Lexington Murder- unknown (NC) c. 1939 Brown 4A
[Brown Collection of NC Folklore, volume 4, 1956. Their notes from volume 2 follow.
R. Matteson 2016]
65. The Lexington Murder
Variously known as 'The Oxford Girl,' 'The Wexford Girl,' 'The Lexington Girl,' 'The Knoxville Girl,' 'The Bloody Miller,' and in England as 'The Wittam Miller' and 'The Berkshire Tragedy,' this ballad tells a story similar to that of 'The Gosport Tragedy' and also to that of the American 'Florella,' 'Poor Naomi' ('Omie Wise'), 'Pearl Bryan,' 'Nell Cropsey,' and others. See the headnote to 'The Gosport Tragedy,' and also FSS 311 and BSM 133-4, both of which give extensive references showing the diffusion of the ballad; add also Davis, FSV 271-2 for texts from Virginia, Morris, FSF 336-9, for texts from Florida, and Randolph, OFS II 92-104 for texts from Missouri and Arkansas. The texts selected for presentation here are reckoned to belong to the tradition of 'The Wittam Miller' because of the names under which they are known in North Carolina or because they are, most of them at least, marked by the killer's excuse for his appearance that it is due to "bleeding at the nose." Most of them also remember that the murderer is a miller or a miller's apprentice. The ballad about Nellie Cropsey, a North Carolina girl murdered early in the present century (see no. 307, below), is in most of its texts modeled very closely on 'The Lexington Murder.'
65. The Lexington Murder, Volume 4
The story of all the versions that follow is very much like that of SharpK i 407, No. 71 A: 'The Miller's Apprentice,' or 'The Oxford Tragedy' ; also BSO 233-5, version C, 'The Murdered Girl.'
The Lexington Murder.' Sung by anonymous singer. Recorded, but no date or place given. The text of this version is a combination of versions A and F.
For melodic relationship cf. **SCSM 402, version A, general melodic line. Scale: Tetratonic (4). Tonal Center: e-flat. Structure: abac (2,2,2,2) = aa1 (4,4)
1. My tender parents brought me up
Provided for me well
And in the city of Lexington,
They put me in a mill
2 Last Saturday night three weeks ago,
Oh, cursed be the day,
The devil put it in my mind
To take her sweet life away.
3 I went down to her sister's house
At eight o'clock last night,
And she, the poor girl, seemed not to think
For her I had a spite.
4 I asked her if she'd take a walk
A little way with me,
That we might have a little talk
About our wedding day.
5 We walked along a-side by side
'Till we came to a silent place ;
I picked me up a stick from the ground
And struck her in the face.
6 She fell upon her bended knee,
'Have mercy !' she did cry,
'For Heaven's sake, don't murder me,
I'm not prepared to die.'
7 I heeded not the mercy cry,
But struck her all the more
Until I could see that innocent blood,
The blood I could not restore.
8 I covered my hands in her cold black hair
To cover up my sin,
I dragged her to the river bank,
And there I plunged her in.
9 I started on my way back home,
And I met my servant, John,
'Why do you look so very weak,
And yet you are so warm ?'
10 'And what is the cause of all that blood
Upon your hands and clothes?'.
And as the innocent one replied,
'The bleeding of my nose.'
11 I lit my candle and I went to bed
A-thinking I could rest.
It seemed as if the flames of hell
Was burning on my breast.