Query: "Wildwood Flower", stanza 1
David Sanderson
If I recall, the Carter version has
The myrtle so bright with its emerald hue,
The pale amanita and eyes look like blue.
This doesn't quite make sense, either, but
may be closer to English, and I'll take Maybell Carter over The
Hootenanny Song Book any day. Fact is, the charm of fractured and/or
incomprehensible lyrics is one of the delightful things about old time
music - try some of Charlie Poole's on-the-spot inventions, for example.
--
David Sanderson dav...@greennet.net
04/17/97 22:42
[ Standard Disclaimer ]
jonathan roy hunsberger
David Sanderson wrote:
>
> If I recall, the Carter version has
>
> The myrtle so bright with its emerald hue,
> The pale amanita and eyes look like blue.
>
"pale amanita and violets of blue"
but i would like to have a good realistic substitute
for amanita. Ten Thousand Maniacs covered Wildwood
Flower and it almost sounds like she's saying
"hem and needle"
r.e.m. has a song where they say "amanita is their name,
the flowers cover everything. . ."
perhaps there are flowers somewhere that are called
something like "amanita" to the local popular culture.
Joseph C Fineman
The Digital Tradition gives the first stanza of this song as
I will twine and will mingle my waving black hair
With the roses so red and the lilies so fair
The myrtle so green of an emerald hue
The pale emanita and violets of blue
and avers that it has suffered extensively from the folk process. So
it has. The _Hootenanny Song Book_ almost agrees with the DT, but
makes the last line
The pale emanita and islip so blue.
_The Folk Song Abecedary_ has
I will twine with your mingles of raven black hair,
With the roses so red and the lilies so fair,
With myrtle as bright as the emerald dew,
The pale and the lyder and eyes of light blue.
The _Folksinger's Wordbook_ has
I will twine and will mingle, my waving black hair,
With the roses so red and the lily so fair.
The myrtle so green of an emerald hue,
The pale emanita, and eyes look like blue.
I once saw "the pale and the leader" in print!
None of my dictionaries (including the OED) lists lyder, or emanita,
or islip. I was perfectly prepared to believe islip, which is the
name of a town on Long Island whose airport I often used to pass thru;
but it turns out that that is named after a town in England, not a
flower. As to emanita, one immediately thinks of Amanita. What
better symbol of a treacherous man than a poisonous phallic mushroom?
(Here today & gone tomorrow.) But in a lady's hair? Besides, it's a
technical term.
It may be beyond hope to find out the original of this much-abused
stanza. However, it would be nice to have a version that parsed
plausibly & consisted entirely of known English words. Does anybody
know one?
--- Joe Fineman j...@world.std.com
||: The starting point of conversation is contradiction. :||
andrea jensen
Joe Fineman said
It may be beyond hope to find out the original of this much-abused
stanza. However, it would be nice to have a version that parsed
plausibly & consisted entirely of known English words. Does anybody
know one?
I've got one:
I'll entwine and I'll mingle my raven black hair
With the roses so red and the lillies so fair
And my eyes will outshine even stars in the blue
Said I knowing not that my love was untrue
Oh he promised to love me, he called me his flow'r
He said I was the blossom To cheer ev'ry hour.
But I woke from my dream, and my idol was clay,
This wildflower weeps thru the night, thru the day.
But I'll dance and I'll sing and my heart will be gay,
No more tears, no more sighs, no more weeping away.
I'll be 'round when I see him - regret this dark hour,
When he threw away this poor, frail wildwood flow'r.
I think I heard Joan Baez do this version one time.
I have it in Folk Music Omnibus (I think, the cover is gone) the song is
copyrighted 1968 by Lewis Music Publishing
Cheers, Andrea
Steve Kramer
Aren't 'aminita' a family of poisonous mushrooms?
Steve
--
"The real voyage of discovery is not in seeking new lands,
but in seeing with new eyes!"
Theodore Slotkin
Joseph C Fineman wrote:
>
> The Digital Tradition gives the first stanza of this song as
>
> I will twine and will mingle my waving black hair
> With the roses so red and the lilies so fair
> The myrtle so green of an emerald hue
> The pale emanita and violets of blue
> As to emanita, one immediately thinks of Amanita. What
> better symbol of a treacherous man than a poisonous phallic mushroom?
Could be Amanita muscaria instead of Amanita phalloides. Siberian
Eskimos use the former as an hallucinogenic mushroom, which could
explain scrambled lyrics, but only if the original authors were
mycologists. :^)
Ted Slotkin
SLHinton17
Steve has asked:
<Aren't 'aminita' a family of poisonous mushrooms?
Amanita is a genus rather than a Family, but you are right, and most of
its species are poisonous. I've often wondered how Amanita got twined
with mingles in that song!
Sam Hinton
La Jolla, CA
Theodore Slotkin
Maybe it should have been "tingles," since Amanita muscaria will give
you the "twitches."
Ted Slotkin
Ada M. Prill
On Thu, 17 Apr 1997, Joseph C Fineman wrote:
[DT gives the words]
> The pale emanita and violets of blue
>
> and avers that it has suffered extensively from the folk process. So
> it has. The _Hootenanny Song Book_ almost agrees with the DT, but
> makes the last line
>
> The pale emanita and islip so blue.
>
> _The Folk Song Abecedary_ has
>
> The pale and the lyder and eyes of light blue.
>
> The _Folksinger's Wordbook_ has
>
> The pale emanita, and eyes look like blue.
>
> I once saw "the pale and the leader" in print!
>
> None of my dictionaries (including the OED) lists lyder, or emanita,
> or islip. I was perfectly prepared to believe islip, which is the
> name of a town on Long Island whose airport I often used to pass thru;
> but it turns out that that is named after a town in England, not a
> flower. As to emanita, one immediately thinks of Amanita. What
> better symbol of a treacherous man than a poisonous phallic mushroom?
> (Here today & gone tomorrow.) But in a lady's hair? Besides, it's a
> technical term.
>
> It may be beyond hope to find out the original of this much-abused
> stanza. However, it would be nice to have a version that parsed
> plausibly & consisted entirely of known English words. Does anybody
> know one?
>
> --- Joe Fineman j...@world.std.com
>
I strongly suspect that "islip" is a corruption of the blue-flowered
"Hyssop." And "emanita" (I've also heard "amalita") could well be
"amatilla," a name for valerian, which has pinkish-white flowers. Hyssop
is an herbal wound-healer, and valerian an herbal calming agent, so in
that sense it would be appropriate.
Try this (although it still doesn't identify "myrtle," which in common use
means a BLUE flower but has also been used for several other plants.)
I will twine and I'll mingle my raven-black hair,
With the roses so red and the lily so fair.
The myrtle so green with its emerald hue,
The pale amatilla and the hyssop so blue.
She may be braiding flowers into her hair to look like the bride she once
thought she would be? First come roses (true love) and lilies (innocence),
but in the end there are the herbs for healing and repose. Does anyone
know if myrtle (or myrrh) is used as a name for any plant used to induce
abortion? Comments?
Ada
Christin Keck
About a year ago, I helped a friend research this very puzzling
question. We both perused every source we could find for this maddening
verse.
Here's what we found: there really never was any original written
source for Wildwood Flower. It was recorded first by the Carter family,
and whatever the words were, they were transcribed from that early
recording, (and that was not until the 30's.) Therein lies the
difficulty. Maybelle Carter, who sang the song on the record, said
later she could not remember what the words were and thus was never
able to verify or correct any of the written versions! It does seem
incredible that no one bothered to try to get a more confirmed version
of the song, but it spent a rather long time in the oral tradition, and
anyone who knows anything about folk music knows that words can be as
elastic and amorphous as clouds sometimes.
At any rate, there are distinct possibilities for the lyrics that
have not yet been explored (and by the way--I believe the silliest and
most insensible version comes from Joan Baez's songbook--that's the
"pale and the leader" version mentioned earlier. She never even
credited Mother Maybelle with the recording!)
"Amanita" is a very plausible possibility. "I will twine and will
mingle my raven (or waving) black hair" might not necessarily mean
weaving flowers among tresses, it could also mean lying down on the
forest floor (to wail, to keen, to lament?) thereby mingling hair with
forest flowers and, yes, even fungi. In other words, 'I will lay me
down and die, etc etc'...become one with the woods, so to speak.
Or--the first flower could be ACONITE [monkshood] (pronounced
ack-uh-NEET-uh so it would scan better,) which is a lovely bluish woods
flower known for its analgesic and sedative properties (maybe all that
crying over lost loves gave the singer a splitting headache?) and the
second flower could be IRIS. So the lines could read "...and the pale
_aconite_ and _iris_ so blue..." and make perfect sense. Or "...and the
pale amanita and iris so blue..."
I really don't like "islip", which is not any flower I could find (or
for that matter any plant at all,) and similarly, "emanita", which isn't
anything, when "amanita" is perfectly sound. "Islip" does sound a bit
like "cowslip", another perfectly plausible flower, except cowslips are
yellow, not blue. That's also why I would reject "hyssop" as a
possibility, since it's flower is pink (I've never seen blue hyssop.)
I think it's high time we made this song make sense. If we continue
to perpetuate nonsensical lyrics such as "emanita" and "islip", we do
the song and the thought behind the verse no benefit.
Perhaps we can come up with something entirely different that fits the
syllabic sounds but makes more sense? Maybe we could form a coalition:
the "Folksingers For The Sensible Singing of Wildwood Flower?": the
F.F.S.S.W.F?" ;-)
Anyway, it was an interesting bit of research!
--ck
Frank Hamilton
I'll Twine 'Mid the Ringlets (by Maud Irving and J.P. Webster)
I'll twine 'mid the ringlest of my raven black hair
The lilies so pale and the roses so fair
The myrtle so bright with an emerald hue
And the pale aronatus with eyes of bright blue
I'll sing and and I'll dance, my laugh shall be gay
I'll cease this wild weeping, drive sorrow away.
Tho' my heart is now breaking, he never shall know
That his name made me tremble and my pale cheeks to glow
I'll think of him never, I'll be wildly gay
I'll charm every heart, and the crowd I will sway.
I'll live yet to see him regert the dark hour
Whhen he won, then neglected the frail wildwood flower
He tole me he loved e, and prmised tolove
Through ill and misfortune all others above
Another has won him, ah! mis'ry to tell
He left me in silence, now rod of farewell.
He taught e to love him, he call'd me his flower
That blossom'd for him all the brighter each hour
But I woke from my dreaming, my idol was clay
My visions of love have all faded away.
Dated 1860
filename WLDWDFL2 (Digital Tradition)
doug m
>r.e.m. has a song where they say "amanita is their name,
>the flowers cover everything. . ."
>
>perhaps there are flowers somewhere that are called
>something like "amanita" to the local popular culture.
the r.e.m. song is called 'the flowers of guatemala' and the notes say
"flora-amanita indigenous to meso-amer. flora".
doubt this helps
--
doug m
south austin
Stephen L Suffet
Greetings---
I believe it does help, because it shows the use of the term
"amanita" ("little [female] lover") to refer to a flowering plant, and not
just to a genus of mushroom.
I've always sung the last line: "...the pale amanita and the islip
so blue." Which is how the song appeared in Jerry Silverman's "How to Play
the Folk Guitar," from whence I deciphered the lyrics!
So now I learn --- thanks to Ada Prill's earlier posting -- that
the town of Islip, Long Island, NY, was not named after a blue wild
flower. She suggests hyssop, while someone else suggests violets. I don't
know much about hyssop, but "violets so blue" makes so much sense when an
earlier line mentions "the roses so red"!
So here's how I'll sing it from now on: "..the pale amanita and
violets so blue." You're all free to sing it any way you like! :-)
By the way, I looked up some color photos of mushroom in an
encyclopedia. Some species of amanita are deeply colored, while others --
such as the well-known destroying angel -- are pretty pale. Still, I can't
imagine that lady weaving mushrooms into her coif! :-)
Regards,
Steve
MBunday
(David Sanderson) writes:
>If I recall, the Carter version has
>
>The myrtle so bright with its emerald hue,
>The pale amanita and eyes look like blue.
I don't remember what the Carter Family sings, but I use "emerald dew" and
"the pale arrownetta with eyes of bright blue." I guess I always assumed
that "arrownetta" was some regional name for a blue flower...am I even
close?
--------
Marje
belvoir
I've heard "pale esmralita"..My own preference is:
"I will swin with my piglets etc."
an obvious political protest by beleagured swineherds against the
rapacious cattlemen who were usurping their wallows to water the stock.
bill...@worldnet.att.net
Everybody is talking about the cut that Maybelle Carter recorded.
What about the one that Sarah Carter recorded?
In article <E8sxw...@world.std.com>,
j...@world.std.com (Joseph C Fineman) wrote:
>
> The Digital Tradition gives the first stanza of this song as
>
> I will twine and will mingle my waving black hair
> With the roses so red and the lilies so fair
> The myrtle so green of an emerald hue
> The pale emanita and violets of blue
>
> and avers that it has suffered extensively from the folk process. So
> it has. The _Hootenanny Song Book_ almost agrees with the DT, but
> makes the last line
>
> The pale emanita and islip so blue.
>
> _The Folk Song Abecedary_ has
>
> I will twine with your mingles of raven black hair,
> With the roses so red and the lilies so fair,
> With myrtle as bright as the emerald dew,
> The pale and the lyder and eyes of light blue.
>
> The _Folksinger's Wordbook_ has
>
> I will twine and will mingle, my waving black hair,
> With the roses so red and the lily so fair.
> The myrtle so green of an emerald hue,
> The pale emanita, and eyes look like blue.
>
> I once saw "the pale and the leader" in print!
>
> None of my dictionaries (including the OED) lists lyder, or emanita,
> or islip. I was perfectly prepared to believe islip, which is the
> name of a town on Long Island whose airport I often used to pass thru;
> but it turns out that that is named after a town in England, not a
> flower. As to emanita, one immediately thinks of Amanita. What
> better symbol of a treacherous man than a poisonous phallic mushroom?
> (Here today & gone tomorrow.) But in a lady's hair? Besides, it's a
> technical term.
>
> It may be beyond hope to find out the original of this much-abused
> stanza. However, it would be nice to have a version that parsed
> plausibly & consisted entirely of known English words. Does anybody
> know one?
>
> --- Joe Fineman j...@world.std.com
>
> ||: The starting point of conversation is contradiction. :||
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Stephen Suffet
Frank Hamilton wrote:
>
> I'll Twine 'Mid the Ringlets (by Maud Irving and J.P. Webster)
>
> I'll twine 'mid the ringlest of my raven black hair
> The lilies so pale and the roses so fair
> The myrtle so bright with an emerald hue
> And the pale aronatus with eyes of bright blue
>
> Dated 1860
>
> filename WLDWDFL2 (Digital Tradition)
Dear Frank----
Looks like you hit a winner! However, there is still one
proverbial fly in the folkloric ointment: What the heck is an
ARONATUS?
I just looked in an unabridged dictionary, two encyclopedias, a
guide book to wildflowers of North America, and did a Web search, and
I still came up empty handed.
My educated guess is that the pale flower with the bright blue
eyes is AMARANTUS. That the Latin name for the genus that's commonly
called amaranths. Certain amaranths could be pale, while others would
have a deeper color. The centers ("eyes") I'm pretty sure would tend
to be reddish to purple --- close enough to blue for a song! [Ada: If
you read this, please let us know if there are amaranths with bright
blue eyes.]
Anyway, this is how I believe Maud Irving and J.P. Webster must
have meant their 1860 song to go:
"...And the pale amarantus with eyes of bright blue."
I hope this answers the original inquiry once and for all. :-)
Regards again,
Steve
jonathan roy hunsberger
> I will twine and I'll mingle my raven-black hair,
> With the roses so red and the lily so fair.
> The pale amatilla and the hyssop so blue.
>
> She may be braiding flowers into her hair to look like the bride she once
> thought she would be? First come roses (true love) and lilies (innocence),
> but in the end there are the herbs for healing and repose. Does anyone
> know if myrtle (or myrrh) is used as a name for any plant used to induce
> abortion? Comments?
>
> Ada
Actually, one of my history professors once mentioned this
use of myrrh in an aside to one of his lectures. (at least
i think it was myrrh because it was one of the three gifts
mentioned in the myth of the astrologers's visit to Jesus)
I like this wording, though i think i'll keep violets instead
of hyssop since i know what they are and i don't like the
short i sound there. Also, no need to say green AND
emerald, so i'll keep bright. I just looked up myrtle
in the dictionary, which says it is an "evergreen shrub. . .
with pink or white flowers and blue-black berries"
so perhaps the green referred to is that of the leaves.
Also, i don't like the sound of it, but amaryllis might
also do as the pale flower.
Joseph C Fineman
I am posting the following on behalf of Don Duncan, who does not have
Usenet access, but who was the inspiration for this thread.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
FROM: DONALD A. DUNCAN, Cambridge (6272...@eln.attmail.com)
DATE: 22 Apr 97
SUBJECT: The "definitive" WWF (long)
I.
Three cheers for Frank Hamilton, who found "I'll Twine 'Mid the
Ringlets". However, he neglected to include the rest of the note:
"Note: Dated 1860. As far as we can tell, this is the original. RG
(Richard Greenhaus)" I'm going to ask RG for more detail on his source
- e.g. where did he find it, was it published (book or broadside,
location) or collected, and was it American or English?
This may cast some light on "aronatus".
II.
Meanwhile, ck's research is interesting; if the first recording was
the Carter family, did its distribution generate most of the versions
we encounter? The quality of wind-up 78s might account for much of
the variation in the last line of the first verse.
I got to wondering, and leafed through my records. Sure enough, I
have a copy of the original Carter family recording, so I listened to
it myself. If ck had done a little more research, he'd have been less
derogatory toward the "'pale and the leader' version" - that's exactly
what Mother Maybelle sings (or a damn good phonetic approximation)!
So here's my transcription of what the Carter family sang (words which
seem clear but don't seem to make sense are asterisked, underlines
where transcription is questionable) placed against "I'll Twine 'Mid
the Ringlets", with lines rearranged to match (and those not used by
MM at the end):
Mother Maybelle I'll Twine 'Mid the Ringlets
Oh, I'll twine with my mingles I'll twine 'mid the ringlets 1
and waving black hair of my raven black hair
With the roses so red The lilies so pale 1
and the lilies so fair and the roses so fair
And the myrtle so bright The myrtle so bright 1
with the emerald dew with an emerald hue
The _pale an' the leader_ The pale aronatus 1
and _eyes look like rue_. with eyes of bright blue.
Oh I'll dance, I will sing I'll sing and I'll dance, 2
and my *law* shall be gay my laugh shall be gay
I will charm every heart I'll charm every heart, 3
in his *crown* I will sway and the crowd I will sway
When I woke from my dreaming But I woke from my dreaming, 5
my idols was clay my idol was clay
All portion of love My visions of love 5
had all flown away have all faded away.
Oh he taught me to love him He told me he loved me, 4
and promised to love and promised to love
And to cherish me over Through ill and misfortune 4
all others above all others above
How my heart is now wondering Another has won him, 4
no misery can tell ah! mis'ry to tell
He's left me no warning, He's left me in silence, 4
no words of farewell. no word of farewell.
Oh, he taught me to love him He taught me to love him, 5
and called me his flower he call'd me his flower
That was blooming to cheer him That blossom'd for him 5
through life's dreary hour all the brighter each hour
Oh, I long to see him I'll live yet to see him 3
and regret the dark hour regret the dark hour
He's gone and neglected When he won, then neglected 3
this pale wildwood flower. the frail wildwood flower.
3. I'll think of him never,
I'll be wildly gay
2. I'll cease this wild weeping,
drive sorrow away
2. Though my heart is now breaking,
he never shall know
2. That his name made me tremble
and my pale cheeks to glow.
Comments:
1. "pale an' the leader" could be "pale an-the-liter" or something
similar. "An'" is clearly an "n", not an "m", "the" is
definitely "th", and it's definitely an "l" sound and a "t/d" sound.
2. She doesn't sing "blue", she sings "rue" - and the meadow-rues
(whites common, some shading toward purplish brown) and goat's-rue
(yellow) are mountain flowers.
3. "like" might, given her accent and the ending of the previous word
(this is fit in quick), be "black". Normally this wouldn't make
sense, but the purple meadow-rue, identified in the field guide
under brown flowers, might be known as "black rue". This also
opens the possibility that the combination is another word
entirely.
Observations:
1. Mother Maybelle didn't seem to share our preoccupation with the
words making sense!
2. It's pretty clear that "Ringlets" is the source of the Carter
family version - and it had been folk-processed. Note the phonetic
relations between versions: "dew/hue"; "wond'ring/won him"; "gone
and/won then"; etc.
3. It's also clear that the Carter family is not the source of all the
versions we encounter. Here's the same exercise with the one from
"Folksinger's Wordbook":
Folksinger's Wordbook I'll Twine 'Mid the Ringlets
I will twine and will mingle, I'll twine 'mid the ringlets 1
my waving black hair, of my raven black hair
With the roses so red The lilies so pale 1
and the lily so fair. and the roses so fair
The myrtle so green The myrtle so bright 1
of an emerald hue, with an emerald hue
The pale emanita, And the pale aronatus 1
and eyes look like blue. with eyes of bright blue.
Oh he promised to love me, He told me he loved me, 4
he promised to love, and promised to love
To cherish me always, Through ill and misfortune 4
all others above. all others above
I woke from my dream But I woke from my dreaming, 5
and my idol was clay, my idol was clay
My passion for loving My visions of love 5
had vanished away. have all faded away.
Oh, he taught me to love him, He taught me to love him, 5
he called me his flower, he call'd me his flower
A blossom to cheer him That blossom'd for him 5
through life's weary hour. all the brighter each hour
But now he has gone
and left me alone,
The wild flowers to weep,
and the wild birds to moan.
I'll dance and I'll sing, I'll sing and I'll dance, 2
and my life shall be gay my laugh shall be gay
I'll charm every heart I'll charm ev'ry heart 3
in the crowd I survey; and the crowd I will sway
Though my heart now is breaking, Tho' my heart is now breaking 2
he never shall know he never shall know
How his name makes me tremble, That his name made me tremble 2
my pale cheeks to glow. and my pale cheeks to glow.
I'll dance and I'll sing, I'll sing and I'll dance, 2 rpt
and my heart will be gay, my laugh shall be gay
I'll banish this weeping, I'll cease this wild weeping 2
drive troubles away; drive sorrow away
I'll live yet to see him, I'll live yet to see him 3
regret this dark hour, regret the dark hour
When he won and neglected, When he won, then neglected, 3
this frail wildwood flower. the frail wildwood flower.
3. I'll think of him never,
I'll be wildly gay.
4. Another has won him,
ah! mis'ry to tell
4. He left me in silence,
no word of farewell.
So I'm satisfied that we have the original, and I think much of the
variation in the first stanza/last line is other people trying to find
a substitute for "aronatus" from the things they knew. If that's the
case, anything from "amanita" to "islip" could have been used - and
are all irrelevant; we might as well continue the tradition and pick
what *we're* familiar with.
I'm willing to assume the authors of "Ringlets" knew what they were
talking about; I'd suggest the most probable explanation is that
"aronatus" fell afoul of reclassification, and is no longer used - a
fairly common fate, particularly among plant classifications of that
era. If "Ringlets" is British, I haven't a clue, but if it's
American, I reason like this: I have never encountered a pale flower
with a bright blue center, so I propose we are misinterpreting this -
that the *plant* is pale (perhaps only in comparison to the 'emerald'
myrtle), and the blue flowers are the "eyes".
I can't help thinking of the "Blue-eyed grasses" - their leaves look
like grass, but they have beautiful small dark blue flowers; they are
tiny members of the iris family, which is far from obvious (which
could make them a candidate for reclassification, but that's piling
supposition on supposition).
Or how about this:
BLUE-EYED MARY Snapdragon family Collinsia verna
Note the /bicolored/ flowers (upper lobes white, lower bright blue
[sic]). Rich woods, slopes. S. Wisconsin and e. Iowa east to w.
New York and south to Arkansas, Kentucky, w. Virginia.
---
MYRTLE, if American, usually refers to the periwinkle (which may have
a resemblance to the European myrtle). It is a ground cover,
spreading by runners (like strawberries), with small (1-2") glossy
darkish green ('emerald' isn't a bad description) ovate leaves growing
from the stems and in sprays of 4 at the tips (note that the original
is "bright", not redundantly "green"). The way it grows makes it
particularly good for weaving garlands, and quite attractive. Its
flowers are flat 5-petaled, light gray-blue, with a 5-pointed star-
shaped cup in the center - which appears darker because it's shaded.
Oddly, "The pale and the leader, with eyes of light/bright blue" can
make perfect sense if it is considered to be a *continuing description
of the myrtle*! "Pale" as a noun is a stake or picket driven into the
ground, used to make enclosures. I have a vague sense that fenceposts
are called "pales". Periwinkle (myrtle) has a generic resemblance to
a fence in the way it grows. The "pale" would be the node of the
periwinkle which sends down roots, the "leader" is a common enough
term for the runners, and the "eyes" would be the flowers themselves -
grey-blue "disks" with darker centers!
---
AMARYLLIS scans nicely, and the daffodil family is Amaryllidaceae.
However, the flower most commonly called "amaryllis", I think, is the
so-called "resurrection plant"; the one in our dining room at the
moment has flowers big enough to wear for a hat! AMARANTH is
unlikely: "Amaranth Family (Amaranthaceae) - Weedy plants, often with
clusters or spikes of inconspicuous flowers subtended by greenish
bracts or bractlets that may obscure them." ACONITE is pronounced
'ACK-uh-'night, and doesn't scan; it's also questionable to use a
plant whose root, easily confused with horseradish, produces nasty and
violent death.
If I were to sing flowers, I'd vote for amaryllis and violets;
however, my inclination is to go with the original, and assume that
sooner or later we'll learn what "aronatus" refers to.
-DAD
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When adding up committees,
Here's a useful rule of thumb P
Talents make a difference,
But follies make a sum.
- Piet Hein
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--- Joe Fineman j...@world.std.com
||: Most of the evil in the world comes from nature, and most :||
||: of the ugliness comes from art. :||
RAREDANCE
This extensive discussion of the flora behind "Wildwood Flower" has been
very interesting. Since nothing, except personal preferences has been
resolved, I will throw a few more petals into the pot. The folk process
can eventually sort this out, and that process does often lead to lyrics
that include nonsense words, with the original long gone. I won't say
which of the previous suggestions or the ones here I prefer, although
some deserve more cosideration than others. The very unusual text cited
previously (copy right Lewis Music), I really do not care for. I have it
in "The Best Bluegrass Songbook -Yet!" (c 1978, Lewis Music) but no
credit is given to the revisionist author. It avoids all the uncommon
plant references by leaving them out.
myrtle - (Vinca minor) was described before as being blue, not green.
That is true for the flowers. However it's primary use is as a viney
ground cover with a deep green color (emerald?), the flowers are
secondary. Since it is viney, it would be quite suitable for braiding
into a a garland or headdress containing other flowers.
Regarding the blue flower, no one has yet mentioned "iris", which sounds
something like islip, maybe. But it is a real flower and carries the
doulbe meaning as part of the eye. Two beautiful little species of iris
grow wild in the mountains and piedmont of the eastern U.S. , the dwarf
iris (Iris verna) and the crested dwarf iris (Iris cristata).
NOw on to the "pale" one. I see amaryllis has just been suggested. The
bulb we are most familiar with is not a wildflower in this country. Here
are some wildflowers that could be fit into the text if one wished to
replace the mushroom. I do not promise that they are equally poetic
a. "pale corydalis" (Corydalis sempervirens) - has pale jpink
flowers and grows in rocky places in eastern woodlands.
b. "pale Amelanchier" (Amelanchier species) - flowers are white to
pale pink. This is a shrub commonly known as shadbush, serviceberry,
sarviceberry, or juneberry.
c. "frail Arethusa" (Arethusa bulbosa - is a pink flowered member of
the orchid family. It is commonly callled, dragon's mouth or swamp pink.
d. "Panax quinquefolius" - OK so it's a mouthful and the odds of
"folk" using such a Latin name are very slim. However, you can fit it in,
and it has one other property that could make it part of the song. A
previous post wondered whether one of the plants had abortion inducing
properties. This plant commonly known as "ginseng" has been coveted for
its supposed aphrodisiac properties and has become rare in the wild due to
over harvesting.
It sure is fun to ponder the unknowable
rich r
Christin Keck
> Regarding the blue flower, no one has yet mentioned "iris", which sounds
> something like islip, maybe.
Hey--I mentioned it in one of my first posts! Made sense to me.
I have another suggestion, also: "the paling althea and iris so blue"
(or iris of blue).
ALTHEA is another name for Rose of Sharon, a common shrub in this part
of the country (member of the hibiscus family). Flowers are lovely, in
shades of pinksis lavender, and fade as they age to a lighter lavender.
So the 'paling althea' could definitely work! It also sounds a lot like
"the pale and the leader".
Anyhow, I've found the lyric I like for this and probably will sing from
now on. The rest of you are on your own from now on! ;-)
Thanks to everyone who posted--this has been really interesting.
--ck
Joseph C Fineman
More from Don Duncan:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
FROM: DONALD A. DUNCAN, Cambridge (6272...@eln.attmail.com)
DATE: 28 Apr 97
SUBJECT: Re: Wildwood Flower
Joe: would you post this? Thanks.
Christin Keck:
> I don't believe that even Mother M. would have continued to sing
> words that made no sense!
> ...
> the FIRST line of the Carter version has been more popularly written
> down as: "I will twine with my mingles of raven black hair."
No comment! ;-{) Well, just a little one - on the CF recording I
checked, it's definitely "and waving", not "of raven".
dgreen:
> It might be more productive, if less fun, to find out what folks in
> the southeast were calling indigenous flowers, than to shift our
> collective speculators into overdrive.
Or it might not! Maybe they tried to be true to their sources, too
(especially if the source was someone in the family), at the expense
of making sense. How many thousands of people have sung "pale emanita
and islip so blue", assuming it made sense even though they didn't
recognize the names?
And maybe no one even cared if it made sense to them, as long as it
sounded good - or if it made sense at all! Child himself was
irritated because the majority of his collected versions of "The Two
Sisters" contained the obvious inconsistency of the younger sister
being pushed into the sea, then fetching up at a milldam! And how did
the song evolve, in so many versions, from pipes made from a tree
growing from the grave, which pipes then produced dolorous notes or
words, to opportunistic passers-by performing an impromptu autopsy on
the bloated corpse of a nubile young lady in order to construct
fantastic instruments from her excavated skeleton and hair, which they
then rushed to play for her father? Necromusica to the max!!!
Folk song collecting is paved with missing and borrowed verses,
garbled stories, two songs patched into one (e.g. "Jamie Douglas"),
etc., even to cases like "Broom of the Cowdenknowes", now widely known
as a lyric plaint virtually unrelated to the original(?) complex
ballad!
But just to fill out the listing of possibles: Our local used book
store has had for some time a two-volume index to the flora of North
America - fancy covers, and a contents consisting of hundreds of pages
of typed lists of every known species name, by Order, Family, Genus,
etc. I only checked Vol. II, but it listed "Aranella" in the index,
cross-referenced to "Utricularia", the bladderworts (a dozen species
in Northeast/North Central US): "The small yellow flowers suggest the
snapdragon-like flowers of Butter-and-eggs (Linaria)...."
ck:
> Maybe in another 20 years we'll be singing "...the paid enchilada
> and rice is taboo..."
Cute! How about "The paleomosquito implies Lipton brew"? It would be
an intriguing exercise to phonetically morph an entire verse, then see
if anyone notices when you sing it!!! THAT would puzzle positing
posterititians!
ck:
> Think how many flower names are only known locally [snip] Do you
> remember chewing 'sourgrass' as a child? That's what we called
> sorrel. Others call it dock. Still others call it yellow clover.
And the mint ground-cover with its tiny purple orchid-like flowers;
the field guide identifies it as Gill-O'er-the-Ground, but we knew it
as Creepin' Charlie! For decades I thought my parents made that up,
but last week I was helping a neighbor with her gardening, and she
identified it by the same name (she grew up in Forest Hills & Buffalo,
NY, but has no idea where she picked it up). That would make a nice
obscure reference in a song!
-DAD
**********************************************************************
Folklore is wonderful - you get such a massive return in speculation
for such a trifling investment of fact. - paraphrase of Mark Twain
(originally about science)
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--- Joe Fineman j...@world.std.com
||: Sex is an impediment to reproduction whose function is to :||
||: complicate life. :||
nkkr...@gmail.com
> If I recall, the Carter version has
>
> The pale amanita and eyes look like blue.
> This doesn't quite make sense, either, but
> may be closer to English, and I'll take Maybell Carter over The
> Hootenanny Song Book any day. Fact is, the charm of fractured and/or
> incomprehensible lyrics is one of the delightful things about old time
> music - try some of Charlie Poole's on-the-spot inventions, for example.
>
> --
> David Sanderson dav...@greennet.net
> 04/17/97 22:42
> [ Standard Disclaimer ]
nkkr...@gmail.com
Joseph C. Fineman
--
--- Joe Fineman jo...@verizon.net
||: Who are the people most opposed to escapism? Jailers! :||
nkkr...@gmail.com
I actually found a flower with eyes of bright blue. It is Heliotropium arborescens, the Amaretto flower. One variant of it is pale with a blue center (see e.g. https://plantdecors.com/product/buy-heliotropium-arborescens-india/)
Niels Kaare Krabbe
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