Fair Eleanor
Channel: Stephen Griffith
Date: 2020-06-20

Day 96 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series

Sandburg mentions this song was often used as a lullaby (despite telling of a beheading). That's the way I sang it. Sandburg says,  "Little Abe Lincoln,  as a child, probably heard Fair Eleanor, according to persons familiar with Kentucky backgrounds."

This early ballad, first published in 1677 is often called "The Brown Girl." The lyrics refer to a "brown" girl. The question, voiced by one individual in an online discussion group, in voiced by many others through the centuries: "Who was the "Brown Girl"? Why was she less desirable than Fair Ellender? Does "brown" mean skin color, i.e. race or complexion?"

I did not intend to write about this just yet. I'm still working on it for the book, and an article. Unfortunately, in this Stay-at-Home Series, this song comes up today, during the extreme unrest following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. It is easy to apply our own preconceptions and attitudes, but as one student of folk music determined, "I very much doubt that this is a racial reference."

But does it matter? Yes, it does. But, now is not the time for a thorough discussion because this is a survey and I will definitely revist this subject in greater detail. Let me make three observations.

1.) Musician Howard Jones says, "Whilst there have always been immigrants of all races to Britain, and especially to seaport towns, I suspect that at the time of the ballad they would have been sufficiently unusual to have been described more specifically, as a Turk or Moor or whatever, rather than by the rather vague expression "brown girl".  Also, There is no reason to suppose any racial implication; Moors did not own houses and lands in the place and time of Lord Thomas. To assume any racial intent, the story would need to be relocated to Spain, or the brown girl cast as the offspring of some Mediterranean follower.

2.) "In the folk ballad The Two Sisters, both sisters were equally high born but "As one grew bright as was the sun/So coal black grew the elder one." I assume the colors refer to both hair and disposition." (from another folk music enthusiast)

3.) BUT for centuries good has been portrayed as "white" and bad portrayed as "bad." And if anyone remembers the great scene in the movie Malcolm X between Elijah Muhammad (Al Freeman Jr.) and Malcolm X (Denzel Washington) you understand how assigning color has been used, sometimes viciously, in blame and prejudice. So, the verdict is still out and needs to be explored in greater detail.

Sandburg writes: "Nancy Hanks in her old Kentucky home, sang ballads the western pioneers brought through Cumberland Gap from the uplands and mountains farther east.

"The story of the Brown Girl stabbing Fair Eleanor, then having her head cut off by Lord Thomas, who killed himself and was buried with the two women, sounds almost like a grand opera plot. Grim and terrible though this  ballad story is, the tune is even, comforting, a little like riding a slow galloping horse. It is still used in many a southern mountain home for rocking the children to sleep.

"Little Abe Lincoln,  as a child, probably heard The Brown Girl, according to persons familiar with Kentucky backgrounds.

"This version is from the Reed Smith ballad group published by the University of South  Carolina; it was heard by Tressie Pierce in Alexander County, North Carolina.