Uploaded August 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
Two Brothers / Twa Brithers / Two Pretty Boys / Rolling of the Stones / Little Schoolboy / Jessel Town / The Twa Brothers (Child No. 49) - Sung by Mrs. Orilla "Orella" Mildred Madison Keyton (1880–1953) of Mount Fair, Albemarle County, Virginia, USA. Recorded by Arthur Kyle Davis Jr. on March 10, 1933. Cecil Sharp and Maud Karpeles collected songs from Mrs. Keeton (s.p) in 1916 but they seem to have missed her version of this ballad.
00:00:00 The Two Brothers - Orilla Keyton
00:03:41 The Two Brothers - Mary Wood Shiflett
00:07:27 The Two Brothers (Old Transfer) - Florence Puckett
00:09:22 The Two Brothers (New Transfer) - Florence Puckett
An excellent article by Mike Yates on Cecil Sharp's and Maud Karpeles' Appalachia trip in the 1910s can be read here: mustrad.org.uk/articles/sharp.htm
A selection of 1930s phonograph recordings made by folklorist Arthur Kyle Davis Jr. (1897–1972) of Virginia ballad singers has been digitised and made available for listening online: https://avalon.lib.virginia.edu/collections/7m01bk901
We get a chance to listen to some of the very same people Cecil Sharp and Maud Karpeles met and noted songs from in the 1910s.
The audio quality of these recordings is relatively poor, being made with portable equipment at that time, but the songs are interesting and worthy of attention. I had the idea of creating small compilations of related versions of each song for these videos. This is because I noticed that I often had more than one recording of each song available from singers who were related or lived in the same area.
Arthur K. Davis Jr. published the hundreds of Virginia ballads he collected in two books, "Folk-Songs of Virginia" (1949), and "More Traditional Ballads of Virginia" (1960) with the editorial assistance of Paul Clayton Worthington.
Note by Kevin W.:
This is an old version of The Twa Brothers (Child 49). It has a ghost ending resembling The Unquiet Grave (Child 78), like Child's Version B text. It had some currency in Albemarle County, Virginia and was noted from members of the Shiflett family and other singers in the area. It's the most complete text of this interesting form of the ballad known to me. The Unquiet Grave as its own ballad is also rare in America.
George Foss' account of the Brown's Cove, Albemarle County singers is well worth a read: klein-shiflett.com/shifletfamily/HHI/GeorgeFoss/whall.html
Compare this text to Child 49 Version B, from Motherwell's Manuscript, noted in 1825: http://71.174.62.16/Demo/LongerHarvest?Text=Child_d04902
The ending with Loving Susie raising the dead brother from the grave and asking for a kiss seems strangely incongruent with the opening which suggests little boys going to school. The brothers were meant to be young noblemen, not little boys. A similar degradation happened to US texts of "The Wife of Usher's Well" (Child 79). The murder may have happened out of rivalry over Loving Susie in this version. This is different from Scottish texts of recent tradition where the killing is accidental and no female love interest is mentioned.
Song transcription:
There were two brothers in one school.
One evening coming home
The oldest said to the youngest one,
"Let's have a wrastle and fall."
The oldest threw the youngest one,
He threw him to the ground,
And out of his pocket he drew a penknife
And gave him a deadly wound.
"Pull off, pull off, your woolen shirt,
And tear it from gore to gore,
And wrap it around your bleeding wound,
Then you will bleed no more.''
So he pulled off his woolen shirt,
And tore it from gore to gore,
An-a wrapped it around his bleeding wound,
Till he did bleed no more.
"Pick me all up upon your back,
And carry me to yonders churchyard,
And dig my grave both wide and deep,
And gently lay me down."
"What must I tell your loving father,
When he calls for his son John?"
"Tell him I'm in some lonely green wood,
Teaching young hounds to run."
What must I tell your loving mother,
When she calls for her son John?"
"Tell her I'm in some graded school,
Say, "A good scholar never returns."
"What must I tell your loving Sue,
When she calls for her dear John?"
"Tell her I'm in my lowly grave,
My books to carry back home."
When-a this young Susy heard of this,
She took the horn and blew,
She charmed the birds all from the nest
And the fishes out of the sea.
She charmed young Johnny from his grave,
Said, "Susy, what do you want?"
"One sweet kiss from your sweet lips
Is all my heart does crave."
"Go home, go home, my loving Susy,
And weep no more for me,
For one sweet kiss from my sweet lips
Will solve your day short on." [*]
[*] short on = shorten. Kissing the lips of the dead will "shorten your days" (it will kill you)
Two Brothers / Twa Brithers / Two Pretty Boys / Rolling of the Stones / Little Schoolboy / Jessel Town / The Twa Brothers (Child No. 49) - Sung by Mrs. Orilla "Orella" Mildred Madison Keyton (1880–1953) of Mount Fair, Albemarle County, Virginia, USA. Recorded by Arthur Kyle Davis Jr. on March 10, 1933. Cecil Sharp and Maud Karpeles collected songs from Mrs. Keeton (s.p) in 1916 but they seem to have missed her version of this ballad.
00:00:00 The Two Brothers - Orilla Keyton
00:03:41 The Two Brothers - Mary Wood Shiflett
00:07:27 The Two Brothers (Old Transfer) - Florence Puckett
00:09:22 The Two Brothers (New Transfer) - Florence Puckett
An excellent article by Mike Yates on Cecil Sharp's and Maud Karpeles' Appalachia trip in the 1910s can be read here: mustrad.org.uk/articles/sharp.htm
A selection of 1930s phonograph recordings made by folklorist Arthur Kyle Davis Jr. (1897–1972) of Virginia ballad singers has been digitised and made available for listening online: https://avalon.lib.virginia.edu/collections/7m01bk901
We get a chance to listen to some of the very same people Cecil Sharp and Maud Karpeles met and noted songs from in the 1910s.
The audio quality of these recordings is relatively poor, being made with portable equipment at that time, but the songs are interesting and worthy of attention. I had the idea of creating small compilations of related versions of each song for these videos. This is because I noticed that I often had more than one recording of each song available from singers who were related or lived in the same area.
Arthur K. Davis Jr. published the hundreds of Virginia ballads he collected in two books, "Folk-Songs of Virginia" (1949), and "More Traditional Ballads of Virginia" (1960) with the editorial assistance of Paul Clayton Worthington.
Note by Kevin W.:
This is an old version of The Twa Brothers (Child 49). It has a ghost ending resembling The Unquiet Grave (Child 78), like Child's Version B text. It had some currency in Albemarle County, Virginia and was noted from members of the Shiflett family and other singers in the area. It's the most complete text of this interesting form of the ballad known to me. The Unquiet Grave as its own ballad is also rare in America.
George Foss' account of the Brown's Cove, Albemarle County singers is well worth a read: klein-shiflett.com/shifletfamily/HHI/GeorgeFoss/whall.html
Compare this text to Child 49 Version B, from Motherwell's Manuscript, noted in 1825: http://71.174.62.16/Demo/LongerHarvest?Text=Child_d04902
The ending with Loving Susie raising the dead brother from the grave and asking for a kiss seems strangely incongruent with the opening which suggests little boys going to school. The brothers were meant to be young noblemen, not little boys. A similar degradation happened to US texts of "The Wife of Usher's Well" (Child 79). The murder may have happened out of rivalry over Loving Susie in this version. This is different from Scottish texts of recent tradition where the killing is accidental and no female love interest is mentioned.
Song transcription:
There were two brothers in one school.
One evening coming home
The oldest said to the youngest one,
"Let's have a wrastle and fall."
The oldest threw the youngest one,
He threw him to the ground,
And out of his pocket he drew a penknife
And gave him a deadly wound.
"Pull off, pull off, your woolen shirt,
And tear it from gore to gore,
And wrap it around your bleeding wound,
Then you will bleed no more.''
So he pulled off his woolen shirt,
And tore it from gore to gore,
An-a wrapped it around his bleeding wound,
Till he did bleed no more.
"Pick me all up upon your back,
And carry me to yonders churchyard,
And dig my grave both wide and deep,
And gently lay me down."
"What must I tell your loving father,
When he calls for his son John?"
"Tell him I'm in some lonely green wood,
Teaching young hounds to run."
What must I tell your loving mother,
When she calls for her son John?"
"Tell her I'm in some graded school,
Say, "A good scholar never returns."
"What must I tell your loving Sue,
When she calls for her dear John?"
"Tell her I'm in my lowly grave,
My books to carry back home."
When-a this young Susy heard of this,
She took the horn and blew,
She charmed the birds all from the nest
And the fishes out of the sea.
She charmed young Johnny from his grave,
Said, "Susy, what do you want?"
"One sweet kiss from your sweet lips
Is all my heart does crave."
"Go home, go home, my loving Susy,
And weep no more for me,
For one sweet kiss from my sweet lips
Will solve your day short on." [*]
[*] short on = shorten. Kissing the lips of the dead will "shorten your days" (it will kill you)
