The Gypsy Davy- Gentry (NC) 1916 Sharp D/ Raine
[My title. From: English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians; collected by Cecil J. Sharp also Olive Dame Campbell. Edited by Maud Karpeles; Volume I, published 1917, 1932. Notes from 1932 edition follow, then Sharp's diary entry.
Melody also published by Raine; Land of the Saddle Bags, 1924. Raine kept only Gentry's first verse and refrain- apparently the rest is from another version (Smith, in her book about Gentry, claims it is taken from Sharp C by Hester House).
Jane Hicks Gentry became Sharp's most prolific informant. She brought the Hicks/Harmon family songs from Watuaga County when the family relocated in Madison County.
R. Matteson 2012, 2015]
Notes No. 33. The Gypsy Laddie.
Texts without tunes:—-Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, No. 200. C. S. Burne's Shropshire Folk-Lore, p. 550. Gavin Greig's Folk-Song of the North-East, ii, art. 110. Irish and English broadsides. Garret's Merrie Book o' Garlands, vol. i. A. Williams's Folk Songs of the Upper Thames, p. 120. Journal of American Folk-Lore, xix. 294; xxiv. 346; xxv. 171-5. Broadside by H. de Marsan, New York (a comic parody).
Texts with tunes:—-Songs of the West, 2nd ed., No. 50. Folk Songs from Somerset, No. 9 (also published English Folk Songs, Selected Edition, i. 13, and One Hundred English Folk-Songs, p. 13). Gavin Greig's Last Leaves, No. 60. Scots Musical Museum, ii, No. 181. Cox's Folk Songs of the South, pp. 130 and 524. Journal of American Folk-Lore, xviii. 191 ; xxii. 80 (tune only) ; xxx. 323. British Ballads from Maine, p. 269. Davis's Traditional Ballads of Virginia, pp. 423 and 590. McGill's Folk Songs of the Kentucky Mountains, p. 15. Sandburg's American Songbag, p. 311.
Version A is published with pianoforte accompaniment in Folk Songs of English Origin, 2nd Series.
The first two lines of the second stanza of text A provide a good instance of the stereotyped idiom of the ballad. Owing to the almost invariable description of a 'steed' as 'milk-white' the term has come to lose its literal significance, and in the mind of the singer a 'milk-white steed' means merely a horse. Similarly the folk will sing without any sense of contradiction of a 'false true lover.'
Sharp diary 1916 page 277. Thursday 14 September 1916 - Hot Springs
On the ferry en route to Silver Mining Creek the ferryman told us his wife Mrs Roberts sang, so we called on her. She promised to stud up ready for us tomorrow morning. Then we went to a Mrs Hester House where we got quite a lot of good songs including Earl Brand etc. Then to Mrs Ellie Johnson. Directly after lunch we tackled Mrs Gentry and came home richly laden. So we made up for our blank day yesterday. Sat up late writing up books. Emma Hensley came to dinner with us at the hotel and behaved very nicely indeed. She is very homesick poor girl, but we bucked her up a bit I think.
D. Gypsy Davy- Sung by Jane Hicks Gentry, Hot Springs, NC on September 14, 1916.
1. When Lord Thomas came home,
Enquiring for his lady;
The answer they made to him:
She's gone with the gypsy Davy
CHORUS: All-a-lip-to tally boney hair, hair,
All-a-lip-to laddy.
2 It's will you forsake your house and land?
And will you forsake your baby?
And will you forsake your own wedded lord
And go with the gypsy Davy?
3 I'll forsake my house and land,
And I'll forsake my baby;
And I'll forsake my own wedded lord
And go with the gypsy Davy.
4 The night before last I lay on a feather bed,
Lord Thomas he lay with me.
Last night I lay on a cold straw bed
And with the calves a-bawling all around me.