Butcher Boy- Elizabeth Albers (NJ) 1929 Henry E
[My title. From Mellinger Henry, Folk-Songs from the Southern Highlands (New York: J. J. Augustin, 1938). His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2017]
57 THE BUTCHER BOY
While versions, C, D, E, and F of this song were not from the Southern Highlands, they were recalled by the reading of versions A and B, and are included for the sake of comparison. See W. Roy Mackenzie's "The Quest of the Ballad," p. 9; Cox, No. 145; Pound, No. 24; Lomax, p. 397; Sandburg, p. 3 24 (title is "London City"); Spaeth, "Weep Some More, My Lady," p. 128 (title is "In Jersey City"); Journal, XXIX, 169; XXXI, 73; XXXV, 360; XXXIX, 122; Phillips Barry, Ancient British Ballads, etc. (A privately printed list), No. 41; Arthur Palmer Hudson's "Specimens of Mississippi Folk-Lore," p. 31; Bradley Kincaid's My Favorite Mountain Ballads and Old-Time Songs, Chicago, 1928, p. 43 ; Flanders and Brown, p. 15.
E. [Butcher Boy] The following fragment was recalled by Miss Elizabeth Albers, a teacher in Dickinson High School, Jersey City, N. J., after reading versions A and B.
1. In Jersey City where I do dwell,
A butcher boy I love so well;
He took a strange girl on his knee
And told to her what he wouldn't tell me.
2. She went up stairs to go to bed
And on the bed there was a rope
And with the rope she hung herself;
She hung herself for the butcher boy.