I've a Long Time Heard

DESCRIPTION: "I've a long time heard the sun will be bleeding, The sun will be bleeding, the sun... I've a long... SInnere, where will you stand in that day?" "I've a long time heard the angels will be singing..." "Devils will be howling." "Sinners would be crying."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1913 (Journal of American Folklore 26)
KEYWORDS: religious nonballad sin
FOUND IN: US(SE, So)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Morris-FolksongsOfFlorida, #87, "Signs of Doom" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: Tristram P. Coffin and Hennig Cohen, _Folklore in America: Tales, Songs, Superstitions, Proverbs, Riddles, Games, Folk Drama and Folk Festivals_, Doubleday, 1966, p. 71, "I've a Long Time Heard" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #5026
NOTES [144 words]: Morris-FolksongsOfFlorida says that this "bears close resemblance to a medieval metrical homily entitled 'The Signs of Doom.'" I am guessing that this is the homily "The SIgns of Doom," printed on pp. 148-157 of O. F. Emerson, A Middle English Reader, 1905; revised 1915 (I use the 1921 Macmillan hardcover). Emerson says (p. 289) "The 'Metrical Homily' here chosen is froma MS. preserved in the Library of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons at Edinburgh, though also found in at least five different MSS. in Cambridge, Oxford, and London." The Edinburgh collection was copied around 1330, and is in a northern form of Middle English. But that homily is 280+ lines long, and much of the imagery is from the Christian Apocalypse. A lot of the lines of the Florida version could just as well be from the song "Sinner Man." I strongly doubt dependence. - RBW
Last updated in version 3.7
File: CoCo071

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