Sweet willie- Austin L. Elliott (NC) pre1943 Brown H
[From Brown Collection of NC Folklore Volume 2, Ballads, 1952. Their (Belden and all) notes follow. This is another example of Brown editors not providing three stanzas (describing them is not enough) and then attributing the last stanzas to "Inconstant Lover" which is not accurate. Both stanzas are extra stanzas found in the Died for Love songs and their extended family. The "There is a bird in yonder tree" (stanza 4) is frequently found in the "Alehouse," "Brisk Young Lover" and "Butcher Boy" variants while the last stanza (see Brown E). Stanza 5 is found in several "Died for Love" and extended family songs: 1) it's an extra stanza sometimes found in Butcher Boy; 2) it's frequently found in 'Maiden's Prayer," 3) it's an extra stanza found in "My Blue-Eyed Boy."
R. Matteson 2017]
Brown Collection Notes:
104 The Sailor Boy
This song was printed by Catnach and Such and probably by other ballad printers in England in the last century and is widely known and sung. See BSM 186, and add to the references there given Maine (MWS 56-9), Virginia (FSV 108-11, 118), North Carolina (BMFSB 24-5, SFLQ v 146), Arkansas (OFS I 300), Missouri (OFS I 296-300), Ohio (BSO 97-103), Indiana (BSI 269-70), Illinois (JAFL XL 235-6), and Michigan (BSSM 94, blended with 'The Butcher Boy'). Barry listed it among the ballads in his collection from the North Atlantic States but did not print it. Like other items of the folk song of unhappy love its content is likely to vary; with its central images of the girl bidding her father build her a boat and later demanding of the sailors she meets news of her sailor boy may be combined motives from 'The Butcher Boy,' 'Little Sparrow,' 'The Lass of Roch Royal,' or an elaborate preliminary story may be provided as in version L below.
H. 'Sweet Willie.' Contributed by Austin L. Elliott of Randolph county. A highly composite text. Of its five stanzas and chorus only stanza 3 belongs to 'The Sailor Boy.' The chorus is from 'The Blue-Eyed Boy' (see volume III) ; the first two stanzas are the familiar question and answer from 'The Lass of Roch Royal' ; and the last two, belonging to the tradition of 'The Inconstant Lover,' run:
4 Oh, yonder sits a turtle dove;
They say he's blind and cannot see.
I wish to the Lord it had been me,
Before little Willie crossed the sea.
5 Remember well and bear in mind
That a true friend is hard to find.
But when you find one that's true
Change not the older for the new.