Butcher's Boy- Mrs. Brady (FL) 1950 Morris B
[From: Folksongs of Florida; Morris, 1950. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2017]
THE BUTCHER BOY
(Archive 983-B3)
This is an English peasant song for which there are several variants from Florida. For English versions, see Kidson and Moffatt, Folksongs of the North Countrie,p. 10; and JFSS, I, 212; V, 181, Kittredge in JAFL, XXXV, 361, makes an analysis of this piece and finds snatches from "The Cruel Father" and "There Is an Alehouse in Yonder Town." Cox sees in "The Butcher Boy" an amalgam of several broadsides; "Sheffield Park," "The Squire's Daughter," "The Brisk Young Sailor" (more commonly known as "There Is an Alehouse in Yonder Town"), and a well-known English folksong, "The Sailor Boy."
The Florida variants are many and for the most part follow the conventional pattern and plot. Variant B has a unique concluding stanza., the last line of which is reminiscent of the coquettish drawing-room song' "When apples grow on the lilac tree."
B. "The Butcher's Boy." Text received from Miss Annie Mary Register, who obtained it from Mrs. L. B. Brady, a native of White Springs.
In London City where I did dwell
A butcher's boy I loved so well;
He courted me my life away,
And with me then he would not stay.
There lived a girl in the very same town,
There he'd go up and sit right down;
He'd take another girl on his knee;
He'd tell her things that he wouldn't tell me.
I have to grieve I'll tell you why,
Because she has more gold than I;
Her gold will melt and silver fly',
In time of need be as poor as I.
I went upstairs to go to bed
And nothing to my mother said.
Oh Mother, she did seem to say,
"What is the trouble, my daughter dear?"
"Oh, Mother dear, you need not know
The pain and sorrow, grief that flows:
Just give me a chair and sit me down
With pen and ink to write words down."
And when her father first came home,
"Where is my daughter, where has she gone?"
He went upstairs and the door he broke
He found her hanging to a rope.
He took his knife and he cut her down,
And in her bosom these words he found:
"A silly girl I am, you know,
To hang myself for the butcher's boy."
"Go dig my grave both wide and deep;
Place a marble stone at my head and feet;
Upon my breast a snow white dove
To show the world that I died for love."
"Must I go bound while he goes free?
Must I love a boy that don't love me?
Alas, alas, 'twill never be
Till oranges grow on apple trees."