Butcher Boy- Alice Truelove (VA) c.1931 Scarborough A
[Fragment from Dorothy Scarborough; A Song Catcher in the Southern Mountains, 1938. Date established by Bronson as c.1931. Her notes follow,
R. Matteson 2017]
THE BUTCHER BOY
The song rather widely current in the southern mountains and elsewhere under the title of "The Butcher Boy," is an old English folk song, generally called "The Brisk Young Lover." It is given in Gavin Grieg's Folksong of the North-East, I, art. 28; in the Journal of the Folk-song society, IV, 127; Folk Songs from somerset, No. 45; Broadwood's Traditional songs and, carols, p. 26;
and so forth.
My first notation of it was only a fragment, given to me by Miss Alice Truelove, in charge of the Mission of St. John the Baptist at Ivy, Virginia, who could not recal the other stanzas. Miss Truelove is from England and so doubtless brought the song in her head when she came over.
(A) The Butcher Boy
In London City where I did dwell
There was a butcher boy I loved so well.
He courted me my life away,
And now with me he will not stay.