University of Virginia Library

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131

THE NOBLEMAN'S WEDDING.

In the year 1854, or the beginning of 1855, when Dr. Petrie was preparing a portion of his Ancient Music of Ireland for the press, he sent me, in the form given below, the imperfect and corrupt words of a ballad of which he had the music, asking me to try my hand upon them. I tried accordingly—the requisite being simplicity of style, not imitation of old fashions of language—and was so fortunate as to please him. He wrote to me on the subject (March 11th, 1855): ‘I determined to break through my rule to exclude all verses of recent manufacture, and behold now I send you a proof of it in type.’ The version sent me, in Miss Petrie's handwriting, and the only one I saw (it was probably the nursery-maid's version) runs as follows:

‘Once I was at a nobleman's wedding,
'Twas of a girl that proved unkind,
But now she begins to think of her losses,
Her former true lover still runs in her mind.

Here is the token of gold that was broken,
Seven long years, love, I have kept it for your sake,
You gave it to me as a true lover's token,
No longer with me now it shall remain.

The bride she sat at the head of the table,
The words that he said she marked right well,
To sit any longer she was not able,
And down at the bridegroom's feet she fell.

One request I do make of you,
And I hope you will grant it to me,
To lie this night in the arms of my mother,
And ever, ever after, to lie with thee.

No sooner asked than it was granted,
With tears in her eyes she went to bed,
And early, early, the very next morning
He rose and found the young bride was dead.

He took her up in his arms so softly,
And carried her to the meadow so green,
He covered her over with green leaves and laurels,
Thinking that she might come to life again.’

Dr. Petrie prefixed these remarks to the ballad in his Ancient Music of Ireland:

‘The following simple ballad air, independently of any intrinsic merit it may be thought to possess, has interested me, as I have no doubt it will, also, the majority of my readers, from having been a favourite with the late J. Philpot Curran, partly, no doubt, from his admiration of the ballad words connected with it. The setting of the melody, as sung by Mr. Curran, was kindly communicated to me by his son, Mr. William H. Curran, together with the facts connected with it, as above stated. But, unfortunately, the latter gentleman can only now remember, and that but imperfectly, one stanza of the ballad—the fifth according to the version which I shall presently lay before the reader. Subsequently, however, I became possessed, from other sources, of three copies of the ballad, and three other settings of the melody, all—as usual in such cases of tunes and words preserved only traditionally—differing widely from each other. Of these, both tune and words, the first were obtained from Mr. Joyce, by whom they were taken down from the singing of his brother, Mr. Michael Joyce, of Glenasheen, in the county of Limerick; the second from my own daughters, who had learnt them in their childhood, from a nursery-maid, who at that period belonged to my family; and the third from Mary Madden, the poor blind Limerick woman of whom I have so often had occasion to make mention. Of the settings of the melody—being indisposed to express any opinion as to which should be considered the most authentic form of versions so different from each other—I have considered it proper to give the three settings which follow, namely, Mr. Curran's, my daughters', and Mr. Joyce's, With respect, however, to the equally different copies of the ballad, they are all so rude and imperfect as to be unworthy of publication. But, instead of them, I give insertion to a version of the ballad composed by my friend, William Allingham, from these various imperfect versions, [this is a slip] with as much fidelity to their general meaning and simplicity of language as was consistent with a due attention to more correct rhythm and metre. . . .’ (Pp. 178, 179). The version of the air which I give is the one noted by Miss Petrie.

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