The Cruel Mother- Boone (NC) 1918 Sharp L
[Not a local title. Sharp L from English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2014]
No. 10. The Cruel Mother.
Texts without tunes :—Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, No. 20. C. Burne's Shropshire Folk-Lore, p. 540. A. Williams's Folk Songs of the Upper Thames, p. 295. Journal of American Folk-Lore, xxv. 183 ; xxxii. 503. Texts with tunes:—Kinloch's Ancient Scottish Ballads, p. 44 and Appendix. Child, v. 413. Christie's Traditional Ballad Airs, i. 105 and 107. Journal of the Folk-Song Society, ii. 109; iii. 70. Folk Songs from Somerset, No. 98 (also published in English Folk Songs, Selected Edition, Series 1, p. 35, and One Hundred English Folk Songs, p. 35). Gavin Greig's Last Leaves, No. 11. Dick's Songs of
Robert Burns, p. 347. Cox's Folk Songs of the South, pp. 29 and 522. W. R. Mackenzie's Ballads and Sea Songs from Nova Scotia, No. 3. British Ballads from Maine, p. 80. Davis's Traditional Ballads of Virginia, pp. 133 and 560. McGill's Folk Songs of the Kentucky Mountains, p. 83.
The tune of version B is that of The Wife of Usher Well, No. 22. In version I there appears to be a change of mode from Dorian to Mixolydian. The singer is a brother of Mr. W. B. Chisholm of Woodridge, who sang version D. Version A is published in Ballads (School Songs, Book 261), Novello & Co., London, and version E in Folk Songs of English Origin, 2nd Series—both with pianoforte accompaniment.
The Cruel Mother- Boone (NC) 1918 Sharp L
[Music]
Three young ladies was a-talking of a walk,
All alone and aloney;
Three little babies was a-playing with their ball,
Down by the greenwood sidey.
2 One was Peter, the other was Paul,
The other was as naked as the hour it was born.
3 O babe, O babe, if you was mine,
Dress you up in silk so fine.
4 You took your knife out of your pocket,
Primmed[1] me of my little sweet life.
5 You buried me under the marble stone,
Then you turned as fair maid home.
6 Seven long years a-ringing of a bell,
Seven long years you'll prim[1] us in hell.
1. These words were very indistinctly pronounced. They might have been, and probably were, ' twinned ' (deprived) in the fourth stanza (see Child, versions B and E), and ' twin ' (part with) in the sixth stanza.