Fatal Flower Garden by Nelstone's Hawaiians [Anthology Revisited - Song 2]
TL;DR - The song is a murder ballad, a Child ballad, and a murdered child Child ballad, with a dark backstory. But we may have new info about the performers.
Welcome back to Anthology Revisited. Today’s song is “Fatal Flower Garden” by Nelstone’s Hawaiians. Like “Henry Lee”, this is a murder ballad and a Child ballad. It’s also Child ballad about a child murder, and that isn’t even the most troubling thing about the song.
As discussed in the previous essay on “Henry Lee”, songs can go through all sorts of transformations over generations, and “Fatal Flower Garden” is yet another example such a song. Henry Lee is thought to have first appeared as the song “Young Hunting” in the 1700’s, but Fatal Flower Garden by Nelstone’s Hawaiians is based on “Sir Hugh”, (Child 155), which, as Smith notes, references an incident alleged to occur in the year 1255.
But first, the headline.
GAUDY WOMAN LURES CHILD FROM PLAYFELLOWS; STABS HIM AS VICTIM DICTATES MESSAGE TO PARENTS
This is a pretty spot on description of the song. The recording doesn’t directly mention a stabbing, and we’ll consult the Child ballads to clear the air and get to the rest of the story behind the headline.
But first, here’s the song. It’s called Fatal Flower Garden and was performed by Nelstone’s Hawaiians in Atlanta, Georgia on November 30, 1929 for RCA Victor.
Lyrics
It rained, it poured, it rained so hard,
It rained so hard all day,
That all the boys in our school
Came out to toss and play.They tossed a ball again so high,
Then again, so low;
They tossed it into a flower garden
Where no-one was allowed to go.Up stepped a gypsy lady,
All dressed in yellow and green;
“Come in, come in, my pretty little boy,
And get your ball again.”“I can’t come in, I shan’t come in
Without my playmates all;
I’ll go to my father and tell him about it,
That’ll cause tears to fall.”She first showed him an apple seed,
Then again gold rings,
Then she showed him a diamond,
That enticed him in.She took him by his lily-white hand,
She led him through the hall;
She put him in an upper room,
Where no-one could hear him call.“Oh, take these finger rings off my finger,
Smoke them with your breath;
If any of my friends should call for me,
Tell them that I’m at rest.”“Bury the Bible at my head,
A Testament at my feet;
If my dear mother should call for me,
Tell her that I’m asleep.”
“Bury the Bible at my feet,
A Testament at my head;
If my dear father should call for me,
Tell him that I am dead.”
The Performance
In this song, some boys are out playing ball after a rainstorm, when the ball lands in an old lady’s yard. One of the boys is elected to get the ball. The lady meets him at the gate, asks the boy to come in, offering him rings and diamonds. At first, he’s hesitant, but soon succumbs, following her inside. Once he’s inside, the song changes perspective and is told from the child’s point of view.
Once the perspective shifts, the boy acknowledges his impending demise and provides instructions on what to do afterwards. It’s a creepy song, with droning dual vocals telling the story in a chant-like cadence for verse after verse with no bridge, chorus, or refrain.
This performance is weird, creepy, but somehow kinda neat. Like Henry Lee before it, Fatal Flower Garden is in 3/4 time and bears a resemblance to what will eventually come to be known as country music. The haunting vocals float above the guitars, with the slide guitar adding to the spooky atmosphere of the song.
This is also one of those instances where the sound created by the imperfections in the media contribute to the listening experience. That “old record” sound can sometimes be a hindrance, but in this case, it adds to the spookiness of the song..
The Performers
Nelstone’s Hawaiians weren’t Hawaiian, and this isn’t Hawaiian music, but in the late 1920’s, the sound of the steel guitar became a stateside sensation. Alabamans Hubert Nelson (who played steel guitar) and James D. Touchstone (who played acoustic guitar) became a part of the phenomenon when they squished their last names together to form “Nelstone”, called themselves Hawaiians, and did two recording sessions (September 21, 1928 and October 30, 1929) for RCA Victor which yielded eight sides, as shown in the Discography of American Historical Recordings.
They didn’t set the world on fire, but they left a mark just the same. Not only was the pair immortalized on Smith’s Anthology, they are the first known hillbilly (or country) act to use slide guitar, and were the first performers to record the song “Just Because”, later recorded by many artists including Paul McCartney, Elvis Presley, and polka legend Frank Yankovic.
Here’s Nelstone’s Hawaiians 1929 recording of Just Because (and no, it’s not an instrumental, it just has a really long intro).
After those two sessions, little else was heard from the pair until their names appeared in the August 18, 1948 issue of Billboard in an article about how they and their publisher (Peer International Corporation) sued Columbia Records and Leeds Music (a music publishing company) for copyright infringement in an unnamed 1941 recording of Just Because.
The only information we have is from the Billboard article (pictured below).
I can’t locate information on any versions of the song from 1941, so I don’t know which version is referenced in the suit. Furthermore, I don’t know the outcome of the case, although I suspect the suit was tossed out as requested by the defense (Columbia and Leeds) because, among other things, the suit wasn’t brought before the court in a timely manner. On a speculative note, Frank Yankovic’s recording of “Just Because” was a massive hit in 1948, and this resurgence of interest in the song may have played a role in the case being filed, but this is merely speculation on my part.
Speaking of speculation…. To my knowledge, there is no further biographical information available about Nelstone’s Hawaiians. However, I’ve done some research and may have learned a little more about these two men.
Speculation
CAVEAT: As the heading implies, what follows is informed guesswork. It is not authoritative. I’m sharing the information I’ve gathered, and you can decide whether or not the individuals I’ve identified were the performers in question. If you have additional information that can confirm or refute the conclusions below, please email me (rodney.hargis [at] outlook[dot]com).
James D. Touchstone
On FamilySearch.org, I found a James Douglas Touchstone who was born in Columbus, Georgia on February 22, 1898 and died in Mobile, Alabama on January 7, 1937 and was buried in Magnolia Cemetery in Mobile, Alabama. This James D. Touchstone was drafted into World War I in 1917 and served in the Navy from April 1917 until August 1919. After discharge, Touchstone married Minnie Bell Hanson in 1920. The pair had two children, James A. in 1921 and Beulah in 1923. His wife died in 1934 at age 34, and this James D. Touchstone in 1937 at the age of 38.
The Nelstone’s Hawaiians recording sessions took place in 1928 and 1929, so the timeline fits. I found no records for anyone else with this name who lived in Alabama during this period, so I am inclined to believe I’ve located one of the performers.
Hubert Nelson
For Hubert Nelson, some work on Familysearch.org led me to two different men named Hubert Nelson, both of whom lived within 100 miles of Mobile, Alabama. Fortunately, the Discography of American Historical Recordings includes Nelson’s middle initial (Hubert A. Nelson), and that leaves us with only one possible match.
Hubert Angus Nelson was born on December 12, 1902 in northwestern Florida and died on January 9, 1985 in Mobile, Alabama and is buried at Pine Crest Cemetery in Mobile. According to the 1910 census, young Hubert and his family lived in Florida, and relocated to Mobile before the 1920 census. In 1924, Hubert married Minnie Rae Lyle with whom he fathered two sons (Hubert Jr., and Edgar) and appears to have remained in Mobile for the rest of his life. As with James D. Touchstone, this is the only person with this name who lived in the area and about whom any information could be located. As such, I’m somewhat confident this could be a match.
The Song
For this article, I did things a little differently, and introduced the performance and performers before doing a backstory of the song. I did this because what follows may alter your perspective of the song. I didn’t want the discussion of the performance and performers to be tainted by the dark story behind Fatal Flower Garden, and one child’s murder is only the beginning.
The extreme backstory
The events that inspired the original song occurred in the year 1255, but in order for it to make sense, I wanted to go back to the 1100’s for just a minute to provide some context for things.
Things were never easy for the French-speaking Jews who lived in 12th century England, but in the latter half of that century, they took a turn for the worse. In 1173, The Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich, a Latin hagiography (which means a biography of a saint) was written by a Benedictine monk named Thomas of Monmouth regarding a young boy named William from Norwich England. According to this text, William of Norwich was found dead in the forest after having been ritually murdered by Jews, and through this (and other things) had allegedly satisfied some qualifications for sainthood.
The truth differs from the tale Thomas of Monmouth put forth. There was a 12 year old William of Norwich who was, in fact, murdered on or around Easter Sunday in 1144. This murder was never solved, and because people are the way that they are, a rumor arose that William was killed by French-speaking Jews. This marked the first known accusation of blood libel in the medieval period.
If you’re not familiar with the term, blood libel is some antiquated antisemetic nonsense that says Jews kill young Christian children and use their blood in religious rituals. Some folks went so far as to claim that these children were stabbed through the hands, feet, and side before being stabbed through the heart or, in more extreme tales, by crucifixion. This entirely false, entirely stupid thing is actually something that people believed, and some Jews suffered horrible fates as a result.
Fast forward to the year 1255 when, The Annals of Waverly, (referenced by Smith in his liner notes) included the tale of young Hugh of Lincoln, who at 9 years old was led into a Jew’s garden where he was tortured and crucified by Jews to mock Christians. According to myth, the killers tried to hide the body in a well, but the body floated to the surface. So they buried him, but his body was expelled by the earth. It didn’t matter what they did, the body kept coming back, so they finally threw his body into a well. The body was ultimately discovered and according to myth, the act of touching the body restored the sight of a blind woman, among other events.
The story of Hugh of Lincoln was immortalized in the English ballad Sir Hugh, which came across the Atlantic, the word “gypsy” replaced “Jew” and the song eventually morphed into Fatal Flower Garden. It’s unclear when the song first appeared, but texts collected since the 1700’s show that the song references the 1255 tale of Hugh of Lincoln.
According to Harry Smith’s notes, Fatal Flower Garden most closely resembles Child 155G and 155K. I’ve included transcriptions of both below so you can see the variations of the tale.
https://sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/child/ch155.htm
155G: Sir Hugh, or the Jew’s Daughter
155G. Baltimore. IT rains, it rains in old Scotland, And down the rain does fa, And all the boys in our town Are out a playing at ba. 155G.2 ‘You toss your balls too high, my boys, You toss your balls too low; You’ll toss them into the Jew’s garden, Wherein you darst not go.’ 155G.3 Then out came one of the Jew’s daughters, All dressed in red and green: ‘Come in, come in, my pretty little boy, And get your ball again.’ 155G.4 ‘I winna come in, and I canna come in, Without my playmates all, And without the will of my mother dear, Which would cause my heart’s blood to fall.’ 155G.5 She shewed him an apple as green as grass, She shewed him a gay gold ring, She shewed him a cherry as red as blood, Which enticed the little boy in. 155G.6 She took him by the lily-white hand, And led him into the hall, And laid him on a dresser-board, And that was the worst of all. 155G.7 She laid the Bible at his head, The Prayer-Book at his feet, And with a penknife small She stuck him like a sheep. 155G.8 Six pretty maids took him by the head, And six took him by the feet, And threw him into a deep draw-well, That was eighteen fathoms deep. * * * * * 155G.9 ‘The lead is wondrous heavy, mother, The well is wondrous deep, A keen pen-knife sticks in my heart,And nae word more can I speak.’
155K: Sir Hugh, or the Jew’s Daughter
155K.1 IT hails, it rains, in Merry-Cock land, It hails, it rains, both great and small, And all the little children in Merry-Cock land They have need to play at ball. 155K.2 They tossd the ball so high, They tossd the ball so low, Amongst all the Jews’ cattle, And amongst the Jews below. 155K.3 Out came one of the Jew’s daughters, Dressed all in green; ‘Come, my sweet Saluter, And fetch the ball again.’ 155K.4 ‘I durst not come, I must not come, Unless all my little playfellows come along; For if my mother sees me at the gate, She’ll cause my blood to fall. 155K.5 ‘She showd me an apple as green as grass, She showd me a gay gold ring; She showd me a cherry as red as blood, And so she entic’d me in 155K.6 ‘She took me in the parlor, She took me in the kitchen, And there I saw my own dear nurse, A picking of a chicken. 155K.7 ‘She laid me down to sleep, With a Bible at my head and a Testament at my feet; And if my playfellows come to quere for me, Tell them I am asleep.’
Connections
As I’ve mentioned before, the sequencing of the tracks is of critical importance, and as we move from one song to the next, there’s a certain logic at play that ties the entire collection together. It’s a strange sort of mathematics that only Harry Smith knew for certain, but it’s a delightful way of assembling a collection of songs.
In the case of Fatal Flower Garden, it shares a number of traits with Henry Lee. First, as mentioned at the top, they’re both Child ballads and they’re both murder ballads. Additionally, the killer in both songs is a woman who lured the victim to their death, and each song refers to the victim’s “lily white hands”. Also, while not in the Anthology recording, the source ballad says the child is killed by a pen-knife and his body disposed of in a well.
Musically speaking, both songs are in 3/4 time, feature guitar and vocals and were considered “hillbilly” records (the primary stylistic precursor to country music) upon release.
Other Interpretations
Here are some other recordings of the song. I’ve included two versions of “Fatal Flower Garden”, one of “Little Sir Hugh” performed by a full band, and two unaccompanied vocal performances.
Peggy Seeger’s version of “Fatal Flower Garden”
Gavin Friday’s version of “Fatal Flower Garden” from the 2006 release “The Harry Smith Project - Anthology of American Folk Music Revisited”
Steeleye Span's 1975 recording of "Little Sir Hugh"
Ewan MacColl’s 1967 unaccompanied vocal performance of “Sir Hugh”
A.L. Lloyd's unaccompanied vocal performance of "Sir Hugh"
Conclusion
Thanks for reading. This adventure marches on, and I couldn’t have done it without the work of many other people over the years. The resources I consulted when writing this analysis are below, and if you’re interested in learning more, they’re a great place to start.
If you have any corrections, suggestions, or additional information I didn’t cover, please share it in the comments. If you appreciate this series, please subscribe and share it with folks you think might enjoy it.
Next time, we’ll be discussing Clarence Ashley’s recording of “The House Carpenter” from 1930. Should I mention that it’s a Child Ballad that features betrayal and death? Or does that go without saying?
Sources
August 18, 1948 issue of Billboard
https://books.google.com/books?id=tkUEAAAAMBAJ&dq=James%20D.%20Touchstone&pg=PT18#v=onepage&q&f=false
James Douglas Touchstone (FamilySearch)
https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/about/GD4X-Y2T
James Douglas Touchstone (Find a Grave)
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/60646874/james_douglas-touchstone
Hubert A. Nelson (FamilySearch)
https://www.familysearch.org/en/tree/person/about/G9ZV-Q96
Hubert A. Nelson (Find A Grave)
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/50661678/hubert-a-nelson
Hubert A. Nelson (DAHR)
https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/mastertalent/detail/207231/Nelson_Hubert_A
The Life and Miracles of St William of Norwich - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Life_and_Miracles_of_St_William_of_Norwich
William of Norwich - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Norwich
Blood Libel - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel
Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Saint_Hugh_of_Lincoln
Sir Hugh - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Hugh
The Child Ballads: 155. Sir Hugh, or the Jew's Daughter
https://sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/child/ch155.htm
Nelstone's Hawaiians - Discography of American Historical Recordings https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/mastertalent/detail/333615/Nelstones_Hawaiians
"Fatal Flower Garden" - Nelstone's Hawaiians
https://theanthologyofamericanfolkmusic.blogspot.com/2009/10/fatal-flower-garden-nelstones-hawaiians.html
2 “Fatal Flower Garden” by Nelstone’s Hawaiians | My Old Weird America
https://oldweirdamerica.wordpress.com/2008/11/26/2-fatal-flower-garden-by-nelstones-hawaiians/
The Child Ballads: 155. Sir Hugh, or the Jew's Daughter
https://sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/child/ch155.htm
Old Songs: The Fatal Flower Garden
https://www.lizlyle.lofgrens.org/RmOlSngs/RTOS-FatalFlow.html
Digging for Clues in the Fatal Flower Garden - Sing Out! (Published in 2015 in 3 parts. Part one is available on the SingOut website, while parts 2 and 3 can be found in the Internet Archive.)
https://singout.org/fatal-flower-garden/
https://web.archive.org/web/20150909030533/http://singout.org/2015/03/09/fatal-flower-garden/2/
https://web.archive.org/web/20150912184456/http://singout.org/2015/03/09/fatal-flower-garden/3/