The Merry Golden Tree- Baird (MO) pre1924 Lane; Randolph B
[This version is interesting because there is information about it from to sources. It also is one of the few ballads that mention Sir (Walter) Raleigh. See also Flanders F2. In The Singing South: Folk-Song in Recent Fiction Describing Southern Life by Arthur Palmer Hudson published in The Sewanee Review, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1936), pp. 268-295 he reports:
Rose Wilder Lane's Hill-Billy placed in the Ozark hill country and the nineteenth century, is the story of a family whose back
ground extends to North Carolina and Tennessee in the seven teenth and eighteenth centuries. Little old Granny Baird . . . told of the long journey westward from Tennessee ... of the fiddling and the dancing and the old tunes ... In her cracked voice she used to sing:
There was a little ship sailed for North Amerikee,
Oh, the lowland, lonesome sea!
And she went by the name of the Merry Golden Tree . . .
For Granny's people, long and very long ago, had come over the lonesome sea. There had been a great man, a lord of the
old country . . . Lord Raleigh. He had brought people from across the sea ... an' their descendants yet abide now in North Caroliny . . . They come to Tennessee . . . They brought their old English speech, their old ballads. The story of Granny's family is beautified by seven folk-songs, most of them play-party songs of American origin, used to de scribe social atmosphere.
"My knowledge of these songs", Mrs. Lane writes me, in an interesting letter too long to be quoted at length, "has been gained by hearing them sung ... As to the importance of folk-song in fiction dealing with the South, I think it can hardly be overemphasized . . . All Americans sing, express themselves in song, and color their lives with it, more than anyone would guess from American fiction . . . The truth is that Americans sing as much as Italians . . . What may be called genuine folk-song has lingered in the South because the South has clung longest to an agrarian culture; a culture that continued to live, in spite of its surrender at Appomattox Courthouse ... In general, I would say that no fiction truly expresses the life, the character, the spirit of a place and people without using song as part of its material.
In 1930 Lane sent Granny Baird's version to Randolph and it appears without much comment in his Ozark Folksongs: Book 1, British Ballads and Songs.
B. ["The Merry Golden Tree."] Communicated by Mrs. Rose Wilder Lane, Mansfield, Mo., May 16, 1930, under the title "The Merry Golden Tree." Mrs. Lane connects this ballad with the theory mentioned in her novel Hill-Billy (New York, 1926, p. 4) that some of the Ozarkers are descended from Raleigh's "lost colony," which disappeared from Roanoke Island, off North Carolina, about 1590.
There was a little ship sailed for North Amerikee,
Oh the lowland, lonesome sea,
And she went by the name of the Merry Golden Tree,
As she sailed on the lowland lonesome low,
As she sailed on the lonesome sea.
She hadn't been a-sailing West two weeks or three,
Oh the lowland, lonesome sea,
When she was overtaken by the Turkish Robbery,
As she sailed on the lowland lonesome low,
As she sailed on the lonesome sea.
Then says Sir Raleigh, what will we do?
Oh the lowland, lonesome sea,
The Turkish Robbery it will cut us in two,
As she sailed on the lowland lonesome low,
As we sail on the lonesome sea.
There was a little sailor boy that run upon the deck,
Oh the lowland, lonesome sea.
And he says oh captain I think we'll be attacked,
As we sailed on the lowland lonesome low,
As we sail on the lonesome sea.
I'll give you gold, I'll give you fee,
Oh lhe lowland, lonesome sea.
And my only daughter for your wedded wife to be,
If you'll sink her on the lowland lonesome low,
if you'll sink her in the lonesome sea.
The lad leapt down and away swam he,
Oh the lowland, lonesome sea.
And he swum and he swurn. to the Turkish Robbery,
As she sailed on the lowland lonesome low,
As she sailed on the lonesome sea'
He had a little auger made for the use,
Oh the lowland, lonesome sea.
And he bored holes in the hull of her at once,
As she sailed on the lowland lonesome low,
As she sailed on the lonesome sea.
Some were playing card's and some were playing checks,
And before they cleared the boards the sea was to their necks,
As they sailed on the lowland lonesome low,
As they sailed on the lonesome sea.
Then he fell upon his breast and away swum he,
Oh the lowland, lonesome sea.
And he swum till he corne to the Merry Golden Tree,
As we sailed on the lowland lonesome low,
As we sailed on the lonesome sea.
Cried he, kind captain, I have done your decree,
Oh the lowland, lonesome sea,
Now take me on board or I perish in the sea,
As we sailed on the lowland lonesome low,
As we sailed on the lonesome sea.
I will neither give you money nor neither give you fee,
Oh the lowland, lonesome sea,
My lovely young daughter I'll never give to thee,
As we sailed on the lowland lonesome low,
As we sailed on the lonesome sea.
Nay, nay, sailor boy, you'll never come on board,
Oh the lowland, lonesome sea,
Never will I be to you as good as my word,
As we sailed on the lowlarid lonesome low,
As we sailed on the lonesome sea.
If it wasn't for the love that I have for your men,
Oh the lowland, lonesome sea,
I would do unto you as I done unto them,
As they sailed on the lowland lonesome low,
As they sailed on the lonesome sea.
Then he bowed his little head and down sank he,
Oh the lowland, lonesome sea,
Farewell, farewell, to the Merry Golden Tree,
And he sank in the lowland lonesome low,
As he sank on the lonesome sea.