The House Carpenter- Wright (VA) 1915 Davis K
[From Kyle Davis, Jr.'s Traditional Ballads of Virginia, 1929. Davis says in Traditional Ballads of Virginia that "The House Carpenter" is second only to "Barbara Allen" in popularity in Virginia with fifty-two texts and seven musical transcriptions of which twenty-nine texts and seven melodies are given A-AA. Additionally two variants are given as an appendix which have stanzas of the House Carpenter within a related ballad.
R. Matteson 2013]
Traditional Ballads of Virginia (Davis' commentary)
JAMES HARRIS (THE DAEMON LOVER) (Child, No. 243)
Next to "Barbara Allen" in Virginia popularity stands "The House Carpenter," with fifty-two texts and seven melodies, of which twenty-nine-texts and all seven melodies are here given. "The House Carpenter" is its almost invariable title, which yields only once to "The House Carpenter's Wife" (a slightly more appropriate title) and once to "On the Banks of the Sweet Laurie." "James Harris" which appears once, and "The Daemon Lover," which appears three times at the head of manuscripts (and therefore in the table of contents), may be regarded merely as identifications, not as local titles. The lover has lost not only his name, but also, with the possible exception of four variants, all trace of his demoniac character.
The Virginia texts are most closely related to Child B, but with occasional stanzas and details that suggest other Child versions. But as all the Child versions are based upon A, with traditional modifications, the story of Child A may be profitably scanned as a preliminary step: "Jane Reynolds and James Harris, a seaman, had exchanged vows of marriage. The young man was pressed as a sailor, and after three years was reported as dead; the young woman married a ship carpenter, and they lived together happily for four years, and had children. One night when this carpenter was absent from home, a spirit rapped at the window and announced himself as James Harris, come after an absence of seven years to claim the woman for his wife. She explained the state of things, but upon obtaining assurance that her long-lost lover had the means to support her- seven ships upon the sea - consented to go with him, for he was really much like unto a man. 'The woman-kind' was seen no more after that; the carpenter hanged himself."
The Virginia ballad cuts out all the antecedent action and the aftermath about the carpenter. It omits all names (except for the stolen "Fair Ellen" of Virginia F), and deprives the lover altogether of his ghostly character (with the possible exception of Virginia A, M, N, and Appendix A). The Virginia story, then, is a compressed and very human drama of illicit elopement and retribution. A seaman returns to find his old love married, it seems happily, to a house carpenter, by whom she has a child (or more). By his persuasiveness and by promises, the old lover induces the wife to desert husband and babe and sail away with him. But soon she pines for the old ties, weeps for her sweet little babe, and (sometimes after she has had a vision of the torment in store for her) the ship springs a leak and sinks to the bottom of the sea. There is often a final stanza voicing her contrition, her curse upon deceiving men, or her warning to other women. In Virginia texts the carpenter does not reappear, as he does in Child B, to grieving and swoon at the news of the disaster and to curse such deluding mariners. Virginia A, M, N, and appendix A are related to Child E and F; they contain the "hills of heaven and hell" stanzas, in which the so-called lover by interpreting the wife's vision assumes a more eerie and diabolical personality. But she never spies his cloven foot, as in Child E, F, and G, and, even the vision stanzas are exceedingly rare in Virginia.
"The House Carpenter" is very often corrupted with other songs and ballads that fit in with its general motif. But it generally preserves its own identity; it does not, like "The Lass of Roch Royal" in Virginia, merely contribute certain stanzas to other songs of the texts that follow, A-E are more or less pure and unalloyed variants, though the name "Fair Ellen," in F9 and Q4, and stanzas E 8, K 7, N 3, suggest "Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor." But with R the combined texts begin. R-AA are marked by the intrusion of a stanza or more from some other source, but with the "House Carpenter" story still well preserved. Appendices A and B have been corrupted almost beyond recognition, but they still preserve two or three stanzas of the ballad. The "shoe my foot" stanzas of "The Lass of Roch Royal," appear in R 7, and 8, S 7 and 8, Appendix A 5 and 6, Appendix B 5 and 6; and the chorus of Appendix A is a stanza of "The Lass of Roch Royal" seldom found in Virginia. In variants T-AA stanzas are supplied from certain later songs- which have something in common with "The House Carpenter" such as a lovers' greeting, a lovers' parting, a false lover, a remorseful lover, a betrayed lover's lament or warning, -etc. Traces of "The False young Man," "The True Lover's Farewell," "The Rejected Lover," "The Wagoners Lad," "Cold Winter's Night," "Careless Love," and perhaps other English folk-songs are to be found in the Virginia variants T-AA, and in the appendices. "The False Young Man" is the most frequent intruder. These variants in combination are a most interesting feature of the ballad in Virginia.
K. "The House Carpenter"- Collected by Miss Juliet Fauntleroy. Sung by Maggie Wright, of Altavista, Va. Campbell County. September 28, 1915.
1. "Well met, well met, my old true love,
Well met, well met," said he.
["I'm just returning from the salt, salt sea,
And all for the love of thee.] [1]
2. "I could have married a king's daughter fair,
She fain would have married me;
But I would not marry a king's daughter,
And it was all for the love of thee."
3 "If you could have married a king's daughter,
I['m sure you are to blame;
For I have married a house carpenter,
And I think he's a fine young man."
4 "If you will leave your house carpenter,
And go along with me,
I'll take you where the grass grows green
On the lakes of sweet Riley."
5 "If I forsake my house carpenter,
And go and live with you,
[What do you have to maintain me on,
To keep me from slavery?] [1]
6 She took her little babe in her arms
And gave it kisses three,
Saying, "Stay at home, my sweet little babe,
And keep your papa's companie."
7 She went and dressed herself up in silk,
The finest ever was seen,
And as she marched along the street,
They took her to be some queen.
8 She had not been on water two weeks,
I'm sure it was not three,
Before this fair lady she began to weep,
And she wept most bitterly.
9 "Oh, are you weeping for my gold,
Or weeping for my store?
Or weeping for that house carpenter,
You never shall see no more?"
10 "I am not weeping for your gold,
Nor weeping for your store,
But weeping for my sweet little babe,
I never shall see no more.
11 "Cursed be the sailor man,
Cursed be his life;
He's robbed me of my sweet little babe,
He's robbed me of my life."
12 She has not been on water three weeks,
I'm sure it was not four,
Before the ship it sprang a leak
And sank to rise no more.
1. These two lines were missing- I've supplied the standard text.