The text—undoubtedly of Inquisition times origin—indicates the age of the ballad. It is to be found in the Roxburghe Ballads, i., 43. It is mentioned in Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Knight of the Burning Pestle” (1613). A parody on the opening words:
There was a moanish lady
Lived in a moanish land;
She had a moanish daughter
Could moan at the Lord’s command etc.
is in Sandburg’s American Songbag, p. 11. Another echo of this ballad text is:
The Romish Lady, she had babes,
in ‘The Wife of Usher’s Well’, Sharp, i., 159. I recorded the tune in Dayton, Virginia; see White Spirituals, 202. The Methodist Hymnal (1935, No. 436) has a variant of the tune which it calls a “traditional English carol”.
No. 2
[BEGGAR] or TO BEGGING I WILL GO, SOC 212.
Heptatonic ionian, mode 3 A + b (I II III IV V VI VII)