Butcher Boy - Lucy Quigley (AR) 1958 Hunter A
[From Max Hunter and also Ozark Folksong Collection; Reel 253-54, Item 18. Collected by Max Hunter (H-10) For Mary C. Parler Transcribed by Frances Majors.
Listen: http://digitalcollections.uark.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/OzarkFolkSong/id/634/rec/2
R. Matteson 2017]
The Butcher Boy - Sung by Mrs. Lucy Quigley Huntsville Road, Eureka Springs, Arkansas September 2, 1958
In London city, where I did dwell,
A butcher boy, I loved so well;
He courted me my life away,
And then with me, he wouldn't stay.
There came a strange girl to this town,
And he goes there and sets himself down;
And he takes this strange girl on his knee,
And he tells to her what he wouldn't tell me.
The reason, the reason, the reason why,
She's got more gold and silver than I;
But her gold'll melt and her silver'll fly;
She'll see the day she's much poorer than I.
She goes upstairs to make her bed;
Not a word, not a word to her mother she said;
She called for a chair to set herself down,
And a pen and ink to write it down.
Her father coming home that night,
He always calls for his heart's delight;
He went upstairs and the door he broke,
And found her hanging by a rope.
He took his knife and cut her down,
And in her bosom these lines he found,
Saying, What a foolish maid am I
To hang myself for the butcher boy.