New Garden Fields

DESCRIPTION: The singer meets Mary "pulling flowers" and asks to hold her hand. She refuses: "if I thought you in earnest I'd think myself blest." He complains that she has broken his heart. She relents and promises to go away with him to be married.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1825 (broadside, Bodleian 2806 c.17(115))
KEYWORDS: courting marriage
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South)) Canada(Ont)
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Gardham-EarliestVersions, "NEW GARDEN FIELDS"
Reeves-TheEverlastingCircle 96, "New Garden Fields" (1 text)
Williams-Wiltshire-WSRO Wt 460, "New Garden Fields" (1 text)
Palmer-FolkSongsCollectedBy-Ralph-VaughanWilliams, #19, "New Garden Fields" (1 text, 1 tune)
MidwestFolklore, Edith Fowke, "British Ballads in Ontario," Volume 13, Number 3 (Fall 1963/1964) p. 158, "Down by the Nut Bushes" (1 text)
Roud #1054
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, 2806 c.17(115) [missing the last two verses], "The Eighteenth of August" or "New Garden Fields" ("Come all you pretty fair maids, I pray now attend"), W. Armstrong (Liverpool), 1820-1824; also Harding B 11(1761), Harding B 11(3678), Harding B 11(3678A), Firth c.18(161), Harding B 11(2643), Harding B 11(3677), Harding B 11(2642), 2806 c.17(300), Firth c.18(162), Harding B 19(106), Harding B 26(463), Harding B 11(2644), "[The] New Garden Fields"; Johnson Ballads 567, "The New Garden Field"
LOCSinging, as109560, "The New Garden Fields" ("Come all you pretty fair maids, I pray now attend"), Taylor (London), no date
File: ReCi096

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