Butcher's Boy- Rosie Oikle (NS) 1931 Fauset A
[From: Folklore from Nova Scotia collected by Arthur Huff Fauset (1899-1983), New York : American Folk-Lore Society : G.E. Stechert and Co., Agents, 1931.
Informant 63. Cf. JAFL 22:67; 26:362, 363; 22:379. Cf. JAFL 29:169.
R. Matteson 2017]
BUTCHER'S BOY- Sung by informant 63. Rosie Oikle. White. Aged about 30. Liberpool.
In Jersey City where I did dwell,
A butcher's boy I loved so well.
He caught at me my heart away,
And now with me he will not stay.
There was an inn in this same town,
Where my love goes and sat him down,
He takes a strange girl on his knee,
He tells to her what he don't tell me.
Aggrieve [A grief] for me, I'll tell you why,
Because she has more gold than I.
Her gold will melt, her silver will fly,
In time of need she'll be as poor as I.
Oh, mother, mother, you do not know
What grief and pain, and sorrow, woe[1].
Go get a chair and sit me down,
A pen and ink, I'll write it down.
On every line she dropped a tear,
Was calling back her Willie dear.
And when her father he came home,
He asked "Where is my daughter gone?"
He ran upstairs, the door he broke,
He found her hanging upon a rope.
He took his knife and cut her down,
And in her bosom those lines were found, saying:
What a foolish girl was I,
To hang myself for a butcher's boy.
Go dig my grave both long and deep,
Place some oval stone at my head and feet,
And on my breast place a turtle dove,
To show the world I died for love.
1. original "oh"