Ballads & Songs of Southern Michigan-songbook

A Collection of 200+ traditional songs & variations with commentaries including Lyrics & Sheet music

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4o           Ballads and Songs of Michigan
5 SWEET WILLIAM AND LADY MARGARET
(Fair Margaret and Sweet William, Child, No. 74)
This widely disseminated ballad is quoted in Act II, Scene 8, and in Act III, Scene 5, of Beaumont and Fletcher's Knight of the Burning Pestle (1610). The Michigan version is a marked composite, containing many details which occur only in variants from localities widely removed from one another. In general it is most similar to Child B, although it has something in common with A and C. For additional forms and discussion see Barry, Eckstorm, and Smyth, pp. 134-139; Cox, pp 65-77; Davis, pp. 221-239; Eddy, No. 8, Flanders and Brown, pp. 213-214; Mackenzie, pp. 25-26, Scarborough, pp. 103-105; and Sharp, I, 132-145. The present version was sung in 1934 by Mr. Otis Evilsizer, Alger.
cween          La - dy Mar - g*ret           and                you."
i O 'twas on one merry May morning Sweet William arose all dressed in blue. "O it's tell me that long, long love That's between Lady Marg'ret and you."
2    "O I know no harm of her," says he, "And I hope that she knows none of me, For tomorrow morning by eight o'clock Lady Marg'ret my bride shall be."
3    As she was standing in her hall, A-combing back her hair,
It was there that she spied Sweet William and his bride, As to the churchyard they drew nigh.