10 Jul

Vandiemens Land (Laws L18)

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Come, all you lads of pleasure and rambling boys beware,
Whenever you go hunting with your hounds, your gun and snare,
Whenever you go a-hunting with the valleys at your command,
Think of the tedious journey, boys, going to Vandiemens Land.

There was Joe Brown from Nottingham, Jack Williams and Jack Jones,
They were three as jolly fellows, so well their country knows;
They were taken one night near the bay, all with their gun in hand,
And for fourteen years transported unto Vandiemens Land.

There was a girl from Nottingham, Sally Simons was her name,
For seven years transported for carrying on the game;
Our Captain bought her freedom and he married her off hand,
She gave us good usage going to Vandiemens Land.

The landing port we went to was on a foreign shore,
The planters they surrounded us, full a score or more,
They yoked us up like horses and sold us out off hand,
And they hitched us to the plow, me boys, to plow Vandiemens Land.

The houses that they built for us was made of sods and clay,
The beds we had to sleep on were made of rotten hay;
Oh, rotten hay for beds, me boys, and slumber if you can,
Oh, they gave us the very worst usage while on Vandiemens Land,

Last night as I lay down to sleep I had a pleasant dream,
I dreamt I was back in Ireland, down by a purling stream,
With my Irish girl beside me and her at my command,
But when I awoke my heart was broke, off on Vandiemens Land.
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Anthony Van Diemen of the Dutch East India Company chartered an expedition led by explorer Abel Tasman resulting in the first European landing on land (later discovered to be an island) off the south-eastern coast of New South Wales (Australia) in 1642. The island, later renamed Tasmania, was colonized by the British in 1803 as a penal colony with the name Van Diemen’s Land. Convicts were sent to the island from that time until 1853.

Several traditional ballads mention punishment by transportation to Van Diemen’s Land. In this one, once prevalent in England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia and North America, the crime is poaching. This version, collected from Minnesotan singer Mike Dean, is from the point of view of a convicted Irishman though his criminal shipmates are poachers from Nottingham, England. Other versions tell of poachers apprehended in Ireland itself.

In the 1800s, the right to hunt in England and Ireland was limited to the aristocracy. Poaching was not the violation of animal protection laws it is today but rather an assault on the property of the wealthy who kept game on their lands. Poachers were usually people from the lower classes seeking food or money from the sale of wild game on the black market. Mike Dean was himself an avid hunter who made many trips around Minnesota and eastern South Dakota hunting prairie chickens while living in Hinckley in the late 1800s. It is interesting to imagine what this song meant to him as the son of Famine immigrants from County Mayo.

More detailed information on this song from the Traditional Ballad Index

04 Jun

Shanty Boy (and the Farmer’s Son)

As I walked out one evening just as the sun went down,
So carelessly I wandered to a place called Stroner town,
Where I heard two maids conversing as slowly I passed by,
One said she loved her farmer’s son, and the other her shanty boy.

The one that loved her farmer’s son those words I heard her say,
The reason why she loved him, at home with her he’d stay,
He would stay at home all winter, to the woods he would not go,
And when the spring it did come in his grounds he’d plow and sow.

“All for to plow and sow your land,” the other girl did say,
If the crops should prove a failure your debts you couldn’t pay;
If the crops should prove a failure, or the grain market be low,
The sheriff often sells you out to pay the debts you owe.”

“As for the sheriff selling the lot, it does not me alarm,
For there’s no need of going in debt if you are on a good farm;
You make your bread from off the land, need not work through storms and rain,
While your shanty boy works hard each day his family to maintain.”

“I only love my shanty boy who goes out in the fall,
He is both stout and hardy, well fit for every squall;
With pleasure I’ll receive him in the spring when he comes home,
And his money free he will share with me when your farmer’s son has none.”

“Oh, why do you love a shanty boy, to the wild woods he must go,
He is ordered out before daylight to work through rain and snow,
While happy and contented my farmer’s son can lie,
And tell to me some tales of love as the cold winds whistle by.”

“I don’t see why you love a farmer,” the other girl did say,
“The most of them they are so green the cows would eat for hay;
It is easy you may know them whenever they’re in town,
The small boys run up to them saying, ‘Rube, how are you down?’

“For what I have said of your shanty boy I hope you will pardon me,
And from that ignorant mossback I hope to soon get free,
And if ever I get rid of him for a shanty boy I will go,
I will leave him broken hearted his grounds to plow and sow.”

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When they met up in Virginia, MN in 1923, singer Michael Cassius Dean told song collector Franz Rickaby that he learned this song while himself working as a “shanty boy” (lumberjack) in Michigan around 1878. “Stronertown,” Dean said, was at the head of the Manistee River, six miles up from Manistee, Michigan. I find a Stronach, MI on modern maps that is likely the spot. The song is often called “The Shanty Boy and the Farmer’s Son” and it appears frequently in song collections made throughout the lumbering regions of the Great Lakes and Maritimes. It even managed the rare trip east across the Atlantic where it was collected in County Antrim by Sam Henry in 1936.

I transcribed the above melody from the 1924 recording of Dean made by Robert Winslow Gordon. Another, slightly different, version was transcribed by Rickaby in 1923 from the singing of Ed “Arkansaw” Springstead in my hometown Bemidji, MN.

This text belongs to a family of similar dialogue songs and poems that date back centuries in England, Scotland and Ireland. Its direct “parent” song may be “I Love My Sailor Boy” which also appears in Dean’s songster The Flying Cloud (my source for the above text). Shanty-boys sang at least a few songs poking fun at sober, boring farmers who, they assured themselves, were sadly lacking in the manly mystique personified by the men chopping down trees and heroically rafting them downriver to the sawmill.

More detailed information on this song from the Traditional Ballad Index

03 Jun

Bold Daniel [Laws K34]

It was on the fourteenth day of January,
From England we set sail,
We were bound down to Laguire,
With a sweet and pleasant gale;
The Roving Lizzie we are called,
Bold Daniel is my name,
And we sailed away from Laguire,
Just out of the Spanish Main.

And when we reached Laguire,
Our orders did read so,
“When you discharge your cargo,
It’s sail for Callao,”
Our Captain called all hands right aft,
And unto us did say,
“Here is money for you today, my lads,
For tomorrow we’ll sail away.”

It was early the next morning,
As daylight did draw nigh,
The man from at the masthead
A strange sail did espy;
With a black flag under her mizzen peak,
Came bearing down that way;
“I’ll be bound she is some pirate,”
Bold Daniel he did say.

In the course of three or four hours,
This pirate ranged alongside,
And with a speaking trumpet,
“Where are you from?” he cries.
“The Roving Lizzie we are called,
Bold Daniel is my name,
And we sailed away from Laguire,
Just out of the Spanish Main.”

“Come, back your topsails to your mast,
And heave your ship under my lee.”
“Oh, no! oh, no!” cried Daniel,
I’d rather sink at sea.”
They hoisted up their bloody flag,
Our hearts to terrify.
With their big guns to our small arms,
At us they did let fly.

We mounted four six-pounders
To fight a hundred men,
And when the action did begin,
It was just about half-past ten;
We mounted four six-pounders,
Our crew being twenty-two;
In the course of an hour and a quarter,
Those pirates we did subdue.

And now our prize we’ve taken
Unto Columbia’s shore,
To that dear old place in America,
They call sweet Baltimore;
We’ll drink success to Daniel,
Likewise his gallant crew,
That fought and beat that Pirate
With his noble twenty-two.

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We’re back to the repertoire of Minnesota singer Michael Cassius Dean (1857-1931) this week with a song about piracy. The “Laguire” mentioned in this song must be La Guaira, the chief port city of Venezuela which was actually sacked by English pirates in 1743. The song is relatively rare in tradition. The other three versions I have found were collected in coastal areas of Maine, Newfoundland and England. Mike Dean sang two other songs about pirates “The Flying Cloud” and “Paul Jones the Privateer” and perhaps was fascinated with the theme after working as a sailor on the Great Lakes himself.

The above transcription is my own made from my digital copy of a recording made of Dean’s singing in September 1924 by folk song collector Robert Winslow Gordon. Gordon recorded Dean singing the first verse only. The full text comes from Dean’s 1922 self-published songster The Flying Cloud.

More about this song at The Traditional Ballad Index