Barbara Allen- student (MS) pre-1936 Hudson P
[From Arthur Palmer Hudson's Folksongs of Mississippi, 1936. Hudson's notes follow.
R. Matteson 2015]
BONNY BARBARA ALLEN
(Child, No. 84)
As is the case in other Southern states the balladry of which has been extensively gleaned, so in Mississippi this is the best known of the traditional English and Scottish ballads. The Mississippi collection made under my direction contains sixteen texts, and the number might easily have been doubled. All these are fairly complete; each has some distinctive feature or features.
Since the number of texts is so large, it is deemed permissible to omit from some of them stanzas practically identical with those given in full length texts and to reproduce only those stanzas of some texts that have interesting or significant variant details.
P. Barbara Allen. From MS. copy sent me by Miss Annie Laurie Roberts, Poplarville. The copy was made from memory by one of Miss Roberts' pupils in the Pearl River County Agricultural High School, who failed to write his or her name on the two sheets containing the ballad. It has some interesting minor variations, and since the copy is anonymous, I give it in full, preserving the writer's spelling, but arranging it in stanzas and inserting punctuation where it was omitted:
1 All in the merry month of May,
When all green leaves are swelling,
"Young Massa's sick and sent for thee,
If this be Barbra Allen."
2 Slowly, slowly she got up,
And slowly went unto him,
And all around she dressed herself,
And said, "Young man, you're dying."
3 "Yes, oh, yes, I'm very sick,
And death lies on my dwelling,
Nor none of the better I ever will be
If I can't get Barbara Allen."
4 "Yes, oh, yes, you're very sick,
And death lies on your dwelling,
For none of the better you ever will be,
For you can't get Barbara Allen.
5 "Don't you relect the other church day
When we were on our dwelling,
You treated all the ladies around,
And slighted Barbra Allen?"
6 He turned hid pale fave to the wall,
And bursted out in crying,
Adieu, adieu to ladies around
And kind to Barbra Allen."
7. [I] had not got more than a mile from town,
Before I heard them death-bells ringing,
Ring death-bells, ring," says he;
"Say, 'Cruel Barbara Allen!'"
8 "Cruel, cruel be my name,
And cruel be my nature.
Sweet William died for me to-day,
And tomorrow I shall follow."
9 "Mother, Mother, fix my bed,
Fix it soft and narrow;
Sweet William died for me to-day:
And tomorrow I shall follow."
10 Sweet William died on Saturday,
And Barbra died on Sunday.
Thy mother she died for the love of both;
She died on Easter Monday.
11 They put Sweet William in one churchyard,
And Barbra in another.
A sweet rose sprang from William's grave,
And a briar from the other.
12 They growed and growed. . .
Until they could grow no higher.
They growed and tied in a truelove's knot
And lived and died together.