The Rolling Of The Stones: A Song History

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The Rolling Of The Stones is an American branch of "The Twa Brothers," the ballad numbered 49 in Francis James Child's collection and 38 in the Roud index.[1] In Scotland the ballad was still being sung in the twentieth century; the James Madison Carpenter Collection holds a 1932 text from Mary Stewart Robertson of New Deer, along with a cylinder recording of her singing it.[2] Its story is a fatal wrestling accident or stabbing between two brothers, after which the dying one asks to be buried and gives his brother a string of cover stories to tell the family.[1] A close Ozark relative, sung as "Two Brothers" by George Lay of Fayetteville, Arkansas, for Max Hunter on May 23, 1959, opens with a challenge to games of ball-tossing and stone-rolling and ends with the sister, who can gather birds and fish and even draw her brother from the tomb.[3]

Lithograph of a stormy Highland valley with mountains, rocks and small figures in the foreground

Richard Parkes Bonington, Vallée de Glenfinlas, from Vues pittoresques de l'Écosse, lithograph, 1826. A Scottish Highland glen in 1826, shown for the Scottish roots of the ballad this song descends from; the lithograph has no connection to the song.

Oscar Brand sang it at a New York Town Hall concert he shared with Jean Ritchie and Dave Sear, released by Folkways as A Folk Concert in Town Hall, New York (copyright 1959).[4] The album notes say Brand could not recall where he had picked the song up, and they suggest it was probably the old Scottish ballad, which they describe as a tale of brothers who loved the same woman.[4] Brand told the audience that many verses had gone missing in oral transmission, though the killing was still there, and called it a lovely song.[4] Aubrey Atwater includes it in Song By Song, Vol. I, her 132-page gathering of old-time material for mountain dulcimer, banjo, whistle, guitar and voice, where it sits among the songs given with lyrics and chord symbols for any instrument.[5]

Our book that contains the song "The Rolling Of The Stones"

Sources

  1. Wikipedia: "The Twa Brothers".
  2. The James Madison Carpenter Collection Online Catalogue: "The Twa Brothers" (Cylinder 073, Mary Stewart Robertson).
  3. Missouri State University, Max Hunter Folk Song Collection: "Two Brothers" (Cat. #0334).
  4. Smithsonian Folkways: "A Folk Concert in Town Hall, New York" (FA 2428), liner notes.
  5. Aubrey Atwater: "Song By Song, Vol. I".
  6. Image: Richard Parkes Bonington, Vallée de Glenfinlas, from Vues pittoresques de l'Écosse, lithograph, 1826. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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