Barbara Allen- Swetnam (MS) pre-1936 Hudson J
[Single stanza provided 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.
J. Barbara Allen. From copy of Mr. G. F. Swetnam, University; communicated to him by his mother, Mrs. F. S. Swetnam, who had it from her mother, a native of Kentucky. Twelve stanzas, beginning like A, B, C, D, and I, above. The unfortunate lover is named Jim Rosie. He specifically uses the word "love-sick" to describe his condition in stanzas four and five (Barbara herself says of him, stanza 11, "Jim Rosie died for pure heart's love"):
4 "Oh, yes, I'm sick, I'm very sick;
I'm love-sick here a-lying;
No better I am, and never will be,
Till I get Barbara Allen."