The Jew's Daughter: An Example of Ballad Variation
by Foster B. Gresham
The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 47, No. 186 (Oct. - Dec., 1934), pp. 358-361
THE JEW'S DAUGHTER: AN EXAMPLE OF BALLAD VARIATION
by FOSTER B. GRESHAM
Two new texts of Sir Hugh or The Jew's Daughter (Child 155) have come to light in a quite unexpected way. In the Matoaca Grammar School, Chesterfield County, Virginia, children of the second grade are allowed occasionally to present original programs arranged by their own committees and chairmen. One morning the chairman announced a song by a little girl, seven years old, who came to the front of the class and sang the traditional ballad The Jew's Daughter. When asked where she had learned it, she replied, "My aunt learned it to my grandma's child, and she learned it to me." With the help of an older child acquainted with the family, the teacher, my sister, Miss Dorothy Gresham, was able to interpret the statement of family relationship and locate the aunt in the next county (Prince George). A visit to the aunt added a few more details to the line of transmission, for it was found that she had learned it from a cousin in Apex, Wake County, North Carolina, who in turn had learned it from her father.
When asked to sing the ballad, the aunt became self-conscious and refused. She agreed to recite the words and proceeded to give the first stanza. Her memory began to falter on the second, and by the time she had reached the third stanza she found that it was necessary to add music to her words to recall them at all. This necessity overcame her embarrassment, and she sang through the rest of the ballad. Then she was willing to sing it again and again until the collector could learn the tune well enough to take that down too. It is interesting to note that in reciting the words, she did not repeat the last line of the first and second stanzas; had she not turned to singing, the use of the last line of each stanza as a refrain would not have been indicated. The words she gave are as follows:[1]
It rained a mist, it rained a mist,
It rained all over the town;
Two little boys came out to play,
They tossed their ball around, around,
They tossed their ball around.
They tossed the ball too high at first,
And then they tossed it too low;
And then it fell in a Jewish yard
Where no one was allowed to go, to go,
Where no one was allowed to go.
A pretty fine miss, she came to the door,
All dressed in silk so fine.
"Come in, come in, my pretty little boy,
You shall have your ball again, again,
You shall have your ball again."
"I won't come in, I won't come in,
Unless my playmate comes too;
For they say when little boys go in,
They'll never come out again, again,
They'll never come out again."
She showed him a rosy red apple
And then a blood red peach,
And then she showed him a diamond ring
That urged his little heart in, oh in,
That urged his little heart in.
She took him by his lily white hand,
And led him through the hall,
She led him to her dining room,
Where no one could hear him call, oh call,
Where no one could hear him call.
And then she took a red white towel
And tied it 'round his chin,
And then she took a carving knife,
And cut his little heart in, oh in,
And cut his little heart in.
"Oh, spare my life, oh, spare my life!"
And then the little boy cried,
"If ever I should grow to be a man,
My pleasure shall all be thine, oh thine,
My pleasure shall all be thine.
"Oh, place a Bible at my head
And a prayer book at my feet;
And ever my playmate call for me,
Pray tell him that I am asleep, asleep,
Pray tell him that I am asleep.
"Oh, place a prayer book at my feet
And a Bible at my head;
And ever my mother call for me,
Pray tell her that I am dead, oh dead,
Pray tell her that I am dead."
With these words may be compared those noted down from the singing of the little school girl:[2]
It rained a mist, it rained a mist,
It rained all over the town.
The little boys came out to play;
They tossed the ball.
They taught him the low and then
They taught him the low high first,
And then he fell in a Jewish yard
Where no one was allowed to go,
Where no one was allowed to go.
There found a pretty maid came to the door,
All dressed in nice fine silk.
She said, "Come in, my little pretty boy."
"I won't come in unless my playmates come too,
Unless my playmates come too."
She showed him a red apple and then
She showed him a red bloody peach, and then
She showed him a diamond ring.
It urge his little heart in, oh in,
It urge his little heart in.
She took him by his little white hand,
She tolled him through the hall;
She took him to her dining room,
Where no one could hear his call,
Where no one could hear his call.
She took a red and white towel
And tied it around his chin,
And then she took a carving knife
And cut his little heart in, oh in,
And cut his little heart in.
"Oh spare my life, oh spare my life, oh spare my life,
Until I am dead;
A pleasant at my feet and a Bible at my head.
If my playmates call for me,
Tell them that I am asleep.
"A pleasant at my feet and
A Bible at my head;
If my mother call for me,
Tell her that I am dead."
Here we have a text caught actually in the process of variation. With only one agent of transmission between the aunt and the child in school, the "grandma's child," aged eleven, we can note the beginnings of such differences as will probably produce in the course of a number of years of oral transmission a considerably different text from the aunt's. Occasionally the child has changed the thought by the use of rather unintelligible expressions, such as "they taught him the low high first" and "a pleasant at my feet"; and occasionally she has condensed into one stanza the details of two stanzas in the other text. Traces of her failure, or that of the grandma's child, to catch the right word as she learned the ballad are in evidence in such cases as the use of little for lily and taught for tossed; and there is the apparent failure to remember some lines and the subsequent substitution of some other line that seemed to fit in, as in the next to the last stanza: "Until I am dead" for "And then the little boy cried." Perhaps the conflations of stanzas and the use of some of the lengthy lines would not have occurred if the child had learned the tune accurately with the words. Her singing, however, was found a bit too complicated for one to note down the tune; there were variations for each stanza wherever her failure to remember the words correctly had caused a breaking down in the regular rhythm. The variations are apparently of her own composition; yet she has memorized them and seems to sing each stanza the same way each time. She did not learn the ballad for the special occasion of the school program; she said that she had known it for a "long, long time" and added that every time she reached the line "And cut his little heart in," her sister would cry because "it hurt her feelings."
These two texts show rather close resemblances to the F version of the ballad in A. K. Davis's Traditional Ballads of Virginia, which was also learned by its singer from a person in North Carolina (Guilford County). Another person reporting this version from North Carolina (Wilkes County) gave certain minor variations which compare with those in our texts. Very similar also is the text given in The Journal of American Folk-Lore, Vol. XV, p. 195, from a copy in The New York Tribune for August 17, 1902.
The tune sung by Mrs. Jones is as follows:
It rained a mist, it rained a mist, It rained all o -ver the
town; Two little boys came out to play; they
tossed their ball around, around, They tossed their ball a-round.
Notes:
1 Sung by Mrs. Ruth Jones, Prince George County, Virginia, February 23,
1933; title: It Rained a Mist.
2 Sung by Marie Caudle, second grade, Matoaca School, Chesterfield
County, Virginia, February 4, 1933; title: It Rained a Mist.