Ekefield Town- Harry Cox (Nor) 1960 Plunkett
[From: Topic Records 2 CD anthology, The Bonny Labouring Boy; 2000.
R. Matteson 2016]
Ekefield Town- sung by Harry Cox of Catfield in Norfolk; recorded by Mervyn Plunkett in 1960.
As I was fast bound 'prentice boy, I was bound unto a mill,
And I served my master truly for seven years and more,
Till I took up a-courting with the girl with the rolling eye,
And I promised that girl I'd marry her if she would be my bride.
So I went up to her parents' house about the hour of eight,
But little did her parents think that it should be her fate.
I asked her if she'd take a walk through the fields and meadows gay,
And there we told the tales of love and fixed the wedding day.
As we were walking and talking of the different things around,
I drew a large stick from the hedge and knocked that fair maid down.
Down on her bending knees she fell and so loud for mercy cried,
"Oh, come spare the life of a innocent girl, for I am not fit to die."
Then I took her by the curly locks and I dragged her on the ground
Until I came to the riverside that flowed through Ekefield town.
It ran both long and narrow; it ran both deep and wide,
And there I plunged this pretty fair maid that should have been my bride.
So when I went home to my parents' house about ten o'clock that night.
My mother she jumped out of bed all for to light the light.
She asked me and she questioned me, "Oh. what stains your hands and clothes?"
And the answer I gave back to her, "I've been bleeding at the nose."
So no rest, no rest, all that long night; no rest, no rest, could I find.
The fire and the brimstone around my head did shine,
And it was about two days after this fair young maid was found,
A-floating by the riverside that flowed through Ekefield town.
Now the judges and the jurymen on me they did agree,
For murdering of this pretty fair maid so hanged I shall be.
Oh hanged, oh hanged, oh hanged I shall be,
For murdering of this pretty fair maid, so hanged I shall be.