The Two Sisters- Harmon (TN) 1930; Henry- Verison C
[From: Still More Ballads and Folk-Songs from the Southern Highlands by Mellinger E. Henry; Source: The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 45, No. 175 (Jan. - Mar., 1932), pp. 1-176. Reprinted in his 1938 book, Folk-Songs from the Southern Highlands. Henry's notes follow.
R. Matteson 2011]
I. THE TWA SISTERS. Child, No. 10
A. Recorded by Mrs. Henry from the singing of Miss Cora Clark, Crossnore, Avery County, North Carolina, July 12, 1929. Campbell and Sharp (No. 4) quote four versions, one from North Carolina and three from Virginia. Pound (No. 4) gives the N. C. version from Campbell and Sharp and a Missouri version imported from Kentucky from H. M. Belden's "Old Country Ballads in Missouri", Journal of American Folk-Lore, XIX, p. 233. See also Sharp: Folk-Songs of English Origin, 2nd series, pp. 18-21; Cox, No. 3; Gray, p. 75; Hudson, No. 3; Journal, XVIII, 130; Kittridge, Journal, XXX, 286; Cox, The School Journal and Educator (West Virginia), 1916, XLIV, 428, 441 -442. Davis, Traditional Ballads of Virginia, No. 5 (eleven versions); Shearin and Combs, p. 7; Pound, Syllabus, p. 11; Barry-Eckstorm-Smyth, British Ballads from Maine, p. 40; Belden, No. 2; Barry, No. 3; R. W. Gordon; New York Times Magazine, Oct. 9, 1927, p. Io. Add Barry, Journal, XVIII, 130-132 (two texts: A with air, B reprinted in Barry-Eckstorm- Smyth, 40-41; Gray, 75); Sharp MSS., Harvard University Library: several texts with airs, collected in the Southern Highlands. The present text with the exception of a few verbal differences is close to that in James Watt Raine's The Land of the Saddle Bags, Richmond, 1924, p.118, which is the same as that of Richardson and Speath's American Mountain Songs, New York, 1927, p. 27, though no mention is there made of the source. Prof. Raine says of this ballad (p. 117): "Many of the ballads have a refrain in which all the auditors may join. Sometimes the refrain has no connection with the story, as in the short lines of 'The Two Sisters'. 'Bowee Down!' and 'Bow and balance to me!' are a remnant from an old dance jingle, which was occasionally sung by dancers even after the music was furnished by the fiddle. 'Bowee' was originally 'Bow ye' but it has dropped the 'y' and become 'bowee', as is common inScottish familiar speech. The triple repetition of the first line in every stanza is a frequent characteristic of ballads, - it gives intensity to the tale."
In connection with B and C, both from Mrs. Harmon, it will be interesting to note Mr. Phillips Barry's remarks, quoted in the headnote of No. 5 of this collection, from the Bulletin of the Folk-Song Society of the Northeast, No. 2, p. 6, that C on the authority of Child is more nearly complete in its theme than A and B of this group. He says: "According to all complete and uncorrupted forms of the ballad, either some part of the body of the drowned girl is taken to furnish a musical instrument, a harp or a viol, or the instrument is wholly made from the body" (English and Scottish Popular Ballads, edited by Helen Child Sargent and George Lyman Kittredge; Cambridge, 1904, p. 18).
C. "The Two Sisters." Also recorded by Mrs. Henry from the singing of Mrs. Samuel Harmon, Cade's Cove, Blount County, Tennessee, August 13, 1930.
1. Was two sisters loved one man,
Jelly flower jan;
The rose marie;
The jury hangs o'er
The rose marie.
2. He loved the youngest a little the best,
Jelly flower jan;
The rose marie;
The jury hangs o'er
The rose marie.
3. Them two sisters going down stream,
Jelly flower jan;
The rose marie;
The jury hangs o'er
The rose marie.
4. The oldest pushed the youngest in,
Jelly flower jan;
The rose marie;
The jury hangs o'er
The rose marie.
5. She made a fiddle out of her bones,
Jelly flower jan;
The rose marie;
The jury hangs o'er
The rose marie.
6. She made the screws out of her fingers,
Jelly flower jan;
The rose marie;
The jury hangs o'er
The rose marie.
7. She made the strings out of her hair,
Jelly flower jan;
The rose marie;
The jury hangs o'er
The rose marie.
8. The first string says, "Yonder sets my sister on a rock
Tying of a true-love's knot,"
Jelly flower jan;
The rose marie;
The jury hangs o'er
The rose marie.
9. The next string says, "She pushed me in the deep so far."
Jelly flower jan;
The rose marie;
The jury hangs o'er
The rose marie.