The Castle by the Sea- Lena Bourne Fish, 1940; Warner; Flanders N
[From: Traditional American Folk Songs from the Frank and Anne Warner Collection, Anne Warner, 1984. The Warners recorded an excerpt of this ballad in 1940. Her ballads learned from her father Stratton Bourne may be very old since his ancestors were the early settlers in the region. Compare to the version recorded by Flanders also in 1940- Flanders N.
A bio from Traditional Adirondack Music follows.
R. Mattteson 2011; 2014]
Lena Bourne Fish, or “Grammy Fish” as she was known, grew up in the town of Black Brook and spent the first 24 years of her life in the northeastern section of the Adirondack Park. It was there that she inherited an immense song repertoire that had been “kept in (her) family for more than two hundred years.”
Song collectors Anne and Frank Warner, Helen Hartness Flanders and Marguerite Olney visited and recorded Mrs Fish’s singing in the early 1940s, when she was living in East Jaffrey, New Hampshire in her late sixties. She sang nearly 100 songs for the Warners over four recording sessions, and it is from those recordings that we have the two songs below.
Lena learned her songs from many places but, like numerous other Adirondack singers, an early and very important source was her own family. Her father, Stratton Bourne, was a lumber salesman in the Adirondacks, supplying wood to the iron trade for charcoal. He had songs, Irish and otherwise, he’d learned from the men he worked with and encountered in the woods. Uncle Butler Bourne, who lived alone on Whiteface Mountain in his later years, was said to have had a “chest full” of songs that he passed down to his nieces. Mrs. Fish no doubt learned pieces from other family members, neighbors and friends as well.
Mrs. Fish, who was often ill and fearful for her health as she grew older, had something of a miraculous recovery after her visits from folksong collectors. The attention created interest from the community at large in her songs, which led to public performances at community events and schools. She started a mimeographed song newsletter called “The Dreamer,” and the last years of her life were busy and happy. With several notebooks filled with handwritten lyrics and a head full of tunes and song associations, Lena Bourne Fish took her role as keeper of an old and rare repertoire seriously, and old and rare it was; many of her songs have not been found elsewhere in North America.
Listen: Lena Bourne Fish, "Castle by the Sea" [excerpt]
The Castle by the Sea- Lena Bourne Fish, 1940
Arise, O arise, my lady fair,
For you my bride shall be,
And we will dwell in a sylvan bower
In my castle by the sea.
And bring along your marriage fee,
Which you can claim today,
And also take your swiftest steeds,
The milk white and the grey.
The lady mounted her white steed,
He rode the turban grey.
They took the path by the wild sea shore,
Or so I've heard them say.
As she saw the walls of the castle high
That looked so black[1] and cold,
She wished she'd remained in Boston town
With her ten thousand pounds in gold.
He halted by the wild sea shore,
[Saying,] "My bride you shall never be!
For six fair maidens I have drowned here,
The seventh you shall be."
"Take off, take off, your scarlet robes,
And lay them down by me.
They are too rich and too costly [2]
To rot in the briny sea."
"Then turn your face to the water's side,
And your back to yonder tree.
For it is a disgrace for any man
An unclothed woman to see."
He turned his face to the water's side,
And his back to the lofty tree.
The lady took him in her arms,
And flung him into the sea.
"Lie there, lie there, you false young man,
And drown in place of me.
If six fair maidens you drowned here,
Go keep them company."
She then did mount her milk white steed,
And led the turban grey,
And rode until she came to Boston town
Two hours before it was day.
1. Flanders has "bleak," which seems correct.
2. Flanders has "princely," which seems wrong.