Wexford Girl- John W. Green (MI) 1938 Lomax REC
[Library of Congress recording by AFC 1939/007: AFS 02282A made by Alan Lomax in 1938. This is a version of the Wexford tradition with the two stanza ending.
One of the few Irish traditional versions known - even though it was collected in Michigan.
Listen: https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1939007_afs02282a/
R. Matteson 2016]
Wexford Girl- sung by Irish-American emigrant John W. Green (1871-1963) of Saint James, Beaver Island, MI, in 1938.
It was in the town of Wexford
Where I was a-bred and born
It was in the town of Aflon[1]
I worked for a flour mill.
It was for there I courted a Wexford girl
With a dark and rolling eye
I promised I would wed her,
If with me she would comply.
I went one night to her sister's house
About eight o'clock at night
I asked her for to take a walk,
Our wedding day to 'point.
We walked along quite merrily
Till we came to level ground;
Then I pulled a stake out from the 'edge
And I knocked this fair one down.
Then down upon her bended knees,
She pleaded for her life.
"Oh Johnny dear, don't kill me here,
I am not prepared to die."
I never let on I heard her
But beat her all the more
Until the ground around her
Was a stained bloody gore.
Then I took her by the yellow locks
And I dragged her o'er the ground
And I threw her in water,
That runs through Wexford town.
Lie there, lie there, you Wexford girl,
To me you'll never be tied;
Lie there, lie there, you Wexford girl,
You never will be my bride.
It was about nine days after this,
The lovely maid was found;
A-floating in the water,
That a-runs through Wexford town.
And everyone that seen her dead,
Said she was a lovely bride,
She was fit for any nobleman[2]
Or and lord or knight.
I was taken on suspicion
And to jail then straight was sent
There was no one to intercede for me,
And no one to pay my bail.
Her sister swore my life away,
without either any doubt
For well they knew, and well they knew,
That it was I who took her out
Oh I went straight to my mother's house
At nine o'clock at night,
And pulled my mother out of a sleep
which gave her an awful fright.
"Oh son, dear son, what have you done
What has bloodied your hands and clothes?"
And the answer that I made her
Was a bleeding from the nose.
Now come all you young jolly fellows,
A warning take by me,
And never treat your own true love
with such[3] cruelty.
For if you do you'll surely rue,
Until the day you die,
You'll be hung like me, a murderer,
Upon the gallows high.
1. ?
2. last two lines which were hard to hear are taken from Warner's NY version:
And every-one who saw her said
she was a beauty bride,
Fit for any nobleman,
or any lord or knight.
3. unclear