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Beautiful Nancy

[ Roud 18525 ; Master title: Beautiful Nancy ; Ballad Index AshS056 ; VWML CJS2/9/2023 , CJS2/10/2158 , GG/1/16/983 ; GlosTrad Roud 18525 ; trad.]

Maud Karpeles: The Crystal Spring Alan Helsdon: Vaughan Williams in Norfolk Volume 2

Jayne Marsden sang Nancy on Marsden Blant & Squire’s 2003 album Trio.

Hazel Askew sang Beautiful Nancy in 2009 on The Askew Sisters & Craig Morgan Robson’s album of songs collected from five Hampshire women by George Gardiner in 1907, The Axford Five. This version is from Marty Munday [VWML GG/1/16/983] . Hazel Askew noted:

At the time Gardiner was collecting in Hampshire, this song seems to have been very popular in the county and versions of it had started to spread to other counties in the south. Marty Munday’s “strong instinct for the beautiful in music” is particularly prevalent in this lovely version of the song.

Tim Radford sang Beautiful Nancy in 2012 on his Forest Tracks album From Spithead Roads. He noted:

As sung, this is mostly as collected from Mrs. Marty Munday, aged around 60 in October 1907, local manuscript no. H983 and Roud no. 18525. Tune and first three verses are from Mrs. Munday, but I constructed the final two verses from other versions collected by Gardiner, ie. from: William Hill of Catherington, William Garrett of Petersfield, Charles Biggs of Hartley Wintney and one other unknown singer. The song is not unique to Hampshire, as Sharp and others found versions across Southern England.

Cotwolds folk trio, Mischief Afoot sang Jimmy and Nancy in 2018 on their eponymous WildGoose CD Mischief Afoot. Jeff Gillett noted:

The song was collected by Cecil Sharp from Mrs. P. Wiggett at Ford in Gloucestershire in 1909 [VWML CJS2/9/2023, CJS2/10/2158] . I found it in The Crystal Spring, edited by Maud Karpeles. Looking back at the manuscript, I see that over the time when I have been singing it the folk process has been at work, resulting in a few minor changes—all of them, obviously, typifying the operation of that process by being improvements on the song as collected and published!

Lyrics

Tim Radford sings Beautiful Nancy

As beautiful Nancy was a-walking one day,
She met a young sailor upon the highway.
Said he, “Pretty fair maid, where are you a going,
Where are you a going, tell me pretty maid?”

“I am searching for Jemmy, young Jemmy my dear,
I have not a-seen him for more than nine year,
But while he is absent, a maid I will live and die.”
But little did she think it was Jemmy so nigh.

Young Jemmy he stood watching for as long as he could forbear
And straightway he made himself be known to his dear.
She denied lords and squires for so many a long year,
For her long absent Jemmy, her fond sailor dear.

“I was captured by pirates, I could not get away.
My thoughts have been with you love, by night and by day,
And now I’ve gained my freedom, and I’m safe at home with thee,
No more will I venture all on the salt sea.”

He flew into her arms and around her neck did twine,
Saying, “Beautiful Nancy forever I will be thine.
Come let us be united and live happy all on the shore;
The bells they shall ring merrily and I’ll go to sea no more.”