New-York tribune., 1916-07-09
The Blood Accusation
and English Ballads
The Pleasures Of Song Collectns-Strange Tricks of
the Memory-Clyde Fitch and the Ballad of
The Jews Daughter"
BY II. e. KREHBIEL.
IT. HE pleasure Of gathering foksongs the mouths OF
iolksngers-humble of the minsrels of old
- has been mine i'm small degree:

olksingers-humbe successors of the minsres of old
has never been mine except in small degree once
cn week among the lroquois the Indian reservation IN
ada to of the ritual songs their OF
,,,,inc up chief That is pleasure and experience
which nger long with the collector and warm his heart
anew every he takes look book OF ballads every
ono knows read the experiences Of MIR Sharp and other
English collectors who have left for persa
h has had communication with the good people who have
searched the living books and them between binders
boards strenuous has compelled to be collector
nv proxy chiefly But the occupation has had its de
chts feel something OF the collector fush OF
asrc now as turn over of my books and
read again the scraps of information preserved there or on the
hacks and programmes derived in conversation with
some after lecture Faint cew some OF these notes
lew disconnected words halne donted phrases but they
serve TO prick the spirit and throw glow
Of warmth and light into aded imagination What an ncom
prehsby strange and crac thing memory is ever take
10 the OF psychology will be because OF curiosity 10
find out how words of song had come to be slowed
away in some cubby of my BRAIN be flashed suddenly upon
nv consciousness generation after 1t had been put
away and all its associates and associations had passed 'o W
limbo OF oblivion. sheet containing OF letter on
wholly irrelevant lies before No doubt 1t is twenty
- old ON is hack is scrbbled in wonans hand (whose
onder0 Tis pity your mither domned ye bonnie wee
roodin du" You'll the cold bitter grave and that
- b.d homie moo" "Belike have loved We sar, We
,r;c wee croodln dl" But I've gone where the bad
~ follow I've gone where false heart don't WOO 1t is obvious
enough to me that scraps OF Scottish version LORD
Randall but they only tantaznS treasure uoNe since nav
of which they might be variant HoDo'
MANY wears ago Cincinnati the solo bass OF my choir was
or who had been soldier in Federal army during the
Civil War His music had led him to take up the Duee
and he was bugler Indiana regiment with great guso
he used to tell mimickng singer the while how companion
At the campfire sing OF which all that the singer
himself remembered the dislocaed lines in Dearborn
~rt, Indiana in Iavrenceburg town Have you got
cold have YOU got silver have you houses OF high degree
AN English lady" That all; but in the dsJecta
crba il possible recognize fragments OF the
old ballad ord Iovel Lord Batemen or lhe lurksh
ad-fragments which Hooer balladst had localized
friend IN the West once the words OF Lord Randall or
mn, collection of ballads III is ballad Without the shShest
tv she wrote all the words OF the story thou9h she
d the hero Fair Nelson except the stanza IN which, as
M erebered the diving OF murder left bequest to his
mother She held the letter over one day and aPpended posi-
ot After went to bed last night the vague memory came
10 me that Fair Nelson bequeathed to his mother silver Sod
and ievels-bu cannot get the idea clear enough to put
Vb,, had the form OF escaped her mind when
M and all the rest ballad had remained there
,ce srnr;sed lady born the Naugatuck Valley IN Con-
rccticu singing:
Oh have found my golden ball.
Oh have YOU to set me free;
OR have YOU o me hanged
On the skally- tree?
r re and their seouen stanza which the nior
nation that the person had not found golden ball had
mt come n set ANYBODY free had the queStoner
,eed on "skay gallv" tree all that had renamed IN
M ,eer memory OF the ballad The Maid freed from the Gal
lows which had heard chd-pobaby from her aher
who when he became my aher-inlaw, used to regale me with
political songs OF the Log Cabin campaign and taught me 10
m 81 ocofoco no more What delightful illustration OF lit
erarv corruption wrought by oral transmission that ka
galy tree