The Gallows Tree- (NC) c. 1915 Rawn/Brown B
[From the Brown Collection of NC Folklore, II, 1952 and Volume IV, music. Listed as 30. The Maid Freed from the Gallows (Child 95).
Their notes follow. this like Brown A, is from Rawn, who collected ballads in Georgia, c. 1910 that were sent to Campbell and printed in EFSSA, 1917, 1932.
R. Matteson 2015]
For preceding records of this ballad and its relation to theories of communal origin, see BSM 66, adding to the references there given New Hampshire (NGMS 117-18), Kentucky (BTFLS in 95), Tennessee (SFLQ XI 129-30), North Carolina (FSRA 35-6), Florida (FSF 295-9), Arkansas (OFS I 146-8), Missouri (OFS I 143-4, 145), Ohio (BSO 62-4), Indiana (BSI 125-7), and Michigan (BSSM 146-8 — this last being the "golden ball" form, rare in this country). In only half of the North Carolina texts is it a woman that waits to be freed from the gallows ; in versions B C E K L it is a man, and in D the sex is indeterminate. D is the only one of our texts in which the song has been turned into a play.
B. ['The Gallows Tree'] 'Maid Freed from the Gallows' — so the caption runs, though it is here a man, not a maid, that is freed. This version also is from Miss Rawn's collection, further source and date not indicated. The language is slightly different from that of A, and the series is reduced to father, mother, and sweetheart.
1 'Hangman, oh hangman!
Slacken up your rope;
I think I see my father coming,
He's rode many a long mile.
2 'Oh father, oh father, did you bring me any gold.
Or did you bring me free.
Or did you come to see me hung
Upon the gallows tree?'
3 'Oh son, blessed son, I did not bring you gold
Nor did I bring you free,
But I have come to see you hung
Upon the gallows tree.'
Similarly for the mother; but when the sweetheart appears, her answer runs:
9 'My lover, my lover, I did bring you gold
And I did bring you free.
But I did not come to see you hung
Upon the gallows tree.'
And the man says:
'Oh hangman, oh hangman, slacken your rope;
From the gallows I will go.
For to my love, my sweetheart,
Belongs my life, you know.'