Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/266
The "Indian rebels" appear from their lurking-place, and a battle ensues, which lasts all day, in which eighteen out of thirty-four English are killed, while the Pequot Paugus is slain and his band defeated. The chaplain particularly distinguishes himself in the action:—
Our worthy Captain Lovewell among them there did die;
They killed Lieutenant Robbins, and wounded good young Frye,
Who was our English chaplain: he many Indians slew,
And some of them he scalped when bullets round him flew.
A version of the second ballad relating to the same action was communicated to the editor of this Journal by James Russell Lowell; but it differs from that printed by Farmer only in the order of the verses, and indeed seems to be a rearrangement of the latter. The ballad is very literary in character, and according to the opinion of Dr. Samuel A. Green, Librarian of the Massachusetts Historical Society, is probably a composition of the early part of the nineteenth century.
Here may also be mentioned a manuscript ballad relating to events of 1755, printed in the "Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society," April and May, 1894. The writer, who composed in the same year, regarded the occurrences of the twelvemonth as a sign that the Judgment Day was at hand.
And Now, O Land, New England Land,
Amased be & trembling Stand,
Because the Judge Stands at the Door;
Forsake your sins, repent therefore.
After the preceding pages had been written, a friend pointed out that the ballad "On Springfield Mountain," mentioned by Dr. Beauchamp, in a form made intentionally more absurd, was included by John Phoenix (pseudomyn of George H. Derby) in "Squibob Papers," New York, 1865, pp. 45-52. The introductory lines are nearly the same.
On Springfield Mounting there did dwell
A likely youth, I knowed him well;
Leftenant Carter's only son,
A comely youth, nigh twenty-one.
The ballad itself, I am told, is still remembered, and survives as a comic song. No doubt, therefore, it will hereafter be possible to present a complete version.