Storms Are on the Ocean- (NC) 1917 Brown A
[From The Brown Collection of NC Folklore, Vol. 2, 1953. The editor's notes follow. Although titled, "The Storms are on the Ocean," this version has enough elements of "The Lass of Roch Royal" to be considered a version of the ballad. Brown B has the "storms" stanza as the chorus and is distantly related.
The music from a different version (see bottom of this page) is given as a melody which can be used for A from Brown 4 (music).
R. Matteson 2012, 2015]
The Lass of Roch Royal
(Child 76)
North Carolina shares with many other regions of the United States a fondness for the "Who will shoe my pretty little foot" motive in love songs. These songs are separately considered in Vol. Ill, nos. 250, 253, 254, 302, 307. Only West Virginia [1] shares with it the distinction of preserving a genuine version of the ballad. See Cox's headnote in FSS and Combs's text in FSMEU. Both of these are variants of one version, most nearly allied to Child's D; and so are the two texts from North Carolina, both of which were secured by Miss Maude Minish before she became Mrs. Sutton. All four of the texts are clearly variants of one version, yet no two are identical. It is an interesting exercise in the ways of oral tradition to compare the four. One stanza — stanza 2 of A and the "chorus" of B — of the North Carolina texts is not found in any of the versions in Child nor in those from West Virginia. It is found, however, in some of the fragmentary folk lyric in North Carolina and elsewhere; see 'The Storms Are on the Ocean,' in volume III.
A . 'The Storms Are on the Ocean.' Taken down on Buck Hill in Avery county in 1917 from the singing of "an old lady who lived up there and who varied her household duties with work in the mica mill at Plumtree. . . . She sang it for me one night after a day's 'supervision' of the Buck Hill school had left me a little tired. ... It was not till she sang of the exchange of rings that I realized that here in mutilated form was some traditional ballad and I wrote it down by the light from a 'lightard' knot in the fireplace. . . . There is very little record of where or how she learned this ballad. She wasn't very sure, but thought a Mrs. Carpenter had taught it to her, and it was commonly known in that section. I have never found the ballad elsewhere, though I have often heard the four verses that begin it, sung to various banjo tunes." This note was evidently written before Miss Minish found the B text.
1 'Oh, who will shoe your little foot,
And who will glove your hand,
And who will kiss your ruby lips,
When I'm in a foreign land?
2 "The storms are on the ocean,
The sea begins to roll;
The earth may lose its motion
Ere I prove false to thee.'
3 "Papa can shoe my little foot,
And mama can glove my hand,
And friends can kiss my ruby lips,
Till you come home again.'
4 'Your papa can shoe your little foot,
Your mama can glove your hand,
But no one can be your babe's father
While I'm in a foreign land.'
5 'Oh, if I had a sailing ship
And men to sail with me,
I'd go today to my true love
Who will not come to me.'
6 Her father gave her a sailing ship
And sent her to the stand. [2]
She took her baby on her lap
And turned her back on land.
7 She had not been at sea three months,
I'm sure it was not four, [3]
Till she had landed her sailing ship
Right at her true love's door.
8 The night was black and the wind blew cold
And her lover was sound asleep,
And the baby in poor Annie's arms
Began to cry and weep.
9 Long she stood at her true love's door
And jingled at the ring.
At last his mother rose from bed,
But would not let her in.
10 'Oh, don't you recall,' poor Annie said,
'When we sat down to dine.
We stripped the rings from our fingers,
And the best of the rings was mine?'
11 'Go way, go way, you bad woman.
Go away from the door in shame.
For I have got me another love
And you can go back home.'
12 Her true love rose from out his bed
And to his mother said:
'I dreamed fair Annie and her child
Stood right beside my bed.'
13 'There was a woman at the door
With a baby in her arms.
But I wouldn't let her in the house
For fear she'd do you harm.'
14 Oh, quickly, quickly rose he up
And fast ran to the stand,
And there he saw his fair Annie
A-sailing from the land.
15 And 'hey, Annie,' and 'hi, Annie,'
And 'Annie, speak to me.'
But the louder he cried 'Annie'
The louder roared the sea.
16 The wind grew loud and the sea grew rough
And the ship was broke in twain.
And soon he saw his old true love
Come floating o'er the main.
17 He saw his baby in her arms,
Both tossed upon the tide.
He wrung his hands and fast he ran
And plunged into the tide.
Footnotes:
1. Among the songs using the 'Who will shoe my pretty foot' formula reported by Randolph from the Ozarks one (OFS i 120, from Arkansas) retains enough of the ballad story to be reckoned a version, I suppose. Only five and a half stanzas are given, but the informant's account of the story involved shows that it comprised most of the plot of the ballad. Morris's Florida text (FSF 278) does not tell the story.
2. Combs's text has here "sand," but Cox's reading "strand" is clearly right.
3. The first two lines of this stanza have crept in from 'The House Carpenter,' i.e., 'James Harris.' They are not found in the other three texts.
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A. 'The Storms Are on the Ocean.' Sung by Mrs. L. H. Palmer. Recorded at Senia, Powder Mill Creek, Avery county, August 26, 1939. The singer gave the title as 'Lass of Rock Royal.' The melodic variations are taken from a second recording (XIV AI-4), the textual variations will be found below. For others cf. BB 44-5.
Scale: Mode III. Tonal Center: b-flat. Structure: aa1a1bc (2,2,2,2,2) = ab (6,4). The second phrase is internally incremented.
3 My father will shoe my pretty little feet,
My mother will glove my hands,
And he will kiss my sweet little lips
When he comes from the foreign lands,
When he comes from the foreign lands.