A very, very old song.


Cas Wallin at the home of his sister-in-law, Dellie Chandler Norton, in the Burton Cove, Sodom Laurel, Madison County, North Carolina.

Shot by Alan Lomax and crew in September 1982.


"Pretty Saro" is an English folk ballad originating in the early 1700s. The song died out in England by the mid eighteenth century but was rediscovered in North America in the early twentieth century where it had been preserved in the Appalachian Mountains through oral traditions. The work of Cecil Sharp is credited for keeping songs such as Pretty Saro and others, alive well into modern times.

Here's the video of the woman next to him, his sister in-law Dellie Chandler Norton: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=dc2_1317846239


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cas_wallin


Traditional lyrics:

"When first to this country a stranger I came
I placed my affections on a handsome young dame
I looked all around me and I was alone
Yes me a young stranger and a long ways from home

Pretty Saro Pretty Saro I love you I know
I love you Pretty Saro where ever I go
No toung can express it no poet can tell
How truely I love you yes I love you so well

If I were a poet and could write a fine hand
I'd write my true love a letter that she might understand
I would send it by the waters that dont overflow
And think of Pretty Saro wherever I go

My love she don't love me as I understand
She wants some freeholder and I have no land
But I can maintain her with silver and gold
Or all of the fine things that my loves house could hold

Its not the long journey Im dreading to go
Or leaving this country for the debts that I owe
There is but one thing that troubles my mind
Thats a leaving Pretty Saro my true love behind

Farewell my dear father likewise mother too
Im going to ramble this country all through
When I get tired I'll sit down and weep
And think of Pretty Saro wherever she be

I love you Pretty Saro I love you I know
I love you Pretty Saro wherever I go
On the banks of the ocean or the mountains sad brow
I loved you then dearly and I still love you now"