Come All Ye Fair And Tender Ladies: A Song History

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"Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies," indexed as "Fair and Tender Ladies" and also often titled "Little Sparrow," is a lyric song rather than a story ballad: a woman laments the falseness of men and wishes she were a little bird that could fly to her lover.[1] The Traditional Ballad Index gives it Roud number 451 and lists 39 printed references, nearly all American, from the Ozarks, the southern mountains, Texas, Florida and elsewhere, along with a few texts from Scotland and Ireland; the earliest date it gives is 1906, from Missouri.[1] Sources differ on which way the song traveled: a 1970 sleeve note by the Wayfarers, quoted by Mainly Norfolk, calls it an English street song that reached the Appalachians by way of Ireland, while the Index's notes find the British and Irish evidence thin and suggest that the song went the other way, from America to the British Isles.[1][2] The Index also points to Edward Bunting's The Ancient Music of Ireland (1840), which quotes traditional words for an Irish air, "The Little Swallow," built on a similar wish to fly to an unfaithful lover, though the Index draws no conclusion about a connection.[1]

Woodblock print of two brown sparrows fluttering beside snow-covered bamboo as snow falls

Keisai Eisen, Sparrows, Bamboo and Falling Snow, color woodblock print, c. late 1820s. Sparrows, shown for the song’s other title, “Little Sparrow”; it has no connection to the song.

Cecil Sharp noted a version from Jane Gentry at Hot Springs, North Carolina, on 12 September 1916, according to his manuscript in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library and Mainly Norfolk's notes on the song.[2][3] Sharp's English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians prints eighteen versions, each with its tune.[1] Later collectors also recorded it from traditional singers: John Cohen recorded Martha Hall of Mason's Creek, Kentucky, in 1959, and Sandy Paton recorded Sara Cleveland of Brant Lake, New York, in 1965, a performance that Kenneth S. Goldstein's album notes called, to his knowledge, "the first time it has been reported from a northern traditional singer."[2]

Jean Ritchie, whose preferred way of singing it came from her Uncle Jason, recorded it as "The Little Sparrow" on her 1954 Elektra album Kentucky Mountain Songs, and Peggy Seeger (1957) and Pete Seeger (a year later) both recorded it for Topic.[2] Mainly Norfolk's discography lists many later recordings, from the 1960s into the 2020s.[2] Lorinda Jones includes it, as "Fair And Tender Ladies," in Traditional Playing Of The Mountain Dulcimer, a book of 22 traditional songs arranged in DAA tuning, with tablature and MP3 play-along tracks, published by Fingers Of Steel.[4]

Our books that contain the song "Come All Ye Fair And Tender Ladies"

Sources

  1. The Traditional Ballad Index: "Fair and Tender Ladies".
  2. Mainly Norfolk: "Fair and Tender Ladies / Little Sparrow".
  3. Vaughan Williams Memorial Library: "Come All You Fair And Tender Ladies / If I Had A'Known" (Cecil Sharp manuscript, CJS2/10/3425).
  4. Fingers Of Steel: "Lorinda Jones, Traditional Playing Of The Mountain Dulcimer".
  5. Image: Keisai Eisen, Sparrows, Bamboo and Falling Snow, color woodblock print, c. late 1820s. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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