The Miller's Two Daughters- Hood (WV) 1868 Cox A
[From Folk-Songs of the South, John Harrington Cox, 1925, w/music. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2014]
THE TWA SISTERS (Child, No. 10)
Three variants of this ballad have been found in West Virginia, two with the title, "The Miller's Two Daughters," and one with no title (cf. Cox, XIV, 159). A tells a complete story in which Johnny Ray loves the younger sister and buys her a gay gold ring and a beaver hat. The elder is jealous and pushes her sister into the stream, in which she floats down to her father's dam and is drowned. He drags her out and robs her. The father is hanged on the gallows and the sister is burned at the stake. B is fragmentary and the story is somewhat confused. There are three or four daughters of an "old lady," in which detail it agrees with C. The gift of the beaver hat is omitted. All three belong to the group represented by Child R, S, U, and Y, as is shown in particular by the refrain, the beaver hat, and the wicked miller. A freak of tradition in A makes him the father of the two sisters, and this relationship is involved in the title of B.
For American texts see Child, 1, 137 (Long Island, New York); Journal, XVIII, 130 (Barry; Rhode Island and Maine); XIX, 233 (Belden; Missouri and Kentucky) ; xxx, 287 (Missouri, Nebraska) ; Campbell and Sharp, No. 4 (North Carolina, Virginia) ; Sharp, Folk-Songs of English Origin Collected in the Appalachian Mountains, 2d Series, p. 18 (same as Campbell and Sharp, No. 4 C, but with stanzas from other variants). For references see Campbell and Sharp, p. 323; Kittredge, Journal, XXX, 286. Add Bulletin, Nos. 6-8.
A. "The Miller's Two Daughters." Communicated by Miss Mabel Richards, Fairmont, Marion County, October, 1915; obtained from Mrs. John Hood, who learned it about forty-seven years ago. Printed by Cox, xliv, 428, 441.
1 The miller's two daughters brisk and gay,
Sing lie down, sing lie down;
The miller's two daughters brisk and gay,
The young one belonged to Johnny Ray,
And I'll be kind to my true love,
Because he 's kind to me.
2 Johnny bought the young one a gay gold ring,
The old one swore she hadn't a thing.
3 Johnny bought the young one a beaver hat,
The old one swore she didn't like that.
4 The miller's two daughters walking along the stream,
The old one pushed the young one in.
5 "O dear sister, give me your hand,
And you shall have my house and land.
6 "O dear sister, give me your glove,
And you shall have my own true love."
7 Sometimes she sank and sometimes she swam,
And she was drowned in her father's dam.
8 The father drew her near the shore
And robbed her of her golden ore.
9 The father was hanged on the gallows so high,
And the sister was burned at the stake near by.