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Introduction |
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tradition, In the Stranger-Peopled Country and In the Tennessee Mountains. One might suspect that she wrote while there The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains and possibly The Despot of Brooms edge Cove.
It is doubtful if ever such luck has fallen to a ballad collector as that which came to us in Cade's Cove on my return from the mountain tops. A bit of kindness to a Great Smoky mountaineer while we were visiting the Cove two years before had opened a whole field of traditional ballads. It led to an introduction to the Harmon family from whom we at that time obtained some rare songs. Among these are: "Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard", "Lamkin", "Johnny Scot", "Sir Hugh, or the Jew's Daughter", "Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight", "Earf Brand", "Young Beichan", "Lord Thomas and Fair Annet", "James Harris", "Bonny Barbara Allan", "The Maid Freed from the Gallows", etc. Then the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Commission bought out our family of singers, and all its members removed to the mountains of northern Georgia. Now the unexpected happened when our singers returned to Cade's Cove for a visit on August 11. There were sixteen of them—all in one truck. They spent the best part of two days at our cabin and sang twenty-four songs which Mrs. Henry recorded. The titles of some of the songs secured on this momentous occasion are "Sweet Trinity", "The Mermaid", "The Goodman", "Bamboo Briar", "Home, Daughter, Home", "The Twa Sisters", "Little White Babes", "The Crafty Farmer", "The Wife Wrapped in Wether's Skin", "The Farmer's Curst Wife", "The Gypsy Laddie", "The Lass of Roch Royal", etc. The two rarest acquisitions, however, came )ust at the end of this song fest when Mrs. Henry was able to record "King Henry Fifth's Conquest of France", a song hitherto not found in America, and "Little Dicky Whigburn", which Mr. Phillips Barry describes as the fourth known \ ersion in English of a satirical cantefable traditional in nearly every country «>f Europe.12 Most of the ballads were recorded from the singing of the father, "Uncle" Sam Harmon and the mother, "Aunt" Polly. However, songs were also obtained from their children, Laura, Burlcy, Austin, and Ether. Many songs also came from the eldest daughter, Mrs. Mary Tucker, and her daughter, Rachel. Mary had been living in Georgia for some years and was instrumental in influencing her family to remove near her when its members were forced to leave Cade's Cove.
12 This paiagraph,\uth some rt vision, is printed by the courtesy of Word Study (Ci. & C. Men-jam Co., Springfield, Mass ), June, 1932. |
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