BOLAKINS (LAMKIN)
Created on 06/12/2021Latest update on 22/11/2025
Artist: Mrs. Lena Bare Turbyfill
Author: traditional
Label: L.o.C.
Year: 1939
Field recording in Elk Park, NC by Herbert Halpert. Child ballad #93, Roud #6. Lyrics circulated on broadside printed by John Pitts in London c.1820. Cecil Sharp & Maud Karpeles collected it from Cis Jones as Lamkin in Clay County, Kentucky in 1917. She first refused to sing it, being member of the Holiness Sect (Holy Roller). Sharp knew the song since 1909, when he collected it from Sister Emma, a nun in Clewer, Berkshire. Same song was mentioned in Thomas Wright's Romance Of The Lace Pillow (1924) situated in textile workhouses in Buckinhamshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire in the second half of the nineteenth century, where this was a hit, one of the most bloodthirsty songs in the folk repertoire! Gave its name to Dublin band Lankum.
Covers:
- 1955:
Frank Proffitt [as Bo Lamkin; Frank Warner recording in Reese, North Carolina]
- 1955:
Ben Butcher [as Cruel Lincoln, released in '88 on The Voice Of The People Vol. 3]
- 1956:
Ed McCurdy [with Erik Darling as Lamkins on Elektra album Blood, Booze & Bones; goree lyrics indeed]
- 1956:
A.L. Lloyd [as Long Lankin]
- 1966:
Ewan MacColl [as Lamkin]
- 1966:
Peggy Seeger [as Lammikin]
- 1967:
Hedy West [as Beaulampkin]
- 1975:
Steeleye Span [as Long Lankin]
- 1976:
Martin Simpson [as Beaulampkin]
- 1993:
Martin Carthy & Dave Swarbrick [as Long Lankin]
- 2016:
Shirley Collins [as Cruel Lincoln onp Lodestar]
Bolakins, the finest mason that ever laid stone, He built a fine castle, and pay he got none. Was Lamkin or Lambkin one of these masons from Flanders (Lambert? Raskin?) reputed for their outstanding professional skills? Fact is many of them made their way overseas to the British Isles during the middle ages. This one surely made history for the gory way he took revenge not being paid properly.
