The Broomfield Hill- Harmon (Tennessee) 1930
[From: Folk Songs from the Southern Highlands by Mellinger Edward Henry 1932. The Harmon family is part of the Hicks-Harmon families, known for ballads and folk tales, that came to Virginia in the mid-1600s. By the 1770s some family members (David Hicks; Big Sammy Hicks) had settled in the foothills and mountains of North Carolina. These descendents of Council Harmon (and Hicks) also migrated into Tennessee.
R. Matteson 2014]
THE BROOMFIELD HILL (Child, No. 43)
See Mr. Barry's text with its interesting history in the Journal, XXIV, 14, reprinted in Barry-Eckstorm-Smyth, p. 440. See also the West Virginia version of Combs, Folk-Songs du Midi des-litats-Unis, p. 127.
This is another ballad that came as a result of our experience with the Harmons in Cade's Cove, Tennessee, in August, 1930. It was recorded by Mrs. Henry from the singing of Mrs. Harmon.
1. "I wager you
That a maid can't come
To the Merry Broomfield
And then go away."
2. And said his true love,
A-setting on his knee:
"I wager you a maiden can come
To the Merry Broomfield
And then go away."
3. He spoke to his parrot
And these words say:
"When my true love comes,
Wake me.................."
4. She came to the Broomfield;
She twisted the ring
From her finger
And put it on his hand.
5. She picked a blossom
On the Merry Broomfield;
And put them at
His head and feet.
6. She laid herself
In the Merry Broomfield
To hear what her true love would say
When he awoke.
7. When he woke
And found she was there
. . . . . . .
She would not have went away.
8. He called out to his parrot:
"Why couldn't you
Have waken me
When my true love was here?"
9. "All the song that I sing
And all the notes that I could ring
Would not have woken you
When your true love was here."
10. In his wrath he swore within his heart
If he could find her here,
All the birds in the Broomfield
Would feast on her heart's blood.