Juniper Tree, The

DESCRIPTION: "Oh sister Phoebe, how merry we were The night we sat under the juniper tree...." "So put this hat on, it will keep your head warm, And take a sweet kiss, it will do you no harm." Phoebe and/or the boy are encouraged to get married
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1903 (Newell)
KEYWORDS: playparty courting clothes
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MA,MW,SE,So) West Indies(Jamaica)
REFERENCES (14 citations):
Wolford-ThePlayPartyInIndiana, pp. 80-81=Wolford/Richmond/Tillson-PlayPartyInIndiana, pp. 186-187, "Old Sister Phoebe" (1 text, 1 tune)
List-SingingAboutIt-FolkSongsInSouthernIndiana, pp. 71-73, "Sister Phoebe"; pp. 138-139, "Old Sister Phoebe" (2 fragments, 2 tunes)
McIntosh-FolkSongsAndSingingGamesofIllinoisOzarks, pp. 63-64, "Oh Sister Phoebe" (1 text, 1 tune)
Randolph 540, "The Juniper Tree" (5 texts, 1 tune; the "D" text may be a parody)
Hudson-FolksongsOfMississippi 151, pp. 298-299, "Under the Juniper Tree" (1 text)
Hudson-FolkTunesFromMississippi 29A-B, "Under the Juniper Tree" (1 text plus a fragment, 2 tunes)
Ritchie-FolkSongsOfTheSouthernAppalachians, p. 9, "Sister Phoebe" (1 text, 1 tune)
Spurgeon-WaltzTheHall-AmericanPlayParty, pp. 122-123, "The Juniper Tree"; pp. 124-125, "The Juniper Tree" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Morris-FolksongsOfFlorida, #129, "Old Sister Phoebe" (1 text, 1 text)
Jekyll-JamaicanSongAndStory 96, "Mother Phoebe" (1 text, 1 tune)
JournalOfAmericanFolklore, Carl Van Doren, "Some Play-Party Songs from Eastern Illinois," Volume 32, Number 126 (Oct.-Dec., 1919), pp. 498-499, #7 "The Juniper Tree" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Martha Warren Beckwith and Helen Roberts, _Folk-Games of Jamaica_ (Poughkeepsie: Vassar College, 1922 ("Digitized by Internet Archive")) #48 p. 59, "Old Mother Fibbie" (2 texts, 1 tune)
W.J. MacKnight, _A Pioneer Outline History of Northwestern Pennsylvania_ (Phildelphia: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1905) (available on Google Books), p. 233, ("Oh, sister Phoebe, how merry were we") (1 text)
B.A. Botkin, _The American Play-Party Song_ (New York: Frederic Ungar Publishing Co, 1963), pp. 312-333, #99 "Sister Phoebe" (2 texts)
Roud #4507
RECORDINGS:
Charles S. Brink, "Oh Sister Phoebe" (in BayardCollection, video 06 ("Charles S. Brink #8" starting at 07.08))
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Fare You Well, Sister Phoebe" (tune, in Wolford-ThePlayPartyInIndiana's version)
NOTES [236 words]: A kissing game, according to Ritchie, though a few texts are slightly fuller.
It is interesting to note that the two usually sit courting under a *juniper* tree (although in Morris-FolksongsOfFlorida, it's a green apple tree). According to Peter MacInnis, Poisons (originally published as The Killer Bean of Calabar and Other Stories), 2004 (I use the 2005 Arcade paperback), p. 97, the oil of the Juniperus sabina is an abortifacient, the juniper berries were sometimes thought to end pregnancies. So making out while under a juniper might be thought to prevent pregnancy -- although apparently not all junipers make the particular chemical involved. - RBW
I had my doubts about "Sister Phoebe" being the right home for the Charles S. Brink song. No Sister Phoebe and no juniper tree. He does include the kissing game verse "Put your hat on your head, keep your head warm, And take a sweet kiss, it will do you no harm." His other verses are "Don't you remember the night we sat under George Wither's peach tree" and "George Withers came out with his trusty old gun, He swore he would shoot us if we didn't run. We run, we run, heigh-yo." Van Doren has this verse from Illinois: "Old Rogers came out with his old rusty gun, And swore he would shoot us if we didn't run. If we didn't run, higho, higho, If we didn't run higho!"
As for what tree we sit under, Botkin's B text title is "That June Apple Tree." - BS
Last updated in version 7.1
File: R540

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