WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Timbrel and the Lyre: Moral Ballads, Pt. 2

Episode Date: November 6, 2024

We return to the subject of moral ballads in greater depth, this time tracing their origins across the Atlantic Ocean and evolution over the last 400 years.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to The Timberl and the Liar. I'm your host Gwen Thompson, and you're listening to Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Last episode, we talked about the moral ballads of Appalachia. We talked about how an isolated culture took the songs that came over with their ancestors and repurposed them as the Aesop's fables of their society, incorporating precautionary tales of what happens to murderers or loose lovers. We also talked about how these people used songs to talk to each other, or to record each other, or simply to laugh while they worked. But we only heard a few of the hundreds of

wonderful songs in this category, and we never got to discuss their evolution as they crossed the Atlantic and moved further south. So, today we're going to continue the theme and deepen the discussion. The first song we're going to discuss has, as the oldest and best of them do, many names. The most common are the two sisters, the cruel sister, or Benori O Benori, after a frane that is sometimes found in Scottish versions. The first we know of this song is when it was printed as a broadside under the title the Miller and the King's daughter in the 1650s. A broadside in Old England was a one-sided sheet of paper hocked and peddled on the streets,

meant to be tacked up on the walls of a tavern or brought home to be read by the fireplace. They functioned rather like an Elizabethan tabloid. They were meant to spread political messages or bits of entertainment like stories, and ballads were a very common medium for storytelling at the time. Thus, a folk song collector's favorite way to date the origins of a ballad is to hunt for it amongst the broadsides, looking for the year when it became popular enough to reach and intrigue a printer. Almost all versions, including the one you're about to hear, start the same way, with two single sisters. A man, sometimes a nobleman, sometimes the Miller's son, sometimes just a generic suitor, comes courting,

and courts the eldest, even though he loves the youngest. In a story as old as Genesis, the elder sister becomes furious with jealousy. She tricks her sister into taking a walk by the sea, then pushes her in to drown, refusing her cries for help and declaring her intention to marry the young man and live happily. But the young sister's body washes down the stream into the dam of a miller, or passes a hunter depending on the version. The next part is very strange. You made a hop off her breastbone.

High ho, a nani-o, whose notes would melt a heart of stone And the swan swims, Sabonio We frame the strings of her yellow hair Hey, ho, and an anio Whose notes made sad the listening ear And the swan swimsabonio He took this harp to a far Hall.

Hey, home, and an an eo, where there were the court assembled all, and the swan swims, savonio. He laid this harp all on the stone. Hey, home, and an an an he all, and to play alone, and the swan swims savonio. Oh, yonder sits my father the king, Hey-ho, my mother the queen, And the swan swims, Savonio

And yonder sits my brother, Hugh And swim, Savonio And the very last thing the harp played then And the swan swim, Sabonio James Francis Child, a ballad hunter of the 19th century, whose volumes of Scotch and English ballads are one of the most basic of folk music reference books, wrote that the same story is found in Icelandic, Norse, Faroish, and Esnish ballads, as well as in the Swedish and Danish, and a nearly related one in many other ballads or tales, German, Polish, Lithuanian, etc. One of those is the German Brothers Grimm's story, der Zingende de Knochen, or the singing bone.

In it, two brothers set out to kill a wild boar that has been terrorizing the kingdom. The prize, of course, is a spouse, the king's daughter to wed. The elder brother is arrogant and the younger one pious. When they're separated, a dwarf appears to give the younger brother a magical spear to kill the boar. But when the older brother, who is drinking himself a pot of courage in a tavern, sees his younger brother coming with the dead body of the boar, he kills his younger brother, buries him below a bridge, and takes the animal home to claim his. his prize. The court accepts his story that the younger was killed by the boar until years later

a shepherd finds a small white bone while hurting his flock. He carves a mouthpiece out of it, but when he blows into it, it sings this song. Ah, friend, thou blowest upon my bone. Long have I lain beside the water. My brother slew me for the boar, and took for his wife the king's young daughter. The shepherd, marvelling, as one would, takes the bone to the king, where the whole story is found out, the evil older brother is killed for his crime. The moral, of course, is the same either way. It warns against jealousy, against murder, and above all, against thinking you can hide your evil deeds.

That's a very Christian idea, and England of the time was pious, but it's also a practical idea. We can probably all think of a time that we stopped ourselves from telling a little white lie because we could imagine the embarrassment of being found out, or at time someone found out something about us that we didn't think they could. When you start to think no one is watching, it's a tibed. temptation to evil. While the ballad didn't die in the 1650s, it's been exhaustively documented in the Appalachian

United States. In fact, it's found more often than most other story songs. Now, it changed, of course. As many folklorists, including W.K. McNeil have noted, American versions of the child ballads tend to get shorter. They also cut out a lot of the supernatural elements, probably because of the very strict Calvinist and Puritan nature of early America, which we discussed in our episode. on Sacred Heart music. They also clean up the stories, which tend to feature incest, murder,

sex, and childbirth. Remember, we're only one or two generations removed from Shakespeare, who was as much of a bawd as a bard, and sometimes add a more obvious moral. While that heavily Americanized version is what folklorists like Cecil Sharp, Alan Lomax, and others found in the Appalachians, starting in the 19-teens. It's shorter, and often the suitor is outright courting the younger sister, since we're removed now from a traditional society where sisters must be married in order of age. One American version found in Hot Springs, North Carolina, does mention a farmer making the girl's breastbone and hair into a harp,

but the harp never sings. We just skip straight to the execution. Oh, and by the way, now the man who makes the harp is executed along with the wicked elder sister. Even that is an anomaly. Most of the American versions do away with the harp entirely, and instead, in something like this. Oh, down she says she swam! Into the miller's dam she ran

I'll be true to my love if my love be true to me He robbed her off her gay gold ring Bow down He robbed her off her gay gold ring In again I'll be true The miller was hanged Bow down

The miller was hanged at his own mill gate This sister was burned at the stake, I'll be true to me. And so the focus is not just on being found out anymore. That's not bad enough. Both the sister and the man who finds her. In some stories she's already dead, in others she dies when he throws her back in, but the point is that he does nothing to help or remedy the situation.

They both have to die. Interestingly, I wish that we knew when this twist to the ballad was added because the United States did not execute a woman for a crime until 1865, when they executed Mary Surrett for complicity in Abraham Lincoln's assassination. If it came before that, then we know that this has more to do with poetic justice than the threat of actual legal justice. Either way, this is one example of American ballads adding on a more explicit moral than English ones. Another fascinating moral ballad is called Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard,

or in America, Maddie Groves. It first appeared in a broadside called Witch Restored, in 1658, as did the two sisters, actually. It would appear that Witt Restored was a quality publication. But we know it's even earlier than that, because a play from 1611 makes a joking reference to it, and another source claims to have found it on a broadside in 1607. Unlike the two sisters, this ballot has come to the U.S. almost unchanged in text. Perhaps because, unlike its counterpart, it features no magic. The murder and out-of-wedlock intimacy are still there, but they aren't graphic, and Appalachia accepted these elements, perhaps because it recognized that they were too

important and too problematic to sweep under the rug. They had to be talked about. Well, the story begins of all places in church. On a day, on a day, on a bright holiday, as many there been the year, when a little ma's grave to the church did go, God's holy word. to hear. He went and he stood all at the church door. He watched the priest at his mass, but he had more mind of the fair women than he had of our lady's grace. For some of them were clad in the green, and some were clad in the poor. And in and come Lord Barnard's wife, They fairest among them all.

She cast her eye on Little Ma's grave, Full bright as the summer sun, And then and thought this little Ma's grave, This lady's heart I have won. Since she I have loved thee, little Ma's, grey for long and many's their day so have I loved the lady fair yet never a word dost I say Oh I have a bow at Bucklesfordbury all daintily painted white and if thou'lt wind thither thou little ma's grave

Thou's lying by arms all this night And note there's no sexism in these old ballads The lady can make inappropriate advances as well as the man Men do not have a monopoly on sin In fact, given the traditional view of marriage embraced at the time This might be a first sign that something is going wrong As we'll see throughout Lord Barnard, Lady Barnard's husband Is portrayed as stronger, more willful and more vengeful than Little Musgrave

more traditionally masculine perhaps. Little Musgrave should earn our scorn, not just for how willingly he sins, but for how weakly he stands up to a woman's wiles. She's wearing the pants in this relationship, which is not something that would have been smiled upon at the time. Well, a servant who accompanied Lady Barnard to church runs to tell her husband,

who promises to reward him for his haste if it's true, but to kill him if he is spreading slander about his lady. He returns home to find his lady and Little Musgrave in bed together, In the English version, their encounter goes something like this. And some men whistled and some men sang, and some these words did say, When'er my Lord Barnard's horn blew, Away ma' ma's grave away.

Methinks I hear their thresselcock, Me thinks I hear their jack, Methinks I hear Lord Barnard's horn, and thy would I were away. Lies still, lie still, thou little Buzz grave. Come cuddle me from thee cold, for tis nothing but a shepherd boy, driving his sheep to the fall, Is not thy hawk set upon his perch? Thy steed eats oats and hay,

And thou with a fair maid in thy arms, And wouldst thou be away? Once again, Musgrave gives in to a woman's wicked counsel, showing both an adulterous heart and a lack of gumption. But in most American versions, Little Musgrave, now Little Maddie Groves, isn't little because he's weak and spineless. Instead, he's more cheeky, probably younger than Lord Arnold as he becomes. Quicker, handsomer, and more boyish overall,

and when Lord Arnold finds them, the encounter is quite different. Oh, how do you like my sheet? Oh lady who lies in your arm so sweet Oh lies in your arm so sweet And some cover lid Likewise your silken sheet So sweet lies in you're so sweet Now that is an awfully cheeky and impertinent remark

To the husband who has just found you in bed with his wife But those of you rooting for Lord Arnold Don't worry he gets his own again Get up from there You naked man and put you on some clothes I never intend, for to have it said that a naked man I slow, that a naked man I slow. And that may be one of the coolest lines ever said by a cuckleded man. Top 100 Folkways quotes right there.

Maddie refuses to fight Lord Arnold, who has two long-beaten swords, and I not a pocket knife. Again, making him sound a bit cowardly. Lord Arnold is the square man here, so he offers Maddie the better of the two swords, and a chance at the first strike. The choreography and nicety of the conflict suggests that this is much closer to an honorable duel than to an enraged brawl. But while Maddie only injures Lord Arnold,

the slighted husband kills the adulterer in one blow and then turns to his wife. In the old English versions, Lord Barnard tends to kill his wife immediately, then regret it, repent, and bury her well. But the story is different in Appalachia. There, Lord Arnold interviews his wife, gives her a chance to explain herself.

but she's a passionate and slightly petulant little sinner, and declares that she loves Maddie and despises her husband, whoever the gentleman, obliges by striking her dead and burying her with her lover. He doesn't feel any remorse, and why should he? This killing is not the outrage of a wronged husband, but justice, delivered after what we may consider a fair trial in the world of folklore. American singers like morals, y'all, there is no reason he should regret serving his wife what she asked for.

Well, I had a handful of other songs I wanted to show you all, but we're running out of time, and I promised to talk about how the Deep South affected and changed these songs. So, we're going to finish with Frankie and Johnny. Now, some of y'all may be thinking, hey, I know that song. Well, now Frankie and Johnny were sweethearts. They were true as a blue-blue sky. He was a long-legged guitar picker with a wicked wandering eye. Well, you know a version of it.

Johnny Cash did not write this. In fact, a surprising number of his hits are Black Folk songs, but that's another episode. He's one of a chain of singers to cover the song, and one of the last ones. In his version, a musician assures his girl that he'll be true to her while gone for a show. He intends to be, but there's this one girl in the front row who looks awful fine. Well, right when he's beginning to talk nice to her, she jumps up and slaps him, saying that she is his girlfriend's sister and was there to check up on him. Cash ends with a warning not to do your girl wrong.

But he turned what is actually a pretty dark and tragic ballad, probably based on a true murder that happened in Missouri, into a light humorous warning directed at the traveling guitar pickers who looked for temporary company in their showtowns. He probably learned and adapted it from Jimmy Rogers, the singing cowboy of the 1920s and 30s, credited as one of the original country music singers. But Jimmy Rogers probably learned and adapted it from Mississippi John Hurt or leadbelly or another probably black folk singer. The original song is darker.

Frankie finds out that her man, either Albert or Johnny, has been cheating on her. She steals his gun, hunts for him through bars and body houses, and finally shoots him in the street. It could be poetic justice as easily as any of the other songs we've heard, but there's a different emphasis here. It's more emotional. The moral might not be as straightforward, but the sadness, anger, and betrayal of each character. character is deeper. Frankie broke down Alice flies home.

She didn't make no deal long. The judge telling Frankie that she's going to be justified feels hollow. What's the good of being justified under the law? if your traitorous lover is dead in the graveyard. Official sanction isn't enough to remove the herd of this mess. Or it can even end other ways. This is a version sung by Leadbelly for Alan Lomax in Louisiana, but the audio has been lost, so I have to read the verses to you.

Little Frankie went down Broadway, with her razor in her hand, says, stand aside, you chippy, I'm looking for my man. He's a gambling man, won't treat me right. Miss Frankie went up the stairway, she didn't go for fun, Underneath the ruffles of her petticoat she had a young Gatlin gun. He was her man, and he was doing her wrong. Miss Frankie opened the winder, the gun she fired twice. The second shot she fired, she took Mr. Albert's life.

He was her man, but he was doing her wrong. She shot three bullets in him. He staggered to the door. He gasped, oh Frankie, you can't play a round, round this hop joint anymore. I was your man, but I'd done you wrong. took poor Albert to the graveyard, stuck him in the ground. Frankie, she was singing, I shot the sucker down. He was my man, but he'd done me wrong.

The people says to Frankie, little Frankie, why don't you run? Yonder comes the chief police with a smokeless 44 gun. You killed your man. Wouldn't treat you right. Well, says Miss Frankie, I don't care if I die. Take and hang me to a telegraph pole. Hang me good and high, he was my man, but he done me wrong. Frankie says to the sheriff,

Well, what do you think it'll be? The sheriff says it looks like a case of murder in the first degree. He was your man, but you shot him down. Once more I saw Frankie. She was sitting in her chair, waiting for to go and meet her God with the sweat dripping out of her hair. Albert was her man, but she shot him down. Took Frankie to the graveyard and stuck her in the ground.

Now all that's left of Frankie is a wooden crum. and mound. He was her man, both dead and gone. Now it's an overt tragedy. Frankie tried to see if two wrongs would make a right, and they didn't. And unlike the singers of the moral English ballads, who sometimes show remorse, sometimes don't, and sometimes don't give us any hints either way, we can feel Frankie's agony, as she realizes what a horrible thing she has gotten herself into. And that's typical of the ballads sung by black folk musicians. They often made them into blues and sang them accordingly, as emotional, almost first-person accounts of tangible pain. The expression is haunting and strikingly effective.

No wonder black music has had such a massive influence over Western pop music today. Well, I'm afraid that's all the time we have, but I'm glad we got to talk on this fascinating subject. We'll be back in two weeks with another episode. Thanks for listening.