{{Infobox song | name = (On) Springfield Mountain | cover = Springfield Mountain Molly Type staff music.png | alt = | caption = Melody and verse to a "Molly type" variation of the ballad | published = Late 18th or early 19th century | genre = Ballad, Folk song }} "'''On Springfield Mountain'''" or "'''Springfield Mountain'''" (Laws G16)<ref name="Laws">{{cite book | title=Native American Balladry: A Descriptive Study and a Bibliographic Syllabus | publisher=The American Folklore Society | author=Laws, G. Malcolm | year=1964 | location=Philadelphia | pages=220 | isbn=0-292-73500-6}}</ref> is an American ballad which recounts the tragic death of a young man who is bitten by a rattlesnake while mowing a field.<ref name="Jordan">{{cite journal | jstor=535405 | title=Notes and Queries | author=Jordan, Philip D. | journal=Journal of American Folk-Lore |date=July–September 1936 | volume=49 | issue=193 | pages=263–265}}</ref> Historically, the song refers to the death of Timothy Merrick, who was recorded to have died on August 7, 1761, in Wilbraham, Massachusetts by snakebite. It is commonly included in collections of American folksong, and is one of the earliest known American ballads.<ref name="Downes">{{cite book | title=A Treasury of American Song | publisher=Howell, Soskin & Co. | author=Downes, Olin | author-link=Springfield Mountain | year=1940 | location=New York | pages=32–3 | last2=Siegmeister | first2=Elie}}</ref><ref>"New York Folklore 1988</ref><ref>National Broadcasting Company, ''Music of the New World: Handbook, Vols 1-2'' p. 43</ref><ref name="Toelken">{{cite book | author-link1=Barre Toelken | title=The Dynamics of Folklore | publisher=Houghton Mifflin Company | author=Toelken, Barre | year=1979 | location=Boston | pages=[https://archive.org/details/dynamicsoffolklo0000toel/page/349 349–50] | isbn=0-395-27068-5 | url-access=registration | url=https://archive.org/details/dynamicsoffolklo0000toel/page/349 }}</ref>
The ballad has been cited as representative of elegiac verse tradition which later gained status as folklore throughout the United States. Due to its popularity, there exist many variations of the ballad and its narrative. Although the song is now accompanied by its own distinct melody, early performances of the ballad were sung to other airs, including "Old Hundredth"<ref name="Coffin - On a Peak - 202">{{cite book | url=https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38304/m1/210/sizes/m/ | title=In A Good Tale and a Bonnie Tune | publisher=Southern Methodist University Press | author=Coffin, Tristam | author-link=On A Peak in Massachusetts: The Literary and Aesthetic Approach | year=1964 | location=Dallas, Texas | pages=205, 207}}</ref> and "Merrily Danced the Quaker's Wife".<ref name="Flanders">{{cite book | title=The New Green Mountain Songster | publisher=Yale University Press | author=Flanders, Helen Hartness | author-link=Springfield Mountain | year=1939 | location=New Haven | pages=161 | first2 = Ballard | last2 = Elizabeth | last3 = Brown | first3 = George | first4 = Barry | last4 = Phillips }}</ref>
==Historical basis== Research efforts by several local historians have uncovered biographical and historical context surrounding the incident. Charles Merrick{{Please clarify|Related to the deceased, and if so, how?|date=March 2026}} claimed Wilbraham, Massachusetts to be the site of the 1761 snakebite fatality.<ref name="Merrick">{{cite book | title=History of Wilbraham, U.S.A., 1763-1963 | publisher=Polygraphic Company of America | author=Merrick, Charles | year=1964 | location=Massachusetts | last2=Foster | first2=Philip}}</ref> Chauncey Peck's 1913 ''History of Wilbraham'' relates that it occurred "70 to 90 rods southwest of the boy's home,"<ref name="Peck 1">{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924028839938 | title=The History of Wilbraham, Massachusetts | author=Peck, Chauncey Edwin | year=1914 | location=Wilbraham, Massachusetts | pages=[https://archive.org/details/cu31924028839938/page/n97 80]–6}}</ref> placing it within current-day Hampden borders.<ref>Carl Howlett, "On Springfield Mountains" in ''The Country Press'' Vol 2 No. 11, Nov 21, 1961.{{full citation needed|date=June 2013}}</ref>
There exists some disagreement among folklorists with regards to the ballad's lyrics. Scholar Phillips Barry did not believe the ballad to predate 1825;<ref name="Davidson">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MX_BjbrJlGsC&pg=PA105 | title=Still Rebels, Still Yankees: And Other Essays | publisher=Louisiana State University Press | author=Davidson, Donald | author-link=The Tradition of Irreverence | year=1972 | pages=110 | isbn=0807124893}}</ref> Tristram Coffin later rejected this claim as short-sighted, and held that the ballad might be derived from older elegiac verse about the incident.<ref name="Limon">{{cite journal | jstor=4137861 | title=Américo Paredes: Ballad Scholar (Phillips Barry Lecture, 2004) | author=Limón, José E. | journal=The Journal of American Folklore |date=Winter 2007 | volume=120 | issue=475 | pages=3–4 | doi=10.1353/jaf.2007.0019| s2cid=161766225 }}</ref>{{sfn|Coffin|1964}} Other authors note that no written versions were found until 1836 (or 1840, with melody).<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ncIMAAAAYAAJ&q=%22by+the+fact+that+the+earliest+printed%22|title=The Bay and the River: 1600-1900|publisher=Boston University|year=1982|isbn=9781946083166}}</ref>
==Variants and adaptations==
The events related in the lyrics have been adapted outside of song, including stage performances and other ballads that include embellished details of the event. Alternative titles include "Ballad of Springfield Mountain",<ref name="New York Folklore 1988">''New York Folklore'' Vol. 14, 1988, p. 123</ref> "The Springfield Ballad", "On Springfield Mountains",<ref name="Middlebury Register 1855">{{cite news | url=http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025667/1855-05-30/ed-1/seq-1/#words=ballad+Ballad&date1=1836&rows=20&searchType=basic&state=Vermont&date2=1922&proxtext=ballad&y=23&x=24&dateFilterType=yearRange&index=6 | title=The Springfield Ballad | work=The Middlebury Register | date=May 30, 1855 | access-date=March 31, 2013 | location=Middlebury, Vermont | pages=1}}</ref> "The Pizing Sarpent",{{sfn|Jordan|1936|p=118}} "The Pesky Sarpent", "Stuttering Song",<ref name="FMI">{{cite web | url=http://www.ibiblio.org/keefer/s16.htm#Sprmo | title=Folk Music Index | publisher=Ibiblio | year=2011 | access-date=March 31, 2013 | author=Keefer, Jane}}</ref> "The Story of Timothy Mirick", and "Elegy on a/the Young Man Bitten by a Rattlesnake".{{citation needed|date=March 2013}} In variations which feature the character Timothy Mettick, his name is occasionally spelled "Mirick" or "Myrick".{{sfn|Merrick|1964|p=311}}
One "entirely serious" version was recorded by George Brown from Mr. Josiah S. Kennison of Townshend, Vermont, and published in ''Vermont Folk-Songs & Ballads'' in 1931.<ref name="FlandersBrown1931">{{cite book|author1=Helen Hartness Flanders|author2=George Brown|title=Vermont Folk-songs & Ballads|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MNzWAAAAMAAJ&q=%22On+Springfield+Mountain+Recorded+by+Mr.+Brown+in+Townshend%22|year=1931|publisher=Folklore Associates}}</ref>
==Lyrical variations==
==="Molly type" version===
In one variation of the ballad published in Flanders's ''The New Green Mountain Songster'' and collected by C.M. Cobb, it is sung with melisma on the last syllable of each verse, which is drawn out over two nonsense diphthongs vowels. In addition, this variation features a four-bar refrain at the end of each verse. This later development of the ballad uses characters Tommy Blake and Molly Bland in place of Timothy and Sarah. Molly attempts to suck out the poison and dies in the process.{{sfn|Merrick|1964|p=311}}{{sfn|Flanders|1939|p=160}}
===Woody Guthrie version===
The song has also found popularity outside of New England folk tradition. Folk singer Woody Guthrie, who claimed his mother sang it to him as a child,<ref name="Reuss">{{cite journal | jstor=538806 | title=Woody Guthrie and His Folk Tradition | author=Reuss, Richard A. | journal=The Journal of American Folklore |date=Jul–Sep 1970 | volume=83 | issue=329 | pages=284| doi=10.2307/538806 }}</ref> covered the song with Sonny Terry, Cisco Houston, and Bess Hawes on the album Woody Guthrie Sings Folk Songs. This rendition incorporated nonsense lyrics into each verse line.
==See also==
* Rattlesnake Mountain (song), a popular variant of the ballad. * Fair Charlotte, another cautionary folk ballad situated in New England, about a girl who freezes to death during a sleigh-ride. The two ballads are often cited together as examples of narrative verse representative of an American obituary tradition.
==References== <references> Merrick, Charles L., "History of Wilbraham", Vermont, Polygraphic Company of America, Inc, 1964 </references>
Category:Folk ballads Category:Traditional ballads Category:American folk songs Category:Songs of the American Civil War