Barbara Allen- Vaught (NC) 1935 Brown BB
[My text recreated from Child A. From the Brown Collection; Volume 2, 1952. Some texts have music from Vol. 4 added. There are also several additional texts in Vol. 4. The Brown editors' notes follow.
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.
BB. 'Barbara Allen.' Contributed by Mrs. R. C. Vaught in 1935 from Taylorsville, Alexander county. It is Child's A version verbatim except that it has "slowly, slowly" instead of "hooly, hooly" in stanza 3. [I've changed Scottish text to an American text.]
1 It was in and about the Martinmas time,
When the green leaves were a falling,
That Sir John Grame in the West Country,
Fell in love with Barbara Allen.
2 He sent his men down through the town,
To the place where she was dwelling:
'O haste and come to my master dear,
If you be Barbara Allen."
3 O slowly, slowly rose she up,
To the place where he was lying,
And when she drew the curtain by,
'Young man, I think you're dying.'
4 'O it's I'm sick, and very, very sick,
And it's all for Barbara Allan:'
"O the better for me you never be,
Tho your heart's blood were a-spilling."
5 'O don't ye mind, young man,' said she,
'When you was in the tavern a drinking,
That you made the healths go 'round and 'round,
And slighted Barbara Allen?'
6 He turnd his face unto the wall,
And death was with him dealing:
"Adieu, adieu, my dear friends all,
And be kind to Barbara Allen."
7 And slowly, slowly raised she up,
And slowly, slowly left him,
And sighing said, she coud not stay,
Since death of life had reft him.
8 She had not gone a mile but two,
When she heard the death-bell ringing,
And every toll that the death-bell gave,
It cried, Woe to Barbara Allan!
9 "O mother, mother, make my bed!
O make it soft and narrow!
Since my love died for me today,
I'll die for him tomorrow."