The House Carpenter- Gordon (NC) c.1920 Sutton/Brown B
[From: The Brown Collection of NC Folklore, Vol. 2, 1952. Their notes follow. Music found in Brown Vol. 4 B, 1957 --bottom of this page.
According to Ives, another ballad, Earl of Murray, "was collected in 1927 by Mrs. Maude Minish Sutton, one of Professor Brown's most prolific fieldworkers, from 'Aunt Becky' Gordon of Henderson County, one of her most prolific informants. . ."
From Brown collection p. 24: "I do recall that he (Brown) had collected songs from Aunt Becky Gordon some thirty years earlier and that he was trying to find her again inasmuch as some of her songs made thirty years ago on his wax records had been lost. I know that he chased her all over one county and finally found her "hired out" doing the ironing or washing for a family. She was to be paid fifty cents. Dr. Brown persuaded the employer to let Aunt Becky sing. . ."
This version uses the 5 line "Lord Lovel" form.
The first verse was not remembered or understood (from the recording?) and appears:
1. . . .
. . . .
'I oncet could 'a' married a king's daughter fair
And I wouldn't for the sake of thee.
This make no sense since these are the first and last lines of the stanza. It should be:
'I oncet could 'a' married a king's daughter fair,
. . .
. . .
And I wouldn't for the sake of thee
or I've filled in the missing lines in brackets:
1. I oncet could 'a' married a king's daughter fair,
[I'm sure she would have married me,
But I refused those golden crowns,]
And I wouldn't for the sake of thee.
The unintelligible first line of stanza 4 appears to be a corruption of "dressed in fine array" where the singer had changed "array" to "ravin." This stanza also appears in the Child ballad such as "Lord Thomas."
R. Matteson 2013, 2016]
40. James Harris (The Daemon Lover) Brown Collection
(Child 243)
If the various traditional versions of this ballad all go back, as Child believed, to the long-winded, pedestrian seventeenth-century broadside of 'James Harris,' they constitute something of an argument for Barry's doctrine of communal re-creation. For its range as traditional song, see BSM 79, and add New Hampshire (NGMS 95-7), Tennessee (SFLQ xi 127-8), North Carolina (FSRA 38-40), Florida (SFLQ viii 160-1), the Ozarks (OFS I 166-76), Ohio (BSO 70-7), Indiana (BSI 136-48, JAFL lvii 14-15), Illinois (JAFL LX 131-2), Michigan (BSSM 54-8), and Wisconsin (JAFL LIT 46-7, originally from Kentucky). Few regional collections made in this country fail to record it ; [1] it is therefore surprising that Child knew, apparently, only one American text and that a fragment. It is almost always called in America 'The House Carpenter.' The notion that the lover from the sea is a revenant or a demon, present in the original broadside and less definitely in some of the other versions in Child, has faded from most American texts; with us it is a merely domestic tragedy. And perhaps for that very reason it is one of the favorites of American ballad singers. There are some fourteen texts in the North Carolina collection, most of them holding pretty closely to one version. A full text of this version is given first and most of the others described by reference to this.
Footnote for above:
1. There are traces of it in our K and M versions.
B. 'The House Carpenter.' This text was secured by Mrs. Sutton some years later than A, from the singing of Mrs. Rebecca Gordon of Cat's Head on Saluda Mountain, Henderson county. Here the last line of each stanza is repeated by way of refrain. The English is cruder — to the point of unintelligibility in the first line of stanza 4. The last stanza is borrowed from some of the forms of 'William Taylor' or of 'The Sailor Boy.'
1. 'I oncet could 'a' married a king's daughter fair,
[I'm sure she would have married me,
But I refused those golden crowns,]
And I wouldn't for the sake of thee [thee, thee,
And I wouldn't for the sake of thee.'] [1]
2 'I don't see how you could fault me.
For I am married to a house carpenter.
And I think he's a fine young man, man.
And I think he's a fine young man.'
3 'Won't you forsaken your house carpenter
And go along with me?
I will take you to where the grass grows so green
On the banks of the salt water sea, sea,
On the banks of the salt water sea.'
4 She stole herself in a neat little ravin,
She dressed in ivory;
She spreaded her veil all over her face;
She outshined the glittering day, day.
She outshined the glittering day.
5 She called her three little babes to her
And kissed them one-two-three.
She said, 'Go back, my sweet little babes,
And keep your pappy's company, ny,
And keep your pappy's company.'
6 She hadn't been gone three months on the sea,
I am sure it was not four.
Till she was found a-weeping and a-moaning
And a-weeping most bitter-i-ly, i-ly.
And a-weeping most bitter-i-ly.
7 'Oh, what's the matter?' said the sea-faring man,
'Oh, what's the matter?' said he.
'Is it about your house carpenter?
Is it about your store, your store,
Is it about your store?'
8 'It's neither about my house carpenter
Nor is it about my store.
It's all about my sweet little babes
That I left when I came with thee, thee,
That I left when I came with thee.'
9 She hadn't been gone on the sea three months,
I'm sure it was not four,
Till she thrown herself all over board
And her soul has sung farewell, farewell.
And her soul has sung farewell.
1. I've completed the verse (blue text)
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B. 'The House Carpenter.' Sung by Aunt Becky Gordon. No date or place given. This tune, with but slight changes, is the same this singer uses for her version of 'The Seven Sisters' (2B). For her first stanza she uses the third and fourth lines of stanza 1 and the first and second lines of stanza 2 as given in H 173.
For melodic relationship of. **BSM 82, version D; FSF 311, No. 168A: *SharpK i 249, No. 35E, measures 3-5. Scale: Heptachordal, plagal. Tonal Center: g. Structure: abca1d (2,2,2,2,2) := abc (4,4,2), or ab (4,6) where b is internally incremented.