Miller's Will, The (The Miller's Three Sons) [Laws Q21]

DESCRIPTION: The dying miller, to decide which of his three sons will inherit, asks each boy how much he would charge. The first son would take an honest toll; the second, half; the last, all and swear to the sack. The miller joyfully gives the mill to the last son
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1764 (broadside, Bodleian Harding B 5(7))
KEYWORDS: death father children robbery crime bequest lastwill
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MW,NE,Ro,SE,So) Canada(Mar) Britain(England(All),Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (49 citations):
Laws Q21, "The Miller's Will (The Miller's Three Sons)"
Flanders/Ballard/Brown/Barry-NewGreenMountainSongster, pp. 11-13, "The Miller's Three Sons" (1 text, 1 tune)
Belden-BalladsSongsCollectedByMissourFolkloreSociety, pp. 244-246, "The Miller and his Three Sons" (3 texts)
Randolph 359, "There Was an Old Miller" (4 texts plus an excerpt, 3 tunes)
Randolph/Cohen-OzarkFolksongs-Abridged, pp. 126-129, "There Was an Old Miller" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 91D)
Eddy-BalladsAndSongsFromOhio 61, "The Dishonest Miller" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
List-SingingAboutIt-FolkSongsInSouthernIndiana, pp. 226-230, "The Miller's Will" (1 text, 1 tune)
Grimes-StoriesFromTheAnneGrimesCollection, p. 137, "The Miller's Will" (1 text)
Gardner/Chickering-BalladsAndSongsOfSouthernMichigan 98, "The Dying Miller" (1 text, 1 tune)
Sackett/Koch-KansasFolklore, pp. 173-175, "The Miller and His Three Sons" (1 text, 1 tune)
Brown/Belden/Hudson-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore2 177, "The Miller and His Three Sons" (2 text plus 5 excerpts and mention of 3 more)
Brown/Schinhan-FrankCBrownCollectionNCFolklore4 177, "The Miller and His Three Sons" (4 excerpts, 4 tunes)
Chappell-FolkSongsOfRoanokeAndTheAlbermarle 106, "The Miller" (1 fragment)
Lunsford/Stringfield-30And1FolkSongsFromSouthernMountains, pp. 12-13, "The Old Man and His Mill" (1 text, 1 tune)
Jones-MinstrelOfTheAppalachians-Bascom-Lamar-Lunsford, pp. 207-208, "The Dishonest Miller" (1 text, 1 tune)
Burton/Manning-EastTennesseeStateCollectionVol1, pp. 27-28, "The Miller's Will" (1 text, 1 tune)
Morris-FolksongsOfFlorida, #205, "The Miller's Will" (1 text plus a fragment, 1 tune)
Browne-AlabamaFolkLyric 145, "The Old Miller" (1 text plus mention of 1 more, 1 tune)
Moore/Moore-BalladsAndFolkSongsOfTheSouthwest 107, "The Miller That Made His Will" (1 text, 1 tune)
Scarborough-ASongCatcherInSouthernMountains, pp. 240-242, "The Miller's Advice to His Three Sons, on Taking of Toll" (2 texts, both called "The Old Miller"; 2 tunes on p. 419)
Hubbard-BalladsAndSongsFromUtah, #188, "The Dying Miller" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Creighton/Senior-TraditionalSongsOfNovaScotia, pp.234-236 , "The Miller of Derbyshire" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton-SongsAndBalladsFromNovaScotia 94, "The Miller" (1 text, 1 tune)
Sharp-EnglishFolkSongsFromSouthernAppalachians 161, "The Miller's Will" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Sharp/Karpeles-EightyEnglishFolkSongs 56, "The Miller's Will" (1 text, 1 tune)
Karpeles-TheCrystalSpring 113, "The Three Sons" (1 text, 1 tune)
Williams-FolkSongsOfTheUpperThames, pp. 192-193, "The Miller and His Three Sons" (1 text) (also Williams-Wiltshire-WSRO Wt 381)
Kennedy-FolksongsOfBritainAndIreland 232, "The Miller's Last Will" (1 text, 1 tune)
Palmer-EnglishCountrySongbook, #32, "The Miller and His Three Sons" (1 text, 1 tune)
Greig-FolkSongInBuchan-FolkSongOfTheNorthEast 41, p. 1, "The Miller's Three Sons" (1 text)
Roud/Bishop-NewPenguinBookOfEnglishFolkSongs #100, "The Miller's Three Sons" (1 text, 1 tune)
Greig/Duncan3 703, "The Miller's Will" (3 texts, 1 tune)
Stokoe/Reay-SongsAndBalladsOfNorthernEngland, pp. 58-59, "The Miller and His Sons" (1 text, 1 tune)
Dixon-AncientPoemsBalladsSongsOfThePeasantryOfEngland, Song #21, pp. 204-206, "The Miller and his Sons" (1 text)
Bell-Combined-EarlyBallads-CustomsBalladsSongsPeasantryEngland, pp. 414-415, "The Miller and His Sons" (1 text)
Cohen/Seeger/Wood-NewLostCityRamblersSongbook, pp. 80-81, "The Miller's Will" (1 text, 1 tune)
Chase-AmericanFolkTalesAndSongs, pp. 144-145, "The Miller's Will" (1 text, 1 tune)
Newell-GamesAndSongsOfAmericanChildren, #41, "The Miller of Gosport" (1 text)
Botkin-TreasuryOfNewEnglandFolklore, pp. 546-547, "The Miller's Three Sons" (1 text, 1 tune)
Cox-FolkSongsSouth 155, "The Dishonest Miller" (3 texts plus mention of six more, 1 tune)
Cox/Hercog/Halpert/Boswell-WVirginia-B, #18A-B, pp. 163-165, "The Miller and His Sons," "The Miller" (1 text plus a fragment, 1 tune)
Bush-FSofCentralWestVirginiaVol2, pp. 81-83, "Whack 'em to the Rye" (1 text, 1 tune)
Thomas-DevilsDitties, pp. 80-81, "The Old Miller" (1 text, 1 tune)
Boette-SingaHipsyDoodle, pp. 38-39, "Once There Was an Old Man" (1 text, 1 tune)
Darling-NewAmericanSongster, pp. 149-151, "The Miller's Will" (1 text)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 120, "The Miller" (1 text)
Olson-BroadsideBalladIndex, ZN2524, "There was a miller who had three sons"
NorthCarolinaFolkloreJournal, W. Amos Abrams, "Horton Barker: Folk Singer Supreme," Vol. XXII, No. 4 (Nov 1974), p. 150, "The Miller's Will" (1 text)
DT 348, MILLWILL MILLWIL2 MILLWIL3*
Roud #138
RECORDINGS:
Horton Barker, "The Miller's Will" (on Barker01)
Jumbo Brightwell, "The Derby Miller" (on Voice14)
Carson Brothers & Sprinkle, "The Old Miller's Will" (OKeh 45398, 1929; on TimesAint01)
Eunice Yeatts MacAlexander, "The Miller's Will" (on FarMtns1)
Margaret MacArthur, "New Hampshire Miller" (on MMacArthur01)
New Lost City Ramblers, "The Miller's Will" (on NLCR04)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 5(7), "The Miller's Advice to His Three Sons, in Taking of Toll," W. and C. Dicey (London) , 1736-1763; also Douce Ballads 4(44), "The Miller's Advice to His Three Sons, in Taking of Toll"
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Miller, Miller, Dusty Pole" (theme of a dishonest miller)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Old Miller Rake
NOTES [228 words]: Folklore about millers and their morality is ancient and widespread. For the theme of millers trading sexual favors for their services, see the notes to "The Maid Gaed to the Mill."
The theme of the dishonest miller may be even older. In the prologue to the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer writes of his miller (see Larry D. Benson, general editor, The Riverside Chaucer, third edition, Houghton Mifflin, 1987 (based on F. N. Robinson, The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, which is considered to be the first and second editions of this work), p. 32; The General Prologue, lines 560-562):
He waas a jangler and a goliardeys,
And that was moost of synne and harlotries.
Wel koude he stelen corn and tollen thries...
i.e.
He was a teller of bawdy stories and a buffoon
And that was most of sin and obscenity/harlotry.
Well could he steal corn and take his toll thrice.
(It is believed that, at this time, millers usually charged a flat fee plus a percentage of the flour for their services. The typical percentage was about 5%, so Chaucer's miller was taking probably a sixth to a fifth of the total. Which makes him relatively honest, compared to the people in this song. - RBW)
Williams-FolkSongsOfTheUpperThames is very close to Dixon-AncientPoemsBalladsSongsOfThePeasantryOfEngland, even when the words seem to me to be clumsy, as in "He called for his middlemost son." - BS
Last updated in version 6.6
File: LQ21

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