“The Bonnie Banks O’Fordie,” by Charles Hodge Mackie (1892)

Fair Flowers of the Valley


While it’s not exactly our intention to ring the changes on the varieties of family-based murder ballads, we’ll turn this week to Child Ballad 14, “Babylon” or “The Bonnie Banks of Fordie,”  in its various iterations (see below). Having covered spouses killing spouses, parents killing children (and here), brothers killing brothers, and sisters killing sisters, we now have a brother killing sisters, although by mistake.  Well, the killing is on purpose, the sororicide is not.


The first version of this ballad I heard was Tim O’Brien’s “Fair Flowers of the Valley.”  It’s as good a place to start as any–actually, probably better than most.  The song is both beautifully done and a bit of an enigma.  I’ll attempt to sort through the enigma in what I write over the next few posts.  


Fair Flowers Of The Valley “Fair Flowers of the Valley,” by Tim O’Brien (myspace music player).  


“Fair Flowers of the Valley,” by Tim O’Brien (Spotify)


You can find the lyrics here.  In older versions of the song, the killer’s weapon is referred to as a “wee pen knife.”  The lyrics in the link say “weapon knife,” which is, while redundant, pretty faithful to how O’Brien sings it.  

Tim O’Brien

I was initially puzzled about the source of this song. O’Brien only credits it in the liner notes of Fiddler’s Green, as “Traditional Arrangement Tim O’Brien/Howdy Skies.”  As far as I’ve been able to determine, no one else has recorded this particular ballad under this title.  I’m open to correction on this, but haven’t found an exception.    “Cruel Mother” (Child 20) is often recorded as “Fine Flowers in the Valley.”  


So, as I wasn’t at the time familiar with “Babylon,” it took a little bit of creative Google searching to work out what the source song (or group of songs) was.  Another blogger has recently described the piece as a “fine specimen of early American songwriting.”   I’m not sure that’s on target, but perhaps it’s a testament to O’Brien’s artistic achievement in integrating his embellishments without diminishing the song’s ancient feel.


In this, as in many versions of this ballad, three sisters go into a wood and are accosted by a robber–who offers the oldest sister the options of becoming his wife or being killed.  Stark choice, indeed.  When she refuses, he kills her, and then turns to the next.  Same outcome.  When it’s finally the third’s turn for this negotiation, she points out that she has a brother in the woods who is a robber himself.  (If all three of them went into the woods together, one wonders why she withheld this bit of information until the other two sisters were out of the way…)  Her assailant now realizes that he is her brother, and that he has just killed his own two sisters.  In remorse, he kills himself with the “wee pen knife” that he used to slay them.  


When I first mentioned this song to Pat, he referred to the plot summary from the Traditional Ballad Index, and wrote “[I] hate when THAT happens.”  


Very amusing, and his response points to what is, I think, one of the important issues about the song–it’s implausibility, at least to contemporary ears.  The elements seem contrived–deliberately geared to bring together a poignant conclusion. 


The Week Ahead


As with many of the Child Ballads and folk songs we take up, “Babylon” is a bit of a hydra.  My plan this week is to go after the song in a few short posts, picking up some themes both internal to our own discussion at Murder Ballad Monday, and exploring some new areas.  I hope to get to a somewhat more bibliographical post by late in the week, featuring more variants of the ballad.  But, my goal isn’t to dig up the proverbial body contained in the song, as though there is some core answer to the enigma.  I think I’m more on the path of trying to explain why things might be mysterious to begin with, or, frankly why the song is far more intellectually puzzling than it will ever be personally troubling.


Just to give you an idea of the various versions, the song is known by these names, at least:


–“Babylon” (I can’t find any recordings under this name)
–“The Banished Man” (again, doesn’t seem to be recorded anywhere as such)
–“The Banks of Airdrie“
–“The Bonnie Banks of Fordie” (different spelling variants–“Bonnie” is sometimes missing, occasionally it’s “Fordie-O”
–“The Bonnie Banks of Virgie-O”
–“Bonnie Farday“
–“The Duke of Perth’s Three Daughters“
–“Fair Flowers of the Valley” (O’Brien only, I think–good move to set it apart)
–“The Outlyer Bold“
–“Three Sisters on the Bonnie, Bonnie Banks of the Rye-O“


It’s almost as though this song never fully found its footing and caught on in a definitive version.  That’s about twice as many varieties as “Matty Groves,” and I don’t think that’s because it’s older or more popular.  “Edward” (Child 13) might come close, and perhaps for similar reasons, as we’ll get to soon enough.


My next post will test some parallels between this song on the one hand and fairy and folk tales, particularly of the Northern European variety, on the other, and ask whether and why a song like this might not hold as much power for us any more.  That is, however beautiful the arrangement, the song’s function for singer and listener may have evaporated, because the social context in which it most made sense may have gone away.

Coda


I’ll go a little bit more into some thoughts about O’Brien’s version later.  None of my doubts about the core song have to do with O’Brien’s performance of it.  Indeed, as I’ll get to in a little bit, I think he does a good bit to preserve it with his arrangement.  I do need to mention just one more thing about the performance on Fiddler’s Green before moving on.  The harmony vocals on the track are provided by none other than Mollie O’Brien.  Mollie is not Tim’s spouse.  She’s his sister.  Nice touch, Tim.

Mollie O’Brien