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Ballad of the Month: Lamkin (Child #93)

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Ballad of the Month: Lamkin (Child #93) 34 Lamkin (Child #93) Editor: The gruesome tale of the wronged stonemason entering the castle of the greedy nobleman and extracting his revenge by murdering the nobleman's wife and baby with the help of the nurse is one I've been reluctant to sing. Not being one to shy away from the usual tabloid exploits of the Child ballad, with their rapes, murders, infanticide, and incest, I am at a loss to explain my reluctance. So it is with pleasure that I welcome Jon Bartlett and Rika Ruebsaat's discussion of this ballad. After reading their discussion and hearing Northwest Territory balladeer Moira Cameron sing it, I'm ready to tackle it. Almost. It's Lamkin was a masongood As everbuilt wi' stane, He built Lord Wearie'scastle But payment he got nane. But the nourice was a fause limmer As e'er hung on a tree,' She laid a plot wi' Lamkin, Whanher lord was o'er the sea. She laid a plot wi' Lamkin, Whenthe servantswere awa' Loot him in at a little shot-window And brought him to the ha '. "Oh whare's the lady 0' this house That ca's me Lamkin?" "She'sup in her bowersewing But we sooncan bring her down. Then Lamkin's ta 'en a sharp knife That hung down by his gair And he has gien the bonny babe A deepwound and a sair. Then Lamkin he rocked, And the fause nourice sang Till frae ilka bore0 ' the cradle The red blood out sprang. "Oh still my bairn, nourice, Oh still him wi' the pap!" "He winna still, lady, For this nor for that." "Oh still my bairn, nourice, Oh still him wi' the bell!" "He winna still, lady, Till ye c;omedown yoursel." Oh the {irsten step shesteppit She steppit on a stane; But the neistenstep shesteppit She met him -- Lamkin. "Oh saIl I kill her, nourice, Or saIl I lat her be?" "Oh kill her, kill her, Lamkin' For shene 'er wasgood to me." 'Ph" ~"n"n;"n Fnlk Mu~ic RUI,LETIN de musiaue folkloriaue canadienne 35 "Oh scour the bason, nourice, been passedon, William of Ockam'swarning - And mak' it {air and clean, pluralitas non est ponendasine necessitate- For to keep this lady's heart's blood, "multiplicity ought not to be positedwithout For she's come 0' noble kin." necessity"- shouldring in our ears.We shall be 'There need nae bason, Lamkin, addressingthe questionof the multiplicities of Lat it run through the floor; meanings,from leprosyto pactswith the devil, What better is the heart's blood which havebeen used to explain Lamkin's original 0' the rich than 0' the poor?" meaning. But ere three months were at an end, In this paper,we review other theories as to Lord Wearie came again; the etiology and the meaningof the ballad, and "Oh, wha's blood is this" he says, argue, predicatedon its wide circulation over "That lies in my hame?" considerabletime, and on its singersand listeners, "Oh, wha's blood," says Lord Wearie, that it speaksto the issueof abandonment,on the "Is this on my ha '?" part of both the murderedchild and the murdered "It is your young son's heart's blood, mother. Further, we suggesta reasonfor the It's the clearest ava'." continuedpresence (in everyvariant collected)of Oh sweetly sang the blackbird the five essentialpersons: The absentfather and That sat upon the tree; the mother, their "dark twins" Lamkin and the But sairer grat Lannkin, false nurse, and the baby. When he was condemned to dee. "Lamkin" appearsin Child in twenty-five And bonny sang the mavis, variants, the earliest dating from a 1775letter from Oot 0 'the thorny brake; a Kentish churchmanto BishopPercy, and the But sairer grat the nourice, latest in Allingham's The Ballad Book of 1892. When she was burnt at the stake. Most of the variants are from Scotland,with a very few from Ireland. "The story is told," Child notes, Tune:Traditional Ballad Airs by W. Christie (1876) "without material variation in all the numerous versions.A masonhas built a castlefor a nobleman,cannot get his pay,and therefore seeks his revenge."Child quotesMotherwell as saying "it Lamkin, "The Terror of seemsquestionable how someScottish lairds could Countless Nurseries" well afford to get themselvesseated in the large castlesthey onceoccupied unless they occasionally Jon Bartlett and Rika Ruebsaat treated the masonafter the fashion adoptedin this T his paper is an attempt to come to terms with ballad." Child disagreeswith Motherwell's notion a ballad unique in its often motiveless that the mason'sname was Lambert Linkin, and brutality.i In an interpretation that speaks to suggeststhat the nameLambkin "was a sobriquet the undoubted popularity of the ballad by appliedin derision of the meeknesswith which the addressing the question of its "meaning", we look builder had submitted to his injury." He closeshis to the listeners and to the singers to provide relatively short and somewhatuninterested head significant clues. note with the fruitful statementthat Lambkin's We start by drawing a distinction between name was a "simply ironical designationfor the "origins" and "meanings". A song might at its bloody mason,the terror of countlessnurseries".ii composition bear one meaning - it might have been We shall return to this statementlater. It is to be made for some purpose later obscured - and yet noted that fourteen of the sixteen identifiable texts continue its life bearing other meanings, having to from informants were taken from the singing of do with the social context in which it [mds itself. women. Given the varied perspectives of later singers and Bertrand Bronsoniiifinds forty-five tunes, audiences, it might bear or have borne several which he organizesinto thirty-three variants. The meanings, both synchronically and diachronically. earliest is from Virginia in 1914and the latest from To distinguish between etiology - the causation of Arkansasin 1941.He alsorecords tunes from the ballad, and utility - why the ballad is and has Dover, 1965), Vol II, 320-342: additions Francis JamesChild, The English and & corrections, III, 515; IV, 480-1; V, ScottishPopular Ballads (1882-1898, 229-231; 295-6 10 parts in 5 vols.; rpt. New York: ii Child, Vol II, 321 The Canadian Folk Music BULLETIN de musique folklorique canadienne 36 Newfoundland (four collectedin the 'thirties) and to presumethat there is only one meaning,the six from England in the period 1896-1911.Given original meaning,to the ballad. that most of Child's sets derived from Scotland,it Bertrand Bronsonreports much of the above is interesting that Bronson only reports two in his headnote. He arguesthat it is "highly Scottish tunesiv.Again, be it noted that of the probable,on Miss Gilchrist's showing,that... the thirty-five tunes, twenty-three are noted as sung by secondaryvariety is a north-country offshoot women and eight by men. Coffm and Renwick arising from the lossof the first stanza", and that, report a total of forty-five North American textsv. with this loss,"deterioration as oncebegins to eat The ballad was first given seriousstudy by into the ballad from this side and that." He finds (it Annie G. Gilchrist in 1932.viIn her "'Lambkin': A seemsto us) no great distinction, as betweenthe Study in Evolution", sheposits two forms of the two forms of the ballad, in the tunes associated ballad, which shetitles "The WrongedMason" and with the texts. "The Border Ruffian". She proposesthat the first It was not until 1977that a re-examinationof form is Scottish and the secondN orthumbrian, and the ballad was attempted,in spite of MacEdward that they are distinguishedby the presenceor Leach'scomment that "this ballad needsdetailed absenceof the identification of the motive for the study"viiiwhen John DeWitt Niles' "Lamkin: The murder he and his accomplicecommit. Motivation of Horror" appeared.aAgain searching In the Scottish tradition, she identifies for original meaning,Niles' very thorough study Balwearie Castleas a possiblesite, but arguesthat led him to supposethat no singer in the last two whether or not there was any connectionbetween hundred yearsof its recordedhistory "might have it and the ballad, it seemsto her "probable" that understood(it) fully." Niles, like Gilchrist, assumes the ballad has an historical foundation. Sheargues here that the "original meaning' is the "true" or that the Scottish form is "the undoubtedly older "only" meaning. and completer form "vii,the N orthumbrian version He beginshis analysisby a comparisonof the differing only in that the murder motive is missing. two types identified by Gilchrist, and a close There are thus problemsfor the singer of the latter reading of the Jamiesontextx, from the lips of the version in finding other motives for the murders. celebratedMrs. (Anna) Brownxi. He notes how her She discussessuch possible motives as robbery,or version is distinguishedfrom all others in three the jealousy of Lamkin as a spurned lover of the particulars: the three-stanzadialogue between lady. Lord Wearieand Lambkin over the former's Having decidedthat the Scottish is the real inability to pay the latter what he oweshim; the form of the ballad, and that the N orthumbrian nurse's urging on of Lamkin in the killing of the version is an incompleteversion of it, sheturns her lady,with the inflammatory "What better is the attention to the villain's name, which she arguesis heart's blood/othe rich than 0 the poor?" and the Flemish in origin. She finds that there were two-stanzaending beginning "0 sweetlysang the "former coloniesof Flemings" at Balwearie,Fife, black-bird/that sat upon the tree". He takes these and reports that the "dule-tree" on which Lambkin as examplesof Mrs. Brown's skill and ability, and was hanged "used to be pointed out".
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