Index of Songs Collected by Greenleaf and Mansfield

Index of some of the songs in Ballads And Sea Songs Of Newfoundland collected
by Elisabeth Bristol Greenleaf and recorded in the field by Grace Yarrow Mansfield
Published by Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, ©1933
and Folklore Associates, Hatboro, Pennsylvania, ©1968, all rights reserved,
and archived at GEST Songs Of Newfoundland And Labrador

(Titles in parentheses are alternate titles from other sources.)

All Around Green Island Shore #135 (All Around Green Island's Shore)
As I Roved Out #31 (Tarry Trousers)
The Blind Beggar #32 (The Blind Beggar's Daughter Of Bethnal Green)
The Blooming Bright Star Of Bell Isle #133
The Boatswain And The Tailor #53 (The Boatsman And The Chest)
The Bold Princess Royal #35
Bonny Anne #108 (The Prentice Boy)
The Bonny Young Irish Boy #95 (My Bonny Irish Boy)
Burke's Dream #71
Change Islands Song #124
The Dark-Eyed Sailor #36 (Fair Phoebe And Her Dark-Ey'd Sailor)
Duke Of Argyl #39 (Duke Of Argyle)
The Fishermen Of Newfoundland #141 (The Good Ship Jubilee)
Gold Watch And Chain #27 (Wexford City)
Greedy Harbour #127 (Grady's Harbour)
The Green Bushes #30 (The False Lover)
The Greenland Disaster #146
Handsome John #38
The Highway Robber #21 (The Rich Merchant's Daughter)
Homeward Bound #165
Jack Hinks #131
Joan And John Blount #18 (Get Up And Bar The Door, Child #275)
Lady Franklin's Lament #151c (Franklin)
Lady Margaret #9 (Sweet William's Ghost, Child #77)
The Little Yorkshire Boy #20 (The Crafty Boy) (The Yorkshire Bite, Child #283)
Longest Name Song #170 (Jonathan, Joseph, Jeremiah)
Lovely Georgie #17 (Child #209)
The Lumber Camp Song #159 (Hurling Down The Pine)
The Maid Of Newfoundland #118
The Maid On The Shore O #28 (The Maiden Who Dwelt By The Shore)
The Man-Of-War Piece #45 (The Young Maid's Song)
The Mantle Of Green #87 (The Mantle So Green)
Maurice Kelly #78 (Kelly And The Ghost)
Nancy From London #33 (Lovely Nancy From England)
The Nobleman's Wedding #75 (The Fatal Wedding)
The Nordfeld And The Raleigh #142
Paddy And The Whale #67
Polly Oliver #23 (Pretty Polly)
The Prentice Boy #107 (Bonny Anne)
The Roving Newfoundlanders #183
Short Jacket #46 (The Maid In Sorrow)
Soldier Boy #80
The Southern Cross #139 (Wreck Of The Southern Cross)
The Spanish Captain #137
Thomas And Nancy #54
The Unquiet Grave #10 (The Weeping Lover, Child #78)
Who Is At My Window Weeping #24 (Drowsy Sleeper) (Silver Dagger)
Wreck Of The Steamship Ethie #138
Young Barbour #13 (Willie O Winsbury, Child #100)

Excerpts from the Canadian Journal for Traditional Music (1985) Elisabeth Greenleaf: An Appraisal by Isabelle Peere:

Greenleaf and Mansfield's collection, Ballads and Sea Songs of Newfoundland, is acknowledged today as the first scholarly work in the field of Newfoundland traditional song. As such, it opened the way to the preservation of Newfoundland folk culture.

Elisabeth Bristol Greenleaf was born in New York City in 1895. The daughter of a professor of biology, she grew up in her native city and Avondale, Rhode Island. In New York City Public Schools, she received her good musical training and learned to take music by dictation. She graduated from Vassar College with English and Biology as major subjects in 1917. Her select education, possibly tinted with the American protestant ideology of 'the self-made man' advocating the responsibility of the privileged, could have guided her commitment to the Grenfell Mission. It was to serve as a volunteer teacher of the Mission Summer School in Sally's Cove on the West Coast, that she first came to Newfoundland in 1920.

Prior to her impressive discovery of "a real folksong, one handed down by oral tradition," on the very evening of her arrival in the community, Greenleaf had been acquainted with the printed texts of folksongs through courses and from public lectures; John Lomax probably sang, possibly played, a recording to his audience while visiting Vassar as a guest lecturer. But this enthralling experience of hearing the songs in the field soon led her to gather and transcribe the words and music of those she found around her. This became a major activity in addition to her teaching and was greatly facilitated by her involvement in the life of the community.

Back to Vassar in the autumn of that year, she mentioned her discovery to H. N. MacCracken, President of the College. He recommended her to Martha W. Beckwith, a professor of the Vassar College Folk-Lore Foundation, and both of them encouraged Greenleaf to carry on her collecting in Newfoundland the following summer. From this second visit she brought back thirty songs. Shortly after, Miss Elisabeth Bristol married to become Mrs. Greenleaf; she retired from teaching and interrupted any collecting activity until 1929 when she decided to carry out her wish to visit Newfoundland again and make a more complete collection of ballads and songs.

Sponsored by Vassar College, she then set up what she humorously called "the Vassar Folklore Expedition" with Miss Grace Yarrow, later to become Mrs. Mansfield. A Vassar-trained musicologist, she was hired on Greenleaf's request to be responsible for the musical transcription of songs, a task for which Greenleaf herself did not feel competent. Her personal choice of Grace Yarrow as her assistant, apart from sympathy, was directed by Yarrow's proven willingness to disregard hardship. Together they covered a number of areas on the Island, and this field trip with Greenleaf's two previous stays in Newfoundland produced their collection, published by Harvard in 1933.

Additional Notes:
Elisabeth Bristol Greenleaf [1895-1980]
Grace Yarrow Mansfield - Born in Armenia, Grace Yarrow was also the daughter of the ex-employer of Elizabeth Greenleaf's husband in the Near East.

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