A Song from The American Songbag by Carl Sandburg

[LincolnMan]

In our next edition of tunes from The American Songbag, Carl Sandburg provides us with the song The Brown Girl or Fair Eleanor.

Here are some partial introductory comments on the song as found in the book:

Nancy Hanks in her old Kentucky home, sang ballads the western pioneers brought throygh the Cumberland Gap from the uplands and mountains farther east. The story of the Brown Girl stabbing Fair Eleanor, then having her head cut off by Lord Thomas, who killed herself and was buried with the two women, sounds almost like a grand opera plot...Little Abe Lincoln, as a child, probably heard The Brown Girl, according to persons familiar with Kentucky backgrounds...

The Brown Girl or Fair Eleanor


"The Brown Girl she has houses and lands,
Fair Eleanor she has none;
The best advice I can give you, my son,
Is to bring the Brown Girl Home."

There are 14 additional stanzas in the book.