The House Carpenter- Merrill (NH) 1931 Flanders A
[From Ancient Ballads III, Flanders; 1963. Also in New Green Mountain Songster. The Flanders/Coffin notes follow.
R. Matteson 2013]
James Harris, or the Daemon Lover
(Child 243)
Behind the sentimental Child A version of this song lies the legend of Jane Reynolds of Plymouth and a sailor, James Harris; who exchanged marriage vows. He was pressed into the service and after three years reported dead. Jane then married a ship carpenter. They lived happily for four years and had children. One night when the carpenter was out, Jane heard a rapping at the window. It was the ghost of Harris come to claim his love. She explained to him what had happened but was willing to follow him off when he promised her great wealth. On shipboard, she began to repent her infidelity, but too late. The ship sank, or at least she was never heard of again. Her bereaved husband later hanged himself.
In America, the supernatural element of the song and the names of the lead characters are not retained. Usually, though not always (see Flanders E1 and E2), the husband is a house, not a ship, carpenter. The action before the arrival of the lover and the suicide of the husband are invariably omitted. This form of the song, which is quite standard throughout the states, can no doubt be laid to the popularity of the song in print, perhaps to the broadside published by De Marsan (see Phillips Barry, British Ballads from Maine, 308-309) about 1860. Most of the texts follow De Marsan's song, which is similar to Child B, rather faithfully, but he probably took his version from established oral tradition. See JAF, XXXV, 347; Belden, 79-80; J. Harrington Cox, Folk Songs of the South (Cambridge, Mass., 1925), 139; and Arthur K. Davis, Traditional Ballads of Virginia (Cambridge, Mass., 1929), 439, tor discussion along this line.
The Flanders A-L texts are of a normal American sort, close to but not exactly like the De Marsan broadside. M, with its retention of the ghostly title, can be compared to Scottish Child D and F. The N1 and N2 "Banks of Claudy" versions represent an unusual line of development. They retain the name of the lover, as well as his ghostly nature, and with the one recorded in Greig and Keith, 196, represent two of the few surviving texts that are not of "The House Carpenter" sort. See Child A, B, C, and F for the miraculous gilded ship.
The song, once common, is now rare in Scotland. However, it survives in England, with a ship carpenter instead of a house carpenter, in a form much like the American. See Dean-Smith, 80, and Belden, 79-80, for references. There are no European analogues to the story, though the motif is not unusual. A Danish tale of a deceitful woman is somewhat like "James Harris." In America, it borrows heavily from many other ballads. See Flanders G; also note the references in Coffin, 140.
The eleven tunes for Child 243 consists of one large group of related tunes and three single, evidently unrelated ones: Wales, Price, and Sullivan. The large group can be subdivided into closely related subgroups as follows: 1) Moses, Richards; 2) Merrill, George; 3); Fish, Degreenia, Mancour; 4) Reynolds. The Wales tune may be related to the large group rather than being independent.
The House Carpenter- From Charlestown, New Hampshire, sung by Orlon Merrill on September 6, 1931. He learned this "in logging woods in northern New Hampshire."
"I might have married a king's daughter fair,
And she would have married me,
But I have come across the salt, salt sea,
And it's all on account of thee."
"If you could have married a king's daughter fair,
I am sure that you're to blame,
Because I am married to a house carpenter,
And I'm sure he's a nice young man."
"But if you will forsake your house carpenter
And go along with me,
I will take you to the place where the grass grows green
On the banks of the sweet Will-lea."
"But if I forsake my house carpenter,
To go along with you,
What have you there to maintain me on,
And keep me from slavery?"
"I have three ships sailing on the sea,
All sailing for dry land,
And one hundred and ten jolly good seamen,
They are all at your command."
She took her baby on her knee
And gave it kisses three.
Saying, "Stay at home, my darling little baby,
To keep your father's company."
Then she dressed herself in a stylish dress.
Methinks she looks so gay!
As she walked through those streets of gold
She shone like a lily gay.
They had not been on sea two hours,
And I'm sure it was not three,
Before this maid she was found for to weep,
And she wept most bitterly.
"Is it for my gold you weep,
Or is it for my store,
Or is it for your house carpenter
That you never shall see any more?"
"No, it's neither for your gold I weep,
Nor it's neither for your store,
But it's all for the sake of my darling little baby
That I never shall see any more."
They had not been on the sea three months,
And I'm sure it wasn't for four,
Before the ship it sprang a leak,
And it sank for to rise no more.
"A curse, a curse, to all the seamen,
And a curse on me this life,
For robbing of a house carpenter
And a-stealing away his wife."