Barb'ra Allen- Testerman (TN) pre1938 Henry E
[No date given. From Mellinger Henry, Songs from the Southern Highlands. Collected & Edited By Mellinger Edward Henry, 1938. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2015]
BONNY BARBARA ALLAN
(Child, No. 84)
This ballad was first printed in The Tea-Table Miscellany, 1740, and next in Percy's Reliques, 1765. Reed Smith, No. 8, states ten texts have been discovered in South Carolina running from five to sixteen stanzas and declares that, "Of all the ballads in America 'Barbara Allan' leads both in number of versions and number of tunes." He adds that it has appeared in ten song books and several broadsides. Cox, in his headnote, No. 16, says that twelve variants have been found in West Virginia. Campbell and Sharp, No. 21, give ten texts and ten tunes. C. Alphonso Smith quotes a Virginia version in "Ballads Surviving in the United States" (Musical Quarterly, 2, No. 1, p. 120). James Watt Raine gives a Kentucky version of nineteen stanzas with tune in "The Land of the Saddle Bags," p. 115, Pound, No. 3, gives two versions, one from Missouri and one from North Carolina. See also Wyman and Brockway, p. 1; Adventure Magazine, March 10, 1925; ibid., March 10, 1926; New Jersey Journal oj'Education, Feb., 1927; Scarborough, 59; R. W. Gordon, New York Times Magazine, Oct. 9, 1927; Josephine McGill, Folk Songs oj the Kentucky Mountains, 40; Mackenzie, "The Quest of the Ballad," 100; Reed Smith {South Carolina Ballads, Harvard University Press, 1928), 129; Barry-Eckstorm-Smyth, p. 195; Belden, No. 7; Davis, No. 24 (ninety-two versions have been found in Virginia); Mackenzie, Ballads and Sea Songs from Nova Scotia, No. 9; Barry, No. 22; Heart Songs, p. 247; Pound, Syllabus, p. 9; Sandburg, p. 57; Shearin and Combs, p. 8; Shoemaker, p. 122 (2nd edition); Bradley Kincaid, My Favorite Mountain Ballads and Old-Time Songs, p. 14; Hudson, Specimens of Mississippi Folk-Lore, No. 13. Note also the following references to the Journal: Edmands, VI, 132; Belden, XIX, 285; Kittredge, XX, 256; Beatty, XXII, 63; Pound, XXVI, 352; Perrow, XXVIII, 144; Tolman, XXIX, 160; Rawn and Peabody, XXIX, 198; Tolman and Eddy, XXXV, 343; Henry, XXXIX, 211; Hudson, XXXIX, 97; Henry, XLII, 268. Add Randolph, p. 183; Thomas, pp. 29, 94; Brown, p. 9; Jones, p. 13; Fuson, 47; PTFLS, No. 10, pp. 146—149.
E. "Barb'ra Allen." The song was recorded from the singing of Dora Testerman, a student at Lincoln Memorial University, "who lives far back in the Cumberland Mountains."
1. In London City where I did dwell,
There's where I git my learning;
I fell in love with a pretty young girl;
Her name was Barb'ra Allen.
2. 1 courted her for seven long years;
She said she would not have me;
Then straightway home as I could go
And liken to a-dying.
3.1 wrote her a letter on my death bed;
I wrote it slow and moving:
"Go, take this letter to my own true love,
And tell her I am dying."
4. She took the letter in her lily white hand;
She read it slow and moving:
"Go, take this letter back to him,
And tell him I am coming."
5. As she passed by his dying bed,
She saw his pale lips grieving:
"No better, no better, I'll ever be,
Until I get Barb'ra Allen."
6. As she passed by his dying bed:
"You're very sick and almost dying;
No better, no better you will ever be
Until I get Barb'ra Allen."
7. As she went down the long stair steps,
She heard the death bell toning
And every bell appeared to say:
"Hard hearted Barb'ra Allen."
8. As she went down the long piney walk,
She heard some small birds singing
And every bird appeared to say:
"Hard hearted Barb'ra Allen."
9. She looked to the east, she looked to the west,
She saw the pale corpse coming:
"Go, bring them pale corpse unto me,
And let me gaze upon them."
10. "Oh, mama, oh, mama, go, make my bed;
Go, make it soft and narrow;
Sweet Willie died today, for me today,
I'll die for him to-morrow."
11. They buried Sweet Willie in the old church yard;
They buried Miss Barb'ra beside him;
And out of his grave there sprang a red rose
And out of hers a brier.
12. They grew to the top of the old church tower;
They could not grow any higher;
They hooked, they tied in a true lover's knot,
The red rose around the brier.