There Was an Old Miser

DESCRIPTION: The old miser's daughter is courted by a sailor. When the miser finds out, he pays a captain to impress the boy. The girl fails to save the boy, but his ship is wrecked and he escapes to shore almost alone. He finds the girl; they are married.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1854 (broadside, Bodleian 2806 c.16(16))
KEYWORDS: courting sailor father pressgang wreck escape marriage
FOUND IN: US(MA,NE) Britain(England(Lond,South))
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Gardham-EarliestVersions, "OLD MISER, THE"
Cazden/Haufrecht/Studer-FolkSongsOfTheCatskills 48, "There Was an Old Miser" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lane/Gosbee-SongsOfShipsAndSailors, p. 224, "The Miser's Daughter" (1 text, 1 tune, composite)
Williams-Wiltshire-WSRO Ox 222, "Transport" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Harold Nestler, "Songs from the Hudson Valley" (article in _New York Folklore Quarterly_, Volume V, #2, Summer 1949), p. 78, "The Old Miser" (1 text, missing most of the action; I suspect it's this, but it might be Laws N6 or Laws N10)
ST FSC048 (Partial)
Roud #3913
RECORDINGS:
Chris Willett, "The Old Miser" (on Voice04)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, 2806 c.16(16), "Old Miser" ("It's of an old miser in London did dwell"), Swindells (Manchester), 1796-1853; also Johnson Ballads 572, "The Old Miser"
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Disguised Sailor (The Sailor's Misfortune and Happy Marriage; The Old Miser)" [Laws N6]
NOTES [152 words]: Although this song shows many similarities to Laws N6 (plus a slight similarity to "William and Harriet," Laws M7), Cazden et al consider the ending sufficiently different that they regard it as a separate ballad. Since the policy of this index is to split rather than lump, here it stands.
Roud, interestingly, lumps it with Laws N10, "The Silk Merchant's Daughter." I was tempted to do the same with the short version in Nestler, before I realized it was this.
Not every version has a happy ending; the Lane/Gosbee-SongsOfShipsAndSailors version tacks on a verse in which boy's fate is unknown and the girl curses her father. Similarly the versions noted by Ben Schwarz below. - RBW
Chris Willett's version on Voice04 and Bodleian broadsides 2806 c.16(16) and Johnson Ballads 572 include the verses in the [Supplemental Tradition text, from Cazden et al] but omit the ending: no shipwreck or happy ending. - BS
Last updated in version 6.8
File: FSC048

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