Where does your pain lie?- Shelton (NC) 1916 Sharp D
[From English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, Vol 2 by Cecil J. Sharp (1859-1924) and Maud Karpeles; 1932 edition.
My title, Sharp used the generic title, The Brown Girl for all versions, no local titles supplied. Sharp called the ballad "Fine Sally" in his field notes.
This ballad is not to be confused with the popular ballad, Child No. 73 Lord Thomas and Fair Annet, which is commonly known in the US, and Canada as "The Brown Girl. Here are some excerpts on the Shelton family from "A Nest of Singing Birds: Cecil Sharp, Mary Sands and the Madison County Song Tradition" by Mike Yates:
Cecil Sharp collected songs from thirty nine Madison County singers, almost half of whom carried the surname Shelton. In fact, research by Frances Dunham has shown that no fewer than twenty eight of these singers were descended from one man, Roderick Shelton, while a further eight were related by marriage.
Family history suggests that the Sheltons came originally from England, and that they moved into North Carolina from Virginia. Roderick Shelton was probably the first settler into that part of Madison County, an area which became known as ‘Shelton Laurel’. Today it would be extremely difficult to find any area of the English-speaking world where so many singers could be found in such close proximity.Cecil Sharp collected a total of 260 tunes in Madison County, NC. 158 of these were collected in one small area, comprising the settlements of White Rock, Alleghany, Allenstand, Carmen, Big Laurel, Rice Cove and Spillcorn. The remaining 102 songs came from the small town of Hot Springs. These include 70 songs which came from one singer alone, Jane Gentry.
Other related singers who sang to Cecil Sharp were Solomon Shelton, b.1841, of Carmen, who was a brother of Franklin B Shelton, and William Riley Shelton, b. 1873, from Alleghany, who was known as ‘the brag ballad singer’. Both Solomon, known as ‘Sol’, and Franklin B Shelton were distant cousins of Mary Sands, their great-grandmother being the same Cherokee Glumdalclitch as Mary’s great-grandmother, but having different great-grandfathers.
US and Canada versions are based on the hundreds of late 18th century English broadsides sometimes titled "The Sailor from Dover" or "Sally and her Truelove Billy."
Child's B version of 295, "The Brown, Brown Girl" collected by Rev. S. Baring-Gould, introduced stanzas from the "Sally and her Truelove Billy" songs. In his article "Folk Song Tradition, Revival and Re-Creation" Steve Gardham has shown that Baring-Gould's ballad is a re-creation of two ballads and not traditional.
To put it simply, the versions are not related to "The Brown Girl" but are part of the "The Sailor from Dover" and "Sally and her Truelove Billy" song group. In the US and Canada some common titles are "Pretty Sally," "Sally," and "A Rich Irish Lady." They have been put here following Bronson and others who have attached them to Child 295, not because they belong here.
R. Matteson 2014]
Notes from Cecil Sharp No. 44. The Brown Girl.
Texts without tunes:— Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, No. 295. Gavin Greig's Folk-Song of the North-East, i, art. 79. Broadside by Such, 'Sally and her True Love Billy' Cox's Folk Songs of the South, p. 366 (see also further
references). Journal of American Folk-Lore, xxvii. 73 ; xxxii. 502 ; xxxix. 110.
Texts with tunes: — Christie's Traditional Ballad Airs, ii. 241. Kidson's Garland of English Folk Songs, p. 20. Journal of American Folk-Lore, xviii. 295 (tune only). Journal of the Folk-Song Society, viii. 5. British Ballads from Maine, p. 418.
Davis's Traditional Ballads of Virginia, pp. 537 and 604.
'Colours' (Texts A and B) may be a corruption of 'country' as given in Folk Songs of the South.
Version J is reminiscent of The Death of Queen Jane (No. 32).
D. [Where Does Your Pain Lie?]- Sung by Mr. William RILEY SHELTON at Alleghany, N. C, Aug. 29, 1916; Shelton, born in 1873, was known as ‘the brag ballad singer’.
Pentatonic. Mode 3.
It's where does your pain lie? Does it lie in your side?
O where does your pain lie? Does it lie in your head?
The pain that torments me, love, I surely confess,
The pain that torments me, love, Lies in my breast.