“The Country Girl (The Fair Maid of the West)”
Description
The "country girl" goes to the fair, and asks the merchant for a bonnet. Having no other money, she pays with her maidenhead. She goes home and tells her mother, who tells her to get it back. The merchant lays her down again and gives it back
Notes
Logsdon thinks this a version of "The Fair Maid of the West Who Sold Her Maidenhead for a High-Crowned Hat." Obviously it has the same introduction. Yet the plot is the same as "The Widow of Westmoreland's Daughter." Personally, I suspect these are the same song (or, rather, that this and "The Fair Maid" are both worn-down forms of the "Widow"); the theme of having sex once to lose a maidenhead, and then having it again (perhaps with positions reversed) to regain seems unlikely to have been independently invented. But I'm splitting them tentatively until more versions turn up. - RBW
Cross references
- cf. "The Widow of Westmoreland's Daughter" (theme of regaining maidenhead)
References
- Logsdon 42, pp. 219-221, "The Country Girl" (1 text, 1 tune)
- Roud #10099
- BI, Logs042