{"id":13562,"date":"2021-11-28T16:51:45","date_gmt":"2021-11-28T16:51:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/?page_id=13562"},"modified":"2021-12-07T20:20:42","modified_gmt":"2021-12-07T20:20:42","slug":"tis-but-a-little-golden-ring","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/folksongandmusichall.com\/index.php\/tis-but-a-little-golden-ring\/","title":{"rendered":"Tis but a little golden ring"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
AKA<\/strong><\/td>The little golden ring
It is but a little golden ring<\/td><\/tr>
First Published<\/td>c1885<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Writer\/composer<\/td>Unknown<\/td>Roud<\/strong><\/td>RN9418<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Music Hall Performers<\/strong><\/td>Fred Laurie, Lyster Sisters<\/td><\/tr>
Folk performances<\/strong><\/td>Collected from the singing of:<\/strong>
Vickery, Frank; Canada 1932
Thomas, Thomas; Wales; 1953<\/a>
Foran, Leo; Canada : Quebec : 1967<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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From Frank Kidson Collection\n\nMemory carries my fancy today\nBack to a scene that has long passed away;\nThere stands a sailor in garments of blue,\nBidding a worn weeping widow adieu.\nVows for the future he laughingly makes\nWhile from her finger a keeper she takes;\nIn accents so tender; heart-broken with tears,\nThese are the words whispered into his ears - \n            \nIt is but a little golden ring ,\nI give it you with pride;\nWear it for mother's sake,\nAnd when you're on the tide,\nIf you are in trouble,John,\nComfort it will bring,\nTo think of me while gazing on\nThat little golden ring.<\/em>\n\nOne more \"God bless you\" twixt mother and me.\nGood-bye forever, perhaps it might be.\nBoldly I turned and manfully strode,\nTill hidden from sight by a turn in the road.\nSoon on the vessel the anchor was weighed,\nThen for a strange destination we made,\nWhile bright as a beacon my keeper would gleam,\nThe voice of my mother would say in my dream:\n\nTime brought promotion and honour to me.\nDuty was done as a duty should be,\nEvery mail brought a letter from home,\nOftentimes opened with grief I must own.\nSlowly but surely my letters decreas'd,\nThen on a sudden they silently ceased -\nAnd ofttimes at midnight as I watched o'er the sea,\nThe voice of remembrance still whispered to me.\n\nOnce more old England's white cliffs are at hand,\nOnce more I stand on my own native land;\nStrangers,they answered my knock when I call,\nFor mother is sleeping the last sleep of all.\nGold cannot tempt me, or jewels divine\nTo part for one hour with that keeper of mine;\nA link of the past it for ever shall be,\nTo bring back the message she whispered to me.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
This sentimental ballad was performed in the Halls  and printed on several late 19th-century broadsides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In traditional singing it is often associated with the singing of sailors – it features in William Main Doerflinger’s Songs of the Sailor and Lumberman <\/em>as a “deep-water song” “sung mainly for entertainment”. Interestingly Jack London recalled singing the song in his autobiographical novel Jack Barleycorn<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember the runaway apprentices–boys of eighteen and twenty, of middle class English families, who had jumped their ships and apprenticeships in various ports of the world and drifted into the forecastles of the sealing schooners. They were healthy, smooth-skinned, clear-eyed, and they were young–youths like me, learning the way of their feet in the world of men. …. I remember a melting song they sang, the refrain of which was:<\/p>
\u201cTis but a little golden ring,
I give it to thee with pride,
Wear it for your mother’s sake
When you are on the tide.”<\/p>

They wept over it as they sang it, the graceless young scamps who had all broken their mothers’ prides, and I sang with them, and wept with them, and luxuriated in the pathos and the tragedy of it, and struggled to make glimmering inebriated generalisations on life and romance.<\/p> Jack London (1913) John Barleycorn<\/a> <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
 In 1953 a fragment of the song was collected from singing of Welsh miner Thomas Thomas by Alan Lomax, a recording is available in the Lomax digital archive<\/a> – Thomas associated the song with buying songs from an old ballad peddler.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
There are a number of songs with similar titles but instances where there is good evidence that it is this particular song seem to start in about 1885\/86. It was sung in the Halls by the Sisters Lyster and by Fred Laurie. This report refers to a performance at The Metropolitan <\/em>(London):<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Saturday,  Aug. 22, 1885;  <\/strong>The Era <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
This report of Laurie at The Cambridge<\/em> (London):<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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 <\/strong>Saturday,  Jan. 9, 1886;  <\/strong>The Era <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whilst there is evidence that the song was being performed in the mid-1880s, I have been unable to confirm who wrote or composed it. The song is one of several 19th century songs and theatre productions with very similar names, for example The Little Golden Ring (Mein Goldenes Ringelein) <\/em>a song published in 1850; written by Robert Schummann, famously sung by Jenny Lind, available as sheet music in the Levy Sheet Music Collection<\/a>. There was also “The Golden Ring: A Fairy Opera<\/em>“(music Frederic Clay, words: GR Sims) which had its debut in 1884 at  The Alhambra Theatre. There is a very slight chance this ballad comes from that production, I need to visit the John Rylands library to eliminate this possibility… <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sources:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n