one a fairly good summary of the song as it is in the New World. The A version, with the seven gypsies in a row, follows the Child G-I tradition. Flanders B is striking in that stanzas 2-6 are a monologue by the lady and are framed by two descriptive stanzas --the opening one being unusual and the closing one consisting of lines that often start the song. C is a version of a broadside from the Alfred M. Williams Collection of Irish Broadsides in the Providence Public Library (see Phillips Barry, British Ballads from Maine, 275, and his text E). Flanders D-F are of the most common American sort, although E may be unique in this country if "Lord o' Castle" was once "Lord Cassilis." The G-Y group is from the same tradition as Child J (see Barry, op. cit., 269 f., for discussion), In that series, J has the remarkable finish in which the lord kilts his wife as well as the gypsy. H and I are not so unusual in having the lord remarry (see Child J), but this feature is often left out. R and S are interesting for their phraseology, S perhaps being corrupted by "The Frog Went a-Courtin' "
and other matter.
For bibliography beyond that in Coffin, see Dean-Smith, 69, and Belden, 73-74 (English); Greig and Keith, 126-129, and Ord , 411 (Scottish). There is an analogous Danish ballad in Svend Grundtvig, Danmarhs gamle Folheuiser (Copenhagen, 1853), No. 369.
With the exception of the L.N.C. tune, and the possible exception of the Brigham tune, all the tunes for Child 200 are related. The remaining ones can be divided into sub-families as follows: I) Pease, Richards, Taylor; 2) Woodbrry, Erskine; 3) Fish. The Pease and Taylor tunes are especially close.
A. Seven Gypsies in a Row- Sung by Mrs. John Anderson, formerly of Lincolnshire, England, St. John's, Newfoundland, and Windsor, Vermont.
Seven gypsies in a row,
They sand so sweet, so very, very sweet,
That they charmed the heart,
Of the Lady O.
As a lady sat in her window so gay
Conversing with her children three,
(lines omitted)
"Are you going to leave your houses and lands,
Are you going to leave your children three,
-{re you going to leave your true wedded love
And follow the dark-eyed Gypsy O?"
"I am going to leave my houses and lands.
I am going to leave my children three.
I am going to leave my true wedded love
And follow the dark-eyed Gypsy O."
When her husband, he came home,
Inquiring for his Lady O,
'"I'm afraid, I'm afraid," says the old housemaid,
"That she's followed the dark-eyed Gypsy O."
"Come saddle my horse in full speed,
And get my supper ready, too.
Put a brace of pistols by my side,
And I'll follow the dark-eyed Gypsy O."
He rode 'til he came to the farmer's house,
Inquiring for his Lady O,
Saying, "Farmer, O Farmer, O Farmer," he cried,
"Have you seen the dark-eyed Gypsies O?"
(Lines omitted)
"You go down to yonder valley
And there you'll find your Lady O,
As fair a lady as I have seen,
And she's rolled in the arms of the Gypsy O."
(stanza omitted)
"Last night I lay on a feather bed;
The sheets were as white as any snow;
But tonight I sleep on the cold, cold ground
In the arms of my dark-eyed Gypsy O."