The Gypsy Laddie- Buckner (NC) 1916 Sharp F
[Leaving generic title. Single stanza 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.
R. Matteson 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 282. Tuesday 19 September 1916 - Black Mountain — Charlottesville
An unpleasant night in an unclean bedroom! Spent all the morning & afternoon at Mrs Buckner’s and Mrs Susan Sawyer’s (her sister). Got 26 songs altogether and some very good ones including "The Farmer’s Curst wife" and Little Sir Hugh two more "Children". Caught 6 train for Salisbury where we arrived at midnight after going through some marvellous mountain scenery — the finest we have yet seen. Hope some day to go & stay at Marion.
F. [It's come go back, my pretty little Miss] The Gypsy Laddie. Sung by Mrs. SARAH BUCKNER at Black Mountain, N. C, Sept. 19, 1916
Heptatonic. Mode 3, a + b (ionian).
It's come go back, my pretty little Miss,
It's come go back, my honey;
It's come go back, my pretty little Miss,
You never shall lack for money.