Three Little Babes- Swallow (IN) c1865 Brewster
[My title. From Brewster: Ballads and Songs of Indiana, 1940. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2015]
THE WIFE OF USHER'S WELL (Child, No. 79)
This ballad seems to have been little known in Indiana, the seven-stanza fragment given below being the only variant recovered. It is perhaps closest to Child's North Carolina variant (Sargent and Kittredge D), though lacking the mother's prayer for the return of her children, and their departure at dawn.
For American texts, see Barry, Eckstorm, and Smyth, p. 449 (fragments); Belden, No. 77; Brown, p. 9; Campbell and Sharp, No. 19; Cox, No. 14; Hudson, No. 12; Hudson, Folksongs, p. 93; Journal, XIII, 119; XXIII, 429; XXX, 305; XXXII, 503; XXXIX, 96; XLIV, 63; Davis, p. 278; McGill, p. 5; Pound, Ballads, No. 7; Scarborough, Song Catcher, p. 168; Shearin and Combs, p. 9; Smith and Rufty, American Anthology, p. 23; Randolph, The Ozarks, pp. 180-81; Cambiaire, pp. 121-22; Henry, Folk-Songs from the Southern Highlands, p. 70.
British texts: Greig, Last Leaves, pp. 67-70; Leather, Folk-Lore of Herefordshire, p. 198.
[Three Little Babes] No title given. Communicated by Mr. Willis Swallow, of Oakland City, Indiana. Gibson County. Mr. Swallow, who is nearly eighty, learned this ballad almost seventy years ago from the singing of his mother, Mrs. Patsy Swallow. November 30, 1935.
1. There was a lady in London Town
And she had children three;
She sent them to the North Country
To learn their historee.[1]
2. They hadn't been gone six months or more
[Just six months and a day,
‘Til death came sweeping all over the land
And swept her babes away.] [2]
3. Along about the Christmas time,
When nights were long and cold,
Between midnight and daylight,
Those three little babes came home.
4. She fixed them a table that they might eat,
Spread over with bread and wine;
"Come eat, come eat, my three little babes;
Come eat and drink of mine."
5. "We cannot eat your bread, mother;
Nor either drink your wine,
For along about the break of day
With Christ we must all dine."
6. Then she fixed them a bed in the very best room,
Spread over it a clean sheet,
And then spread over a golden cloth
That they might better sleep.
7. "Take it off, take it off, dear mother," they said;
"Take it off, we say once more;
For woe, woe, woe be to this wicked world
So long since pride begun."
1. Brewster comments that this is an interesting change from grammaree which means learning.
2. I've added the likely missing three lines to stanza two.