"Fair Charlotte" (or "Young Charlotte") (
Laws
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vari ...
G17)
is an American
folk ballad.
Story
The story is a
cautionary tale
A cautionary tale is a tale told in folklore to warn its listener of a danger. There are three essential parts to a cautionary tale, though they can be introduced in a large variety of ways. First, a taboo or prohibition is stated: some act, lo ...
concerning a young girl called Charlotte who refused to wrap up warmly to go on a
sleigh
A sled, skid, sledge, or sleigh is a land vehicle that slides across a surface, usually of ice or snow. It is built with either a smooth underside or a separate body supported by two or more smooth, relatively narrow, longitudinal runners s ...
ride to a
New Year's ball. Upon arriving at the ball, her fiancé discovers that she has frozen to death during the journey.
Origins
The ballad of "Fair Charlotte" is based on a poem by
Seba Smith
Seba Smith (September 14, 1792 – July 28, 1868) was an American humorist and writer. He was married to Elizabeth Oakes Smith, also a writer, and he was the father of Appleton Oaksmith.
Biography
Born in Buckfield, Maine, Smith graduated from ...
that was first published in ''
The Rover'', a Maine newspaper, on December 28, 1843, under the title ''A Corpse Going To A Ball''.
[Cohen, Norm: ''Folk Music: A Regional Exploration'', p. 24-25 (America, 2005) ] According to folklorist
Phillips Barry, Smith's composition was based on an incident recounted in an 1840 ''New York Observer'' article of the same name. The story from the "New York Observer" was entitled "A Corpse Going To a Ball" and was reprinted in an Ohio Newspaper: "Ohio Democrat and Dover Advertiser" February 28, 1840 p. 1 the article claimed that the incident in question had happened on January 1, 1840; it also claimed that this report was true
et gave ''no location of the accident'' likewise it also mentioned at the very beginning a tale called "Death at the Toilet" which in turn came from an 1838 work called "Passages from the Diary of a London Physician". The "Death at the Toilet" told of a vain young woman who was determined to go a ball despite the fact that she suffers from heart problems; because of Cold weather in her room she is found dead at her toilet while primping herself for the ball; the moral of the story is a diatribe against vanity-"...I have seen many hundreds of corpses, as well in the calm composure of natural death, as mangled and distorted by violence;but never have I seen so startling a satire upon human vanity, so repulsive, unsightly, and loathsome a spectacle as ''a corpse dressed for a ball''!." Other Newspapers which reprinted the story were the "Vermont Telegraph" and "Southern Argus" March 3, 1840 of Columbus Mississippi.
Library of Congress Chronicling American retrieved July 9, 2018
/ref> A version of Smith's poem was subsequently set to music, leading to the creation of the ballad.
During the 20th century, a version of the ballad was sung by Almeda Riddle under the title "Young Carlotta".[
]
See also
* Springfield Mountain
"On Springfield Mountain" or "Springfield Mountain" (Laws G16) is an American ballad which recounts the tragic death of a young man who is bitten by a rattlesnake while mowing a field. Historically, the song refers to the death of Timothy Merrick, ...
, another cautionary folk ballad situated in New England, about a boy who is bitten by a rattlesnake. The two ballads are often cited together as examples of narrative verse representative of obituary tradition.
* Frozen Charlotte, a porcelain doll named after the ballad.
External links
Text of the Seba Smith poem
References
{{authority control
American folk songs
Year of song unknown
Songwriter unknown
Urban legends
Folklore
Traditional stories
Songs about fictional female characters