Female Highwayman, The [Laws N21]

DESCRIPTION: (Sylvie) decides to test her love's faithfulness. Dressed as a (male) robber, she stops him on the road. He gives her his watch and gold, but refuses to hand over his diamond ring. She lets him go, satisfied of his faithfulness, and later reveals herself
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1845 (broadside, Bodleian Harding B 25(1877))
KEYWORDS: outlaw cross-dressing disguise love
FOUND IN: US(MA,NE,Ro) Canada(Mar,Newf,Ont) Britain(England(South)) Australia Ireland
REFERENCES (16 citations):
Laws N21, "The Female Highwayman"
Gardham-EarliestVersions, "FEMALE HIGHWAYMAN, THE"
Warner-TraditionalAmericanFolkSongsFromAnneAndFrankWarnerColl 58, "Pretty Sylvia" (1 text, 1 tune)
Shoemaker-MountainMinstrelsyOfPennsylvania, pp. 180-181, "Silvy Gay" (1 text)
Flanders/Brown-VermontFolkSongsAndBallads, pp. 133-134, "The Female Highwayman" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hubbard-BalladsAndSongsFromUtah, #40, "Silvia Rode Out One Day" (1 text, 1 tune)
Greenleaf/Mansfield-BalladsAndSeaSongsOfNewfoundland 27, "Wexford City" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton-SongsAndBalladsFromNovaScotia 25, "Silvy" (1 text, 1 tune)
Peacock, pp. 342-343, "Gold Watch and Chain" (1 text, 1 tune)
Mackenzie-BalladsAndSeaSongsFromNovaScotia 129, "Zillah" (1 text), "The Diamond Ring" (1 text)
Manny/Wilson-SongsOfMiramichi 52, "The Female Highwayman (Nelly Ray)" (1 text, 1 tune)
Kennedy-FolksongsOfBritainAndIreland 334, "Sylvia" (1 text, 1 tune)
Williams-Wiltshire-WSRO Ox 305, "Buxom Blade" (1 text)
Roud/Bishop-NewPenguinBookOfEnglishFolkSongs #134, "The Female Highwayman" (1 text, 1 tune)
Henry/Huntingdon/Herrmann-SamHenrysSongsOfThePeople H35, pp. 327-328, "The Female Highwayman" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT 451, FEMHWAY* SOVAY*
Roud #7
RECORDINGS:
Freeman Bennett, "Gold Watch and Chain" (on PeacockCDROM) [one verse only]
A. L. Lloyd, "Sovay, the Female Highwayman" (on Lloyd2, Lloyd3)
Mrs. Bride Power, "The Broken Token" (on MUNFLA/Leach)
Tim Walsh, "Sylvia" (on FSB7)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 25(1877), "Sylvia's Request, and William's Denial" ("Fair Sylvia on a certain day, Drest herself in man's array"), J. Pitts (London), 1819-1844; also 2806 c.16(131), Harding B 11(4362), Firth c.17(26), Harding B 11(3723), Harding B 15(326b), Harding B 15(327a), "Sylvia's Request, and William's Denial"
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Sovay, Sovay
Sophie
Sylvia's Request and William's Denial
Cecilia
NOTES [398 words]: According to Pringle, chapter 7, "Wicked Ladies," there were a few known instances of female highwaymen during their great era in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
He mentions specifically Mary Frith ("Molly Cutpurse"), though she was first and foremost a fence rather than a highway(wo)man (to be a highwayman, one had to have a horse, and a pistol generally helped, too). She supposedly was the subject of Dekker and Middleton's 1611 play "The Roaring Girls" but her death is dated 1659 (McDonald, p. 145, says 1663). So one suspects the play suggested the nickname -- though McDonald, p. 145, says Frith was born in 1589, so it's just ossible. (McDonald dates "The Roaring Girls" to 1663, but Dekker ied in 1632 and Middleton in 1627, so that's obviously wrong!)
Pringle does not mention a case similar to that in this song. McDonald, p. 145, does say that Frith "always dressed in men's clothing and smoked a pipe" -- but adds on p. 146 that she didn't want children and apparently wasn't interested in men, though she did contract a marriage of convenience with one Lewknor Markham (McDonald, p. 147).
If all we want is a highwaywoman who dressed as a man, McDonald, pp. 136-141, also mentions one Katherine Ferrers (1634-1660?), who was born of a good family but lost her estate in the English Civil War. She supposedly turned highwaywoman to make a living. But there is no account of her courting a man (though a marriage had been contracted for her in her youth). Of course, since we don't even know how she died, that isn't really evidence one way or another. But the song tells such a romantic story that I don't think it really needs a direct inspiration.
Jerome S. Epstein, who transcribed the Warner version of Lena Bourne Fish, noted the peculiar tonal peregrination of the tune -- it appears to be in the key of C, but uses all of the following tones (ascending the scale): B C D E F F# G A Bb C. He comments that this sort of modal modulation is very rare in folk song -- but in fact the result, except for that one stray Bb and the ending on C, is pretty close to the Dorian version of "Sovay" I have heard. It sounds to me as if it's a Dorian tune partly and imperfectly moved to Ionian.
Mackenzie-BalladsAndSeaSongsFromNovaScotia's peculiar name for the girl, Zillah, recalls Lamech's wife in Genesis 4:19-23, but I don't know if that is significant. - RBW
BibliographyLast updated in version 6.8
File: LN21

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