Bloody Miller- Faye Aldridge (NC) 1938 Abrams B
[No date given, my date. Fragment from Abrams Collection/Greer Collection, titled item. Bloody Miller handwritten MS evidently by a teacher, 4 stanzas corresponds to Greer's version, Brown B. Several sheet music versions of Bloody Miller exist with the same melody. Similar to Abrams A.
Evidently this was a popular version there are 3 similar versions all beginning with the same stanza. This appears to be the most recent.
R, Matteson 2016]
Bloody Miller - sung by Faye Aldridge of Boone Elementary School, NC c. 1938.
One month in May since Christmas last,
That most unhappy day,
The devil he persuaded me
To take her life away.
I took her the fields away,
Unto some lonesome place
I drew a stick out of the hedge
And struck her 'cross the face.
Then she came down on her bended knee,
And murderer she did cry,
'For Heaven's sake don't murder me,
For I am not fit to die."
[And then to wash my sins away,][1]
I took her by the hair,
And drug her to a river near,
And left her body there.
1. this line was forgotten-- "wash my sins" means "cover up my crime."