| No. | Wales. | Isle of Wight. | Isle of Man. | Madeley. | Oxfordshire. | Sheffield. | Forest of Dean. | Wakefield. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Green gravel. | — | Green gravel. | Green gravel. | Green gravel. | — | — | — |
| 2. | — | — | — | — | — | Round the green gravel. | Round the green gravel. | Around the green gravill. |
| 3. | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 4. | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 5. | — | Yellow gravel. | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 6. | The grass is so green. | The grass is so green. | The grass is so green. | — | — | — | — | — |
| 7. | — | — | Fairest damsel ever I’ve seen. | — | — | — | — | — |
| 8. | — | Fairest young lady ever seen. | — | — | Fairest young lady ever seen. | — | All fine ladies ever were seen. | — |
| 9. | — | — | — | — | — | All pretty fair maids are fit to be seen. | — | — |
| 10. | — | — | — | Flowers all faded, none to be seen. | — | — | — | — |
| 11. | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | All fine ladies ashamed to be seen. |
| 12. | Fine pencil as ever was seen. | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 13. | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 14. | — | — | [Wash you in butter-milk, dress in silk.] (After No. 26.) | — | — | Wash them in milk, clothe in silk. | Washed in milk, dressed in silk. | Wash ’em in milk, dress in silk. |
| 15. | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 16. | — | — | [Write name with my gold pen and ink.] (After No. 26.) | — | — | — | — | — |
| 17. | — | — | — | — | — | Write names with pen and black ink. | — | — |
| 18. | True love is dead. | True love is dead. | True love is dead. | Sweet- heart is dead. | True love is dead. (After No. 25.) | — | — | — |
| 19. | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 20. | — | — | — | — | Betsy kissing her young man. | — | — | — |
| 21. | — | — | — | — | — | Choose the fairest daughter. | — | — |
| 22. | — | — | — | — | — | — | Last to stoop down shall be married. | We’ll all cow down together. |
| 23. | He’s sent letter to turn head. | I send you letter to turn round your head. | He sent this letter to turn my head. | I’ve sent letter to turn your head. | [He sent letter to turn back your head.] (After No. 25.) | — | — | — |
| 24. | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 25. | — | — | — | — | She showed her ring and bells did ring. | Married to-day so kiss one another. | He came to inquire, down she came, so off with glove and on with ring, to-morrow the wedding begins. | They shall be married with gold ring. |
| 26. | — | Mother, is it true? What shall I do? | — | — | — | — | — | |
| 27. | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 28. | — | — | — | [Wall- flowers verses follow.] | — | — | — | — |
| 29. | — | — | — | — | — | Poor widow left alone, and choose the fairest daughter. | — | — |
| 30. | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | [Dancing, cuddling, asking to marry.] |
| 31. | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | [Furnish- ing.] |
| 32. | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | [If a boy, he’s to have a hat; if a girl, a ring.] |
(e) Other versions, actually or practically identical with the [Redhill (Surrey) version], have been sent by Miss Blair (South Shields); Mr. H. S. May, Ogbourne and Manton (Wilts); Mrs. Haddon (Cambridge); Mrs. Harley (Lancashire); and Miss Burne, Platt, near Wrotham (Kent). There are also similar printed versions in Folk-lore Journal, vi. 214 (Dorsetshire); Folk-lore Record, v. 84 (Hersham, Surrey). Northall prints a version in his Folk Rhymes, 362-3, identical with No. 17. The tune of the Platt version sent by Miss Burne, and the Ogbourne and Manton (H. S. May), are almost identical, except the termination. This seems to be the most general tune for the game. The [Lancashire tune] is the same as the London version.
Miss Burne says of the [Madeley version]: “I never knew ‘Green Gravel’ and ‘[Wallflowers]’ played together as in this way elsewhere (I had not got this variant when I wrote Shropshire Folk-lore), except at Much Wenlock, where they reverse the two verses, and only sing one line (the last) of ‘Green Gravel.’ But I feel sure they must have been meant to go together (see my note in Shropshire Folk-lore, p. 510), and I can explain them, I think. The ring of girls are dancing on the green grass plot in the middle of an old-fashioned sixteenth-century walled garden: each gets the news of her lover’s death, and ‘turns her face to the wall,’ the old token of hopeless sorrow. Then they apostrophise the wallflowers in the border surrounding the grass plot against the old high wall; and here another variant explains the lament (second line)—
Wallflowers, wallflowers, growing up so high,
We shall all be maidens [and so], we shall all die;
Except the youngest (who will meet with another lover), whether as an instance of the proverbial luck of the ‘youngest born,’ or as a piece of juvenile giddiness and inconstancy, I cannot say; but considering the value set on true love and hopeless constancy in the ballad-lore, and the special garland which distinguished the funerals of bereaved but constant maidens, and the solemnity of betrothal in old days, the latter seems probable, especially considering the ‘for shame.’”
The incidents of washing a corpse in milk and dressing it in silk occur in “Burd Ellen,” Jamieson’s Ballads, p. 125.
“Tak up, tak up my bonny young son,
Gar wash him wi’ the milk;
Tak up, tak up my fair lady,
Gar row her in the silk.”
Green Grow the Leaves (1)
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