William and Margaret- Zehner (Illinois) pre1939 Nealy
[From: Four British Ballads in Southern Illinois by Charles Neely; The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 52, No. 203 (Jan. - Mar., 1939), pp. 75-81. Neely's notes follow. Footnotes moved to the end.
As pointed out by Neely (below) this is a version of "William and Margaret" a broadside according to Child and Chappell dated 1711 (stamped) which may date back to c.1680 (Chappell). According to Child and Chappell, this broadside was arranged slightly by David Mallet (Malloch) and published by Ramsey in 1724 as Mallet's original work.
The relationship with Child 74 is the opening stanza only. It's likely this was taken from print not long before it was collected by Neely.
R. Matteson 2012, 2014]
WILLIAM AND MARGARET [1]
This ballad is really a variant of "Margaret's Ghost," written by David Mallet and published in Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (Vol. II, pp. 393-395). It must have been learned originally from Percy's Reliques or from some volume which reprinted Mallet's ballad.[2] Although less than half of "Margaret's Ghost" remains, one is forced to the conclusion that the ballad was transmitted by people with remarkable memories, or that it has not long been a part of oral tradition. The latter seems more likely. In the first place, those stanzas omitted are not vital to the narrative, being usually descriptive or conversational. In the second place, only two complete lines have been substituted and six words in other lines; only one word has been left out and one phrase rearranged.
'Twas at the silent midnight hour
When all were fast asleep;
In glided Margaret's grimly ghost,
And stood at William's feet.
Her face was like an April morn,
Clad in wintry cloud,
And clay cold was her lily hand
That held her fable shroud.
"Awake," she cried, "thy true love calls,
Come from her midnight grave;
Now let thy pity hear the maid,
Thy love refused to save.
"Why did you promise love to me,
And not thy promise keep?
Why did you swear my eyes were bright
Yet leave those eyes to weep?
"How could you say my face was fair,
And yet that face forsake?
How could you win my virgin heart
Yet leave that heart to break?"
The lark sung loud, the morning smiled
And raised her glittering head;
Pale William quaked in every limb,
And raving left his bed.
He hied him to the fatal place
Where Margaret's body lay,
And stretched him on the green grassturf
That wrapt her breathless clay.
And thrice he called on Margaret's name,
And thrice he wept full sore,
Then laid his cheek to the cold grave,
And word spake never more.
Footnotes:
1. Secured from Miss Esther Knefelkamp, Belleville, Ill., who got both the words and the music from Miss Amelia Zehner of Belleville.
2. Nine of the seventeen stanzas of "Margaret's Ghost" published in Percy's Reliques have been omitted from the Southern Illinois variant: three stanzas between Stanzas 2 and 3, two between 3 and 4, and four between 5 and 6. Of the remaining stanzas the following changes have occurred in the latter variant:
Stanza I
line I "midnight" for "solemn"
line 2 "When all were fast asleep" for
"When night and morning meet" (entire line)
Stanza 2
line 2 "A" omitted between "in" and "wintry"
line 4 "fable" for "sable"
Stanza 4
line 2 "thy" for "that"
Stanza 6
line 2 "And raised her glittering head" for
"With beams of rosy red" (entire line)
line 3 "quaked" for "shook" and "every" for "ev'ry"
Stanza 7
line 3 "green grassturf" for "grass-green turf"
Stanza 8
line 3 "the" for "her"