Barbara Allen- Grogan (NC) 1914 Smith/ Brown O
[No date given, before 1943. From the Brown Collection; Volume 2, 1952; with music in Part 4 added to Part 2. There are also several additional texts in Part 4. The Brown editors' notes follow.
Unfortunately I consider all of Thomas Smith's contributions suspect largely because of the ballads he and his brother supplied to Kyle Davis Jr. in the 1930s after he moved to Virginia. There is no indication this particular contribution is suspect.
R. Matteson 2015]
27. Bonny Barbara Allan (Child 84)
Of all the ballads in the Child collection this is easily the most widely known and sung, both in the old country and in America. Scarcely a single regional gathering of ballads but has it, and it has been published in unnumbered popular songbooks. See BSM 60-1. Mrs. Eckstorm in a letter written in 1940 informed me that she and Barry had satisfied themselves, before Barry's death, that as sung by Mrs. Knipp to the delight of Samuel Pepys in 1666 it was not a stage song at all but a libel on Barbara Villiers and her relations with Charles II; but so far as I know the details of their argument have never been published. The numerous texts in the North Carolina collection may conveniently be grouped according to the setting in three divisions: (1) those that begin in the first person of Barbara's lover (or at least of the narrator), (2) those that begin with a springtime setting, and (3) those that begin with an autumnal setting. Of course those in group 1 may also have either the springtime or the autumnal setting. The rose-and-brier ending is likely to be attached to any of the texts. The lover's bequests to Barbara, a feature not infrequent in modern British versions but unusual in America, appears once in the North Carolina texts, in F. The first person of the lover commonly is dropped after the opening stanza, but in F it holds through four stanzas. Not all of the texts are given in full.
O. 'Barbara Allen.' Reported by Thomas Smith of Zionville, Watauga county, from the singing of Mrs. Julia Grogan. Text sent to C. A. Smith in 1914 and afterwards to the Brown Collection.
1. Early, early in the spring,
When the flower buds were a-swellin',
Sweet Willie he was taken sick
For the love of Barbara Allen.
2 He sent his servant to the town
Where Barbara was a-dwellin' :
'My master said for you to come
If your name be Barbara Allen.'
3 Slowly, slowly she came up
And slowly she went near him,
And all she said when she got there,
'Young man, I think you are dyin'.'
4 'Oh yes, oh yes, I am very low,
And death is in me dwellin';
No better will I ever be
Till I get Barbara Allen.'
5 'Oh yes, you are very low.
And death is in you dwellin .
No better will you ever be
By getting Barbara Allen.
6 'Don't you remember in yonder town
Where you were all a-drinkin'?
You drank to the health of the ladies round
And you slighted Barbara Allen.'
7 'Oh, yes, I remember in yonder town
Where we were all a-drinkin',
I drank a health to the ladies round
And my love to Barbara Allen.'
8 Slowly, slowly she rose up
And slowly she went from him.
'It's if you die, and die you must,
You'll never get Barbara Allen.'
9 She had not got a mile away
Till she heard the death bells tollin'.
And every stroke they seemed to say
'Hard-hearted Barbara Allen.'
10 She looked to the east, she looked to the west,
And saw the corpse a-comin'.
'Oh, lay him down, oh, lay him down
So I may look upon him!'
11 The more she looked, the more she sighed
Until she burst out cryin'.
And she cried until the day she died
For the love of Willie Harrell.
12 'Oh, mother, make my dying bed,
And make it soft and narrow.
Sweet Willie died for me today,
I will die for him tomorrow.'
13 Sweet Willie was buried in the new churchyard
And Barbara buried beside him.
Out of his grave grew a red rose bush
And out of hers a brier.
14 They grew till they reached the church top,
And there they could grow no higher.
And there they entwined in a true love knot,
The rose bush and the brier.