The Grey Cock- Watson (ME) 1928 Barry
[Text with additional notes from British Ballad from Maine, 1929, Barry, Eckstorm and Smyth. Barry's notes follow. For an nearly identical US version without dialect, see Saw You my True Love John?- Couch (OK) around 1900.
R. Matteson 2013]
THE GREY COCK- (Child 248) Taken down, February 28, 1928, from the recitation of Mrs. Margaret Watson of Lewiston. Mrs. Watson came to this country from Ayrshire, Scotland, twenty-one years ago. Collected by Phillips Barry, BBFM. Barry's note's follow.
1 "Saw ye my faither or saw ye my mither?
Or saw ye my true-love John?"
"I ne'er saw your faither, I ne'er saw your mither,
But I saw your true-love John."
2 "It's now ten at nicht an' the stars gae nae licht,
An' the bells they ring ding dong;
He's met wi' a delay that's caused him tae stay,
But he'll be here before long."
3 The surly auld carle did naething but snarl,
And Johnny's face it grew red,
Yet though he often sighed, he ne'er a word replied
Till all were asleep in their bed.
4 Up Johnny sprang, to the door he did gang,
And gently slipt the bar;
The lassie takin' tent, tae the door she went,
And she opened and bade him come in.
5 "Is it you that's here at last? and do I haud you fast?
And is my Johnny true?"
"I hae nae time tae tell, but sae lang as a love mysel
Sae lang will a lo'e thee."
6 "Flee up, flee up, my bonny grey cock,
And craw when it is day;
Your neck shall be of the bonny beaten gold,
And your wings of the siiver grey."
But the seventh and last stanza, which is the point of the ballad, showing how the cock proved false and crowed an hour too soon, was not recalled by Mrs. Watson. We therefore supply it from Child A.
7 The cock prov'd false, and untrue he was,
For he crew an hour oter soon;
The lassie thought it day when she sent her love away
And it was but a blink of the moon.
Cheaply modern as most of the ballad is in its present form, there is something about the crowing of a cock in any old song which warns the ballad hunter that ghosts are near. We were not surprised therefore to find in Joyce's old, Irish Folk Music, p. 219, a beautiful old ballad, which he says he learned when a boy at home, of which neither words nor air were ever published before he printed them in 1909. It must stand as the original of "The Grey Cock."
The Lover's Ghost
“You're welcome home again,” said the young man to his love,
“I've been waiting for you many a night and day.
You're tired and you're pale,” said the young man to his dear,
“You shall never again go away.”
“I must go away,” she said, “when the little cock do crow
For here they will not let me stay.
Oh but if I had my wish, oh my dearest dear,” she said,
“This night should be never, never day.”
“Oh pretty little cock, oh you handsome little cock,
I pray you do not crow before day.
And your wings shall be made of the very beaten gold
And your beak of the silver so grey.“
But oh this little cock, this handsome little cock,
It crew out a full hour too soon.
“It's time I should depart, oh my dearest dear,“ she said,
“For it's now the going down of the moon.“
“And where is your bed, my dearest love,“ he said,
“And where are your white Holland sheets?
And where are the maids, oh my darling dear,” he said,
“That wait upon you whilst you are asleep?”
“The clay it is my bed, my dearest dear,” she said,
“The shroud is my white Holland sheet.
And the worms and creeping things are my servants, dear,” she said,
“That wait upon me whilst I am asleep.”
Professor Child came near to recovering this ballad, but did not quite secure it. In IV, 389-390, he cites Herd, Chappell and Buchan and mentions a parallel in Lyle's Ancient Ballads and Songs (1827), p. 143. The injunction to the cock is found in "The Swain's Resolve":
She cries to the cock, saying, "Thou must not crow
Until that the day be worn,
And thy wings shall be made of the silvery gray,
And thy voice of the silver horn."
Child says that this is also cited in Graves's Irish Songs and Ballads (London, 1882), p.249, No. 50, as "occurring in a ballad descriptive of the visit of a lover's ghost to his betrothed" and quotes substantially the first half of stanza 2, as given above. But Graves obtained the ballad from Joyce.
"The Grey Cock" is called an aube by Child, as well as by a more recent writer (C. R. Baskerville, "English songs on the Night visit," in the Publications of the Modern Language Association, XXXVI, 565 ff.), who, though ready to concede "a confusion of ballads on the ghostly visitant, with a ballad developed out of the aube tradition," has missed the real significance of the cock in the story. The bird belongs to folk-lore; we have in "Sweet William's Ghost," A 14, and "The Wife of Usher's Well," A 9, the same motif of the "red cock and the gray," warning revenant spirits to depart. Neither of these old ballads however, has so clearly made the cock a supernatural bird, like the dove with feathers of gold, wings of precious stones, beak of diamond
and legs of ruby, "none other than a Bird of Paradise" (J. Mehouyas, Bible Tales in Arab Folk-Lora, p. 160). In the Middle-Irish imram or "voyage of penance," entitled "The Voyage of Snedgus and MacRiagla," the pilgrims visit the island of the Tree of Life, on which is a flock of birds, whose leader has a head of gold, and wings of silver, (Revue Celtique, IX, 21). The Irish text of "The Lover's Ghost" has quite properly kept this bit of Celtic, ultimately Oriental folk-lore, though all but reduced to a literary conceit.
The earliest printed record of "The Grey Cock" is of the year 1772. Within a few years, it was so well known in America that a favorite American song was written to the same air. A copy of this song is in the Isaiah Thomas Collection, III, 50: "Saw ye my Hero George. . . Lady Washington left Mount Vernon in June, 1778, in expectation of meeting her worthy companion George; on the 28th of the same month, found her favourite engaged in the battle of Monmouth: She made the following observations:
Saw you my Hero --saw you my Hero,
Saw you my Hero GEORGE "
(Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, April, 1923, -- compare also Ford 3270, 3333, 3334.) A fragment of this song was sung in 1907, in Vineland, N. J.in the [A version also appears Pioneer Songster under the title, Lady Washington.]