Barbara Allen- Meredith (NC) 1923 Brown D
[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. Additional text from Abrams MS.
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.
D. 'Barbara Allen.' Contributed in 1923 by Miss Flora Marie Meredith of Durham. It is the same version as A but fuller, and is therefore given.
1. In Scarlet Town where I was born
There was a fair maid dwelling,
And every youth cried 'Well aware, [1]
Unworthy Barbara Allen!'
2. In the merry month of May,
When green buds they were swelling,
Young Jimmie Grove on his deathbed was lying
For the love of Barbara Allen.
3 He sent his man into the town,
To the place where she did dwell in,
Saying, 'You must come to my master,
If your name be Barbara Allen.
4 'For death is painted on his face
And o'er his breast be stealing;
I [2] haste away to comfort him,
lovely Barbara Allen!'
5 'If death be painted on his face
What needs the tale he's telling?
Yet little the better shall he be
For bonny Barbara Allen.'
6 So slowly, slowly she came down
And slowly she came nigh him.
And all she said when there she came
Was 'Young man, I think you're dying.'
7 He turned his face unto her straight,
With deadly sorrow saying,
Oh, pretty miss, come pity me,
For I'm on my death bed lying.'
8 'If on your death bed you do be,
What needs the tale you're telling?
I cannot keep you from your death.
Farewell,' says Barbara Allen.
9 As she was walking o'er the field
She heard the church bell knelling,
And every stroke appeared to say
'Unworthy Barbara Allen.'
10 She turned herself around about
And spied the corpse coming.
'Lie down, lie down the corpse,' she cried,
'That I may look upon him.'
11 With scornful eyes she looked down,
Her cheeks with laughter swelling,
And all her friends cried out 'Amen,[3]
Unworthy Barbara Allen.'
12 When he was dead and laid in grave
Her heart was struck with sorrow,
Saying 'Mother, mother, make my bed,
For I shall die tomorrow.
13 'Hard-hearted creature him to slight
Who loved me so dearly.
Oh, had I been more kind to him
When he was alive and near me !
14 'Farewell, farewell, ye virgins all,
And shun the fault I did him;
Henceforth take warning of the fault
Of cruel Barbara Allen.'
1. This looks like a folk-etymologizing of the archaic "well-a-way."
2. Probably an error, of hearing or writing, for "Oh."
3. amain: