Johnny Collins- Brookover (WV) c.1930 Bayard
[From: The "Johnny Collins" Version of Lady Alice by Samuel P. Bayard; The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 58, No. 228 (Apr. - Jun., 1945), pp. 73-103. Bayard collected several similar versions, which I've never seen published. The rare Johnny Collins versions have appeared in Davis A, B and Cox A, B and E as well as Karpeles (1929) and others. For English versions- see Gardiner collection by the Gaylors (brothers) and others.
R. Matteson 2015]
JOHNNY COLLINS- Sung in the 1930's by Mrs. Elizabeth Brookover at Daybrook, Monongalia County, West Virginia.
I. As Collins was walking the fields one day
All dressed in white linen so fine,
He spied a maiden, a pretty fair maid,
A-washing a marble-white stone.
2. She wrung her hands and tore her hair,
She waved with a lily-white hand,
Saying, Collins, dear Collins, come quickly here-
Your life is soon to an end!
3. She threw both arms around his neck,
She kissed both his cheeks and his chin,
Till the stars from heaven come twinkling down
On the banks where Collins jumped in.
4. He swam, he swam, he swam once more,
He swam to his own father's door,
Crying, Father, dear father, please let me in,
Please let me in once more!
5. If I should die this very night,
Which I think in my own heart I will,
Go bury me down by the marble-white stone
At the foot of fair Ellender's hill.
6. Fair Ellen was sitting in her parlor next day,
All dressed in her silk so fine,
When she spied a coffin a-coming that way:
'Twas the finest she ever had seen.
7. Whose coffin, whose coffin, whose coffin? cried she;
'Tis the finest I ever have seen.
Johnny Collins, and his cold corpse lies here,
No more a true lover to me!
8. Go bring him in and set him down,
And open his coffin so fine,
Till I take the last kiss from his clay-cold lips,
For Collins has ofttimes kissed mine.
9. Go bring me in a snowy-white sheet
Till I trim it in roses so fine;
Today it'll wave over Collins's grave,
But tomorrow it'll wave over mine.
10. The news was spread over Douglas's town,
And wailed in at Douglas's gate,
And fair Ellender died, she died that night-
'Twas all for Collins's sake.
This peculiar version of Lady Alice has been found in a comparatively small number of variants which agree closely in all essential details. It seems to be much less widely known than the "George Collins" type, and the facts about its distribution are as curious as its contents. Only one variant (in two fragments) has been found so far in England; all the others known to me turned up in America, and were collected in Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Furthermore, not a single variant of this version-undoubtedly the most important in the history of the ballad-was discovered before the present century. The two English fragments were the earliest recorded. The American variants include seven in my own collection, all written down in
southwestern Pennsylvania and northwestern West Virginia, where this version of Lady Alice appears to be the only one known.