Seventeen Come Sunday [Laws O17]

DESCRIPTION: The singer meets a pretty young girl. He gets acquainted by asking questions: "What are you doing?" "Where do you live?" "How old are you?" "May I visit you tonight?" She agrees to the meeting; they have their fun despite her mother's opposition
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1790 (Burns's "A Waukrife Minnie" in _The Scots Musical Museum_)
KEYWORDS: questions courting nightvisit
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MA,MW,Ro,SE,So) Canada(Mar,Newf) Britain(England(All),Scotland) Ireland
REFERENCES (41 citations):
Laws O17, "Seventeen Come Sunday"
Gardham-EarliestVersions, "SEVENTEEN COME SUNDAY"
Eddy-BalladsAndSongsFromOhio 74, "My Pretty Maid" (2 texts)
Neely/Spargo-TalesAndSongsOfSouthernIllinois, pp. 140-141, "The Gypsy Laddie" (1 text, a short mixture of "The Gypsy Laddie" [Child 200] and "Seventeen Come Sunday" [Laws O17])
Warner-TraditionalAmericanFolkSongsFromAnneAndFrankWarnerColl 52, "Hi Rinky Dum" (1 text, 1 tune, much worn down; there is no nightvisit, and the two mutually decide against marriage)
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore3 11, "Where Are You Going, My Pretty Maid" (2 texts, both very short)
Moore/Moore-BalladsAndFolkSongsOfTheSouthwest 99, "My Pretty Little Miss" (1 text, 1 tune)
Owens-TexasFolkSongs-1ed, pp. 210-211, "My Pretty Little Miss" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hubbard-BalladsAndSongsFromUtah, #74, "One Sunday Morning" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-FolkSongsOfNorthAmerica 106, "How Old Are You, My Pretty Little Miss?" (1 text, 1 tune -- a badly eroded version)
Cazden/Haufrecht/Studer-FolkSongsOfTheCatskills 128, "Where Are You Going, My Pretty Fair Maid?" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton/Senior-TraditionalSongsOfNovaScotia, pp. 164-165, "I'm Scarce Sixteen Come Sunday" (1 text plus 2 fragments, 1 tune)
Creighton-MaritimeFolkSongs, p. 32, "I'm Seventeen Come Sunday" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton-FolksongsFromSouthernNewBrunswick 16, "Seventeen Come Sunday" (1 text, 1 tune)
Peacock, pp. 284-286, "I'll Be Seventeen Come Sunday" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Sharp-EnglishFolkSongsFromSouthernAppalachians 127, "I'm Seventeen Come Sunday" (4 texts, 4 tunes)
Sharp-OneHundredEnglishFolksongs 61, "I'm Seventeen Come Sunday" (1 text, 1 tune)
Karpeles-TheCrystalSpring 52, "Seventeen Come Sunday" (1 text, 1 tune)
Reeves/Sharp-TheIdiomOfThePeople 44, "I'm Seventeen Come Sunday" (1 text)
Reeves-TheEverlastingCircle 117, "Seventeen Come Sunday" (2 texts)
Gundry-CanowKernow-SongsDancesFromCornwall, p. 42, "Seventeen Come Sunday" (1 text plus a Cornish translation, 1 tune)
Palmer-EnglishCountrySongbook, #77, "Seventeen Come Sunday" (1 text, 1 tune)
OShaughnessy/Grainger-TwentyOneLincolnshireFolkSongs 11, "I'm Seventeen Come Sunday" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hamer-GreenGroves, pp. 75-76, "Seventeen Come Sunday" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud/Bishop-NewPenguinBookOfEnglishFolkSongs #37, "Seventeen Come Sunday" (1 text, 1 tune)
Dallas-TheCruelWars-100SoldiersSongs, pp. 54-56, "As I Roved Out" (1 text, 1 tune)
Graham-Joe-Holmes-SongsMusicTraditionsOfAnUlsterman 68, "Seventeen Come Sunday" (1 text, 1 tune)
Cox-FolkSongsSouth 126, "My Pretty Maid" (1 text)
Cox/Hercog/Halpert/Boswell-WVirginia-A, #25, pp. 99-100, "The Modesty Answer" (1 text, 1 tune, in which the girl asks her mother if she may marry, is refused, and decides to run away to North Carolina and eat cream and honey!)
Henry/Huntingdon/Herrmann-SamHenrysSongsOfThePeople H152, pp. 266-267, "I'm Seventeen 'gin Sunday"; H793, pp. 267-268, "As I Gaed ower a Whinny Knowe";(2 texts, 2 tunes)
Greig/Duncan4 791, "The Soldier Lad" (14 texts, 12 tunes)
Lyle-Andrew-CrawfurdsCollectionVolume2 181, "The Weil Payt't Dochter" (1 text)
MacColl/Seeger-TravellersSongsFromEnglandAndScotland 44, "Seventeen Come Sunday" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ford-VagabondSongsAndBalladsOfScotland, pp. 99-102, "My Rolling Eye" (1 text, 1 tune)
Williams-Wiltshire-WSRO Mi 697, "Rudam Day" (1 text)
Butterworth/Dawney-PloughboysGlory, p. 6, "As I Roamed Out" (1 text, 1 tune, listed by Dawney as "The Banks of Sweet Primroses" although the surviving text is quite close to the "As I Roved Out" versions of "Seventeen Come Sunday" [Laws O17]; Butterworth expurgated several verses which might have clarified the origin)
Darling-NewAmericanSongster, pp. 128-129, "Seventeen Come Sunday"; "When Cockle Shells Make Silver Bells" (1 text plus a fragment)
Tobitt-SkipToMyLou, p. 3, "Sandy Land" (1 text, 1 tune, which appears to be composite -- the first verse is "Great Big Taters in Sandy Land," the second is is "Oe more river I'm bound to cross," and the last is a "Sixteen Come Sunday" verse)
DT 334, YONHIGH* ROCKYMT (TROOPRM2* -- apparently a cross between this piece and Child 299)
ADDITIONAL: James Johnson and William Stenhouse, The Scotish Musical Museum (London, 1839 ("Digitized by Google")[new edition of James Johnson, The Scots Musical Museum (Edinburgh, 1790)]), Vol. III, #288 pp. 8, "A Waukrife Minnie" (1 text, 1 tune)
Maud Karpeles, _Folk Songs of Europe_, Oak, 1956, 1964, p. 45, 'Seventeen Come Sunday" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #277
RECORDINGS:
Harry Cox, "Seventeen Come Sunday" (on HCox01)
Mary Delaney, "New Ross Town" (on IRTravellers01)
Seamus Ennis, "As I Roved Out" (on FSB01)
Bob Hart, "Seventeen Come Sunday" (on Voice10)
Joe Heaney, "Who Are You, My Pretty Fair Maid" (on Voice01)
Howard Morry, "I'll Be Seventeen Come Sunday" (on PeacockCDROM) [one verse only]
Ken Peacock, "I'll be Seventeen Come Sunday" (on NFKPeacock)
Jean Ritchie & Doc Watson, "Where Are You Going?" (on RitchieWatson1, RitchiteWatsonCD1)
Tony Wales, "Seventeen Come Sunday" (on TWales1)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Firth b.34(67), "Seventeen Come Sunday," J. Paul and Co. (London), 1838-1845; also Johnson Ballads 547, Firth b.34(264), Firth c.14(204), Harding B 11(690), "Seventeen Come Sunday"; Harding B 11(1732), "I'm Seventeen Come Sunday"
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Rolling in the Dew (The Milkmaid)"
cf. "The Overgate" (tune, theme)
cf. "Courting the Widow's Daughter (Hard Times)" [Laws H25] (plot)
cf. "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss" (floating lyrics, some tunes)
cf. "I Love My Love (I) (As I Cam' Owre Yon High High Hill)" (lyrics)
cf. "The Light of the Moon" (theme: night visit ended by a crowing cock) [viz., "My Rolling Eye"/"A Waukrife Minnie"]
cf. "Ona May Morning So Early" (borrows this tune)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Sixteen Come Sunday
Flash Girls and Airy Too
Blink Owre the Burn
NOTES [279 words]: There are versions of this song which have mixed with "Trooper and Maid" [Child 299]; these generally file under that ballad and are sometimes known as "As I Roved Out." The Sam Henry text "My Darling Blue-Eyed Mary" has lost the key question about the girl's age, but the rest is clearly this song. - RBW
Also collected and sung by David Hammond, "As I Roved Out" (on David Hammond, "I Am the Wee Falorie Man: Folk Songs of Ireland," Tradition TCD1052 CD (1997) reissue of Tradition LP TLP 1028 (1959))
Dick notes, "No. 187. Whare are you gaun, my bonnie lass. In the Interleaved Museum, Burns says, 'I pickt up this old song and tune from a country girl in Nithsdale. I never met with it elsewhere in Scotland.' It is thought that he amended some verses and wrote others. I can find no trace of any original prior to Burns (source: James C. Dick, The Songs of Robert Burns (Henry Frowde, 1903 ("Digitized by Google")), p. 414). Ford first published "My Rolling Eye" in 1899 (Robert Ford, editor, Vagabond Songs and Ballads of Scotland [first series] (Paisley, 1899 ("Digitized by Google")), pp. 102-105), and reprinted it in the reference listed above in 1904
The "Waukrife Minnie" text is "My Rolling Eye" stripped of the usual "Seventeen Come Sunday" banter. What is left is the night visit of "My Rolling Eye" in which the restless cock crows early, waking the girl's mother who beats the girl; as usual the soldier leaves. Of the six verses of "A Waukrife Minnie" only one differs substantially from Ford's text. Ford, commenting on "A Waukrife Minnie"/"My Rolling Eye" says "that it was known elsewhere than in Nithsdale, even in Burns's time is very likely." - BS
Last updated in version 6.8
File: LO17

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography