Barbara Ellen- Bowerman(NC) c1931 Scarborough G
[Dorothy Scarborough, A Song Catcher in the Southern Mountains, 1937, p. 92. All versions are pre-1936, the year Scarborough died. Bronson dates her ballads, c. 1931. Her notes follow.
No indication was made about the date, I've used Bronson's default date.
R. Matteson 2015]
BONNY BARBARA ALLEN
(Child No. 84)
Of all the ballads brought over from Britain and handed down by oral transmission in America, none is more popular than "Barbara Allen." Pepys has recorded his delight in hearing Mrs. Knipp, an actress, sing it in 1666. "In perfect pleasure I was to hear her sing, and especially her little Scotch song of Barbary Allen." Goldsmith wrote that he was moved by it- "The music of the finest singers is dissonance to what I felt when our old dairy-maid sung me into tears with Johnny Armstrong's Last Good-night, or The cruelty of Barbara Allen!" It is preserved in Percy's Reliques and in many another collection, and Arthur Kyle Davis reports ninety-two items of it from Virginia, some of them fragmentary and repetitious, with a dozen melodies, none of them identical with others, though similar to them.
In general, the tune is found in many variants, the details are different, but the tragedy of love and death remains the same in its essentials and (when the right singer sings it) has power to touch the heart now as three centuries ago. The name of the luckless lover varies, but that of Barbara Allen remains constant, save for spelling. Albert J. Beveridge says that this was one of the songs sung by Abraham Lincoln as a boy in Indiana.
* * * *
Ora Keene Bowerman had learned from her father a variant which shows Barbara to be vindictive in her anger.
(G) "Barbara Ellen" Sung by Ora Keene Bowerman, Russell Fork, Council, Va., c. 1931; learned from her father.
1. All in the merry month of May
When green buds were swelling,
Young William was lying on his death-bed
For the love of Barbara Ellen.
He sent his name all in the town,
In the town where she was dwelling,
Come pity me, my own true love,
For I'm on my death-bed lying.
She came slowly, slowly up,
To the place where he was lying.
The only words she seemed to say,
Young man, I fear you're dying.
If I had a kiss from your precious lips,
Would save my soul from dying.
Before you would have a kiss from my lips,
I'd see your heart blood flowing!
He turned his pale face toward the wall,
His back upon the people,
The only words he seemed to say,
Hard-hearted Barbara Ellen!
As she was out in the fields walking,
She heard the death bells jolting,
Jolted, jolted as if to say,
Hard-hearted Barbara Ellen!
She walked on a piece further,
She spied his corpse a-coming.
Oh, pray! oh, pray! do let him down
Till I look upon him.
Oh, pray, Oh, pray! go dig my grave,
Be sure to dig it narrow.
Young William died for me today.
I must die for him tomorrow.
William died on Saturday night,
Barbara Ellen died on Sunday.
The old woman died for love of them both,
And buried on Easter Monday.
A green-brier sprung from William's grave,
A red rose from Barbara Ellen's.
They grew and they grew in a true lover's knot,
And lived and died together.