Poet and folklorist Carl Sandburg says “The House Carpenter,” the version he includes in The American Songbag, “…is among the hoary and tarnished keepsakes of the ballad world.” The song was old by the time it got into his hands; perhaps not as old as some we have explored along the way, but still quite old. Judging by Sandburg’s lyrics, the original ballad had been well winnowed already. Laurence Price receives the credit for the original song, published as a broadside in 1657, and entitled “James Harris (The Daemon Lover).” It bears the somewhat more descriptive subtitle of: “A Warning for Married Women, being an example of Mrs Jane Reynolds (a West-country woman), born near Plymouth, who, having plighted her troth to a Seaman, was afterwards married to a Carpenter, and at last carried away by a Spirit, the manner how shall be presently recited.” Broadside, indeed, both the title and the song got considerably shorter.
Price’s original runs 32 verses. It tells of the plighted troth of “Jane Renalds” and her first true love, James Harris. The two secretly vow to marry, but on the day they are to wed, James is pressed into service on the sea. Jane remains faithful to him for three years, after which she receives word of his death. Another year passes, and she marries a carpenter and has a family. Seven years after his departure, a Spirit returns, claiming to be James. He lures Jane away from her settled life with her husband (who happens to be away from home at the time) and her children. She goes away with him, never to be seen again. Her husband returns to find her gone, and in madness and desperation hangs himself. The children are thus made orphans.
The versions collected by Francis James Child include Price’s as version A, and show both the variety introduced to the story and the honing of the song that occurred over the intervening two centuries between Price’s origination and Child’s collection. By the time Sandburg includes the song in his book, we hear neither the names of the characters involved nor the fate of the abandoned husband and children. Whether and how long Jane was faithful to her vows to James is unmentioned. “Hoary and tarnished” in some respects, but more to the point, the action and the crucial elements of the narrative are compressed. All of the versions we’ll listen to will be roughly half the length, at most, of Price’s original. The original story is shaggy and detailed. The shorter versions spruce up the verses a bit and manipulate the story; hoping, I suppose, to accomplish something similar to Price’s artistic goal, but without all of Price’s details.
British and Irish versions tend to favour “The Demon Lover” as the title of choice, and American versions generally favour “House Carpenter.” Some British artists pick up “House Carpenter,” but these are often explicitly sourced to American artists. All modern versions essentially agree on the core elements of the story, however much they each stray from the original. The song as we have it today reliably dispenses with the initial courtship of James Harris and Jane Reynolds, his being pressed into ship’s service, and any details of the carpenter’s demise at the end of the song.
Depending on the goals of the singer, the remaining details are tweaked in the story. There are some variables. These include:
- The length of the separation of the lovers. If it is specified, it is either seven years, as in the Price original, or “three-fourths of a long, long year.”
- The number of children born to the carpenter’s wife
- Whether the carpenter’s wife requires her old true lover to demonstrate his ability to support her
- Whether the carpenter’s wife puts on a display of finery as she departs
- Whether the lover who lures her away is a demon who kills her through supernatural means. If he is not, her demise is depicted as accidental/natural.
- Sometimes these options appear to be mixed and matched, unrelated to other elements or who is singing the song where. Other options tend to correlate strongly with each other or other factors. For one, basically all the Old World versions (regardless of which title they choose) invoke a supernatural agent; the lover reveals himself to be a demon. In essentially all of the New World versions, there is no demon. The only view of the supernatural, if any, is that our heroine views the hills of Heaven and of Hell, and learns which way she will go.
