The Rolling of the Stones- Brand (NY) 1959
[The text for Oscar Brand's version more than likely came directly or indirectly from Eloise Hubbard Linscott's 1939 book, Folk Songs of Old New England - Page 278 as sung by Mrs. Mary E. Harmon of Cambridge, Massachusetts which begins:
O will you come to the rolling of the stones
Or the tossing of the ball?
Or will you go and see pretty Susie
And dance among them all?
Brand's version appears on the 1959 Folkways recording, A Folk Concert in Town Hall, New York (Jean Ritchie, Oscar Brand and David Sear FW02428). This likely is the version that was learned by Helen Schneyer and spawned subsequent recordings by Hickerson, Young Tradition and the Folk Legacy recording by Gordon Bok, Ann Mayo Muir & Ed Trickett. According to Malcolm Douglas the music below represents the version by Joe Hickerson and also by the Young Tradition which is could be based in turn on Brand's melody.
Here are the liner notes and lyrics:
THE ROLLING OF THE STONES: Sojourning through a singing world, one hears many fragments of songs, distorted stories, and weird melodies. Oscar Brand admits that he doesn't remember where he heard this song, which is probably the old Scottish ballad that originally told of the brothers who loved the same beautiful woman.
Oscar Brand, born in Winnipeg, Canada, has been mainly concerned with the remarkably varied songs sung by lumberjacks, short order cooks, soldiers, sailors and marines met in his long journey through the midwest, the American Army, to the honor of having the longest-running folk music program in the world--broadcasting since 1945 for New York City's Municipal Station.
SIDE I, Band 4-: "THE ROLLING OF THE STONES"
performed by Oscar Brand; introductory comments by Oscar Brand:
"The funny thing about folk songs is that in transition in the oral tradition so many things are lost and so many things are gained. There's an article I remember about Lady Mondigreen who died with the Earl of Murray. Although many verses of THE ROLLING OF THE STONES are missing, somebody killed somebody, and it is a very lovely song!"
CHORUS: Oh will you go to the rolling of the stones
The tossing of the ball?
Or will you go and see pretty Susie
Dance among them all?
I will go to the rolling of the stones
The tossing of the ball.
And I will go and see pretty Susie
Dance among them all.
1. They had not danced but one single dance
Nor half a floor around
When the sword that hung at his brother's side
Gave him his fateful wound.
2. They picked him up and carried him in
Laid him there on the ground
And there he lay for many a day
Nor made one single sound.
3. Then Susie charmed the birds from the sky
The fish from out the bay
Until she came to her true lover's side
And there was contented to stay.
(CHORUS)