The Suffolk Miracle- Richards (VA) 1918 Sharp E
[Sharp's generic title. From English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians- I; 1917 and 1932; Sharp and Campbell edited Karpeles. Following is an excerpt from Mike Yeats about the informant. Following are the notes from English Folk Songs in the Southern Appalachians to No. 31. The Suffolk Miracle.
R. Matteson 2013]
Texts without tunes:—Child, No. 272.
Each of the three tunes, A, B and C, is a variant of the carol air, "Christmas now is drawing near at hand" ( see Journal of the Folk-Song Society, v., pp. 7—11).
E. The Suffolk Miracle- Sung by Mrs. FRANCES RICHARDS at St. Peter's School, Callaway, Va., Aug. 16, 1918
Pentatonic. Mode 2.
1. Twelve months he rose, put on his clothes,
Then after her he then did go.
2 Here's your mother's cloak and your father's steed,
That's sent for you within great speed.
3 He mounted on and she got behind him,
And they rode swiftly as the wind.
4 Before she got to her father's gate,
He did complain his head did ache.
5 She taken her own handkerchief
And around his head she bound it around.
6 He set her at her father's door
The sight of him she saw no more.
7 Come in, come in, dear daughter, dear,
You are welcome, dear child, to me.
8 Saying: Do you send thee any more,
Whom I once loved till I could love no more.
9 It made the hair rise on this old man's head
In knowing he had been twelve months dead.
10 This old man rose, put on his clothes,
Saying: This young man's grave is to be undone.
11 And when they undone this young man's grave
The handkerchief bound round his head.
12 Saying: If love can bring the dead decay,
I say pray give to them their way.
13 And ain't this warning to both young and old
To love their children better than gold.