Ballads & Songs of Southern Michigan-songbook
A Collection of 200+ traditional songs & variations with commentaries including Lyrics & Sheet music
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46 Ballads and Songs of Michigan
7 LORD VALLEY
(Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard, Child, No. 81)
This ballad was printed in broadside form early in the seventeenth century. The Michigan text differs considerably from any single Child version, but seems to be a fairly complete whole in itself. For other texts and a discussion of the ballad see Barry, Eckstorm, and Smyth, pp. 150-194; Bulletin, III, 6-8; IV, 12-13; a-d VI, 8-10; Cox, pp. 94-95; Davis, pp. 289-301; Eddy, No. 10a; Fuson, pp. 52-55; Mackenzie, pp. 27-34; Scarborough, pp. 143-149; Sharp, I, 161-182; and Smith, pp. 125-128. Only in the Eddy text of the American versions are there stanzas similar to the last two of the Michigan form.
The present version was sung m 1934 by Mr. Charles Muchler, Kalkaska, who learned the song when he was a young man working in a lumber camp in Pennsylvania.
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i The first came in was the scarlet red; The next came in was the blue; And the very next one was Lord Valley's wife, The flower amongst the crew.
2 She cast her eyes on little Ned Grove, To him these words did say,
"If it causes my life and it causes my death, This night with me you must stay."
3 "To stay with you, my pretty fair one, How darest I upon my life?
For by the rings upon your fingers You are Lord Valley's wife." |
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