The Two Brothers- Williamson (VA) 1932 Davis EE (Recording); 1935 Wilkinson B
[From Davis, More Traditional Ballads, 1932. Also one stanza fragment by Wilkinson (Bronson, No. 4) from Williamson, with music in 1935. Wilkinson was collecting ballads and notating scores for Kyle Davis Jr. in the early mid-1930s. Bronson used Wilkinson's notebook to secure the version Bronson published. More Ballads came out in 1961 after Bronson's first edition was published.
This was collected in southern part the same general area of Virginia that many versions were collected.
R. Matteson 2014]
4. [The Two Brothers]- Wilkinson MSS., 1935-36, p. 38(D). Sung by Mrs. Kit Williamson, Evington, Va., October 19, 1935.
[music]
Two brothers, dear brothers, walked out one day
To view the chestnut grove.
The youngest had a long, keen knife,
And he stoved it through the older one's heart.
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[More Traditional Ballads from Virginia; Davis 1960.
THE TWA BROTHERS
(Child, No. 49)
Child prints ten versions of this ballad, one of the few known to him in an American version. It does not seem to persist in present-day tradition in either England or Scotland; at least it does not appear in either Margaret Dean-Smith's Survey or Gavin Greig's Last Leaves. Bronson (I, 384) confirms this observation. The ballad has often been collected in the United States, and eleven texts (all available) with six tunes were published in TBVa. The story changes little. Two brothers wrestle while coming home from school, and one is mortally wounded by the other's knife as a result of accident or jealousy, as in Child texts. Most Virginia texts indicate purposeful murder and are related to Child B; even when the wounding is accidental, the texts are verbally closer to Child B than to Child A.
Five versions have been collected since the publication of TBVa, one of them, EE, a later phonograph recording of version G in TBVa, there given without its tune. Of these five versions, only AA and DD retain the supernatural calling of the murdered brother from his grave by his sweetheart. In DD the idea is badly garbled, but the version is unusual in the names given the participants. The sweetheart is Fair Ellen, and the murderer Lord Thomas, seemingly taken over from "Lord. Thomas and Fair Annet," while the murdered. brother is named. Ben. In AA the blow is apparently struck from passion. In BB the murder weapon is a tomahawk, and the weapon is apparently used merely because the brother will not "play ball/Nor roll the marble stone." The bow and arrow which the dying youth wishes buried with him, coupled with the tomahawk, suggest Indian lore, but actually the bow and arrow request is English and is found in child B, leaving only the tomahawk as an American addition. In DD and EE the killing is intentional, but no clear motive is indicated. CC is the only version in which the wound seems to be accidental, but even here the dying brother seems to hint at jealousy as the motive by asking his brother to tell his sweetheart "it's for her sake I'm gone."
Interesting folklore beliefs are preserved in the ending of AA and perhaps DD: - young Susie's supernatural power to charm birds and fishes and young Johnny out of the grave, and the notion that the kissing of the deal is fatal. (See Wimberly, pp. 282-83.) In other texts (BB, cc) the ending is religious. EE is incomplete.
This ballad presents some of the finest" tunes of the collection, with a tune for every text, all except one tune minutely transcribed from phonograph records, and the one exception taken down from live performance by no less a hand than than of John powell. Bronson (I, 384-402) prints forty tunes (with texts), plus a single variant as Appendix, and divides the forty into five groups, divided quite strictly according to the middle cadence. All forty-one variants are from American sources. Group A, of eight members, has a middle cadence on the tonic; Group B, with twelve variants, has a middle cadence on the supertonic; Group C, of ten entries, has a middle cadence on the dominant; Group D, seven members, has a middle cadence on the octave above; Group E, with three variants, contains anomalous cases; the single Appendix version is a too literary combination of "The Two Brothers', and "Edward" and is "disturbingly independent," both melodically and textually. Of the six tunes from TBVa, Bronson classifies E in Group A, H in Group B, A and I in Group C, and D and F in Group D: a very representative distribution, minus anomalies and questionable items. This Virginia record seems to corroborate Bronson's remark that "No marked regional distinctions are discernible" in his groupings. of the tunes below, AA falls into Bronson's Group C, EE into his Group A.
EE. "The Two Brothers." Phonograph record (aluminum) made by A. K. Davis, Jr. Sung by Mrs. Kit Williamson, of Yellow Branch, Va. Campbell county. August 4, 1932. Text transcribed by P. C. Worthington. Tune noted by E. C. Mead. The first stanza with its music was also noted independently by Mrs. Paul Cheatham, of Lynchburg, Va., and the text collected by Miss Juliet Fauntleroy, of Altavista, Va. Campbell County. March 15, 1934. Text and tune given here are taken directly from the record. Mead comments upon the "fine tune and style," and urges- for obvious reasons- that both stanzas of the tune and variants be printed. An amusing bit of human interest is preserved at the beginning of the record. Mrs. Williamson asks, "Want to turn it ?" She starts singing, "Two brothers." Stops and asks, "Is you ready?" and after an audible affirmative reply she begins her song. Such are the charms of untouched field recordings.
1 Two brothers, dear brothers, walked out one day,
To view the chestnut grove.
The youngest had a long keen knife,
And stoved it through the older one's heart.
2 "O brother, dear brother, take off thine shirt,
And wrap my bleeding wound,
And bind them up so neat and strong,
That they won't bleed any more.
3 "O brother, dear brother, go dig my grave,
Go dig it wide and deep
Place my Bible under my head,
My Testament under my feet,
My swords and pistols by my side,
Just like I was[1] sound asleep.
4 "O brother, dear brother, when you go home,
My mother will ask for me.
You can tell her I've gone with some little school mates,
To bear the company home.
5 "O brother, dear brother, when you go home,
My father will ask for me.
You can tell him that I'm gone to London town,
To view the chestnut grove.
6 "O brother, dear brother, when you go home,
Little Sweetie will ask for me.
You can tell her that I'm buried in the cold clay ground,
Whose face she will never more see."
1. Because of the singer's use of the glottal stop, the "was" combines with the "f" and is barely distinguishable.