Ballet of Barbara Allan- Owens (VA) 1931 Scarborough A
[Dorothy Scarborough, A Song Catcher in the Southern Mountains, 1937. All version are pre-1936, the year Scarborough died. Bronson dates her ballads, c. 1931. Her notes follow.
This clearly is a very old version. It resembles Child Bd, the English version in Percy's Reliques, 1765.
R. Matteson 2015]
BONNY BARBARA ALLEN
(Child No. 84)
Of all the ballads brought over from Britain and handed down by oral transmission in America, none is more popular than "Barbara Allen." Pepys has recorded his delight in hearing Mrs. Knipp, an actress, sing it in 1666. " In perfect pleasure I was to hear her sing, and especially her little Scotch song of Barbary Allen." Goldsmith wrote that he was moved by it- "The music of the finest singers is dissonance to what I felt when our old dairy-maid sung me into tears with Johnny Armstrong's Last Good-night, or The cruelty of Barbara Allen!" It is preserved in Percy's Reliques and in many another collection, and Arthur Kyte Davis reports ninety-two items of it from Virginia, some of them fragmentary and repetitious, with a dozen melodies, none of them identical with others, though similar to them.
In general, the tune is found in many variants, the details are different, but the tragedy of love and death remains the same in its essentials and (when the right singer sings it) has power to touch the heart now as three centuries ago. The name of the luckless lover varies, but that of Barbara Allen remains constant, save for spelling. Albert J. Beveridge says that this was one of the songs sung by Abraham Lincoln as a boy in Indiana.
One version called " The Ballet of Barbara Allan," was given me by Mrs. Ethel Owens, of Dog Pen Branch, Buchanan County, Virginia. She had learned it from her mother, long since dead, and she loaned me her mother's ballet book to copy it down just as she had written it. I reprint it here as I found it.
(A) The Ballet of Barbara Allan - Mrs. Ethel Owens, of Dog Pen Branch, Buchanan County, Virginia. Reprinted from a MS book without corrections.
1 in Scarlet town where I was born
there was a fair maid dwelling
made every youth cry well a way;
her name was Barbara Allan.
All in the merry month of May
when green buds then were swelling
young Jemmy Grove on his death bed lay
for the love of barbra allan.
2 and death is printed on his face
and over his heart is stealing
then haste away to comfort him
o love of barbra allan.
So slowly slowly she comes up
and slowly she comes nigh him.
and all she said when there she come
Young man I think you are dyin.
3. He turned his face unto her straight
with deadly sorrow sighing
ah pretty maid come pity me
Im on my death bed lyin.
if on yore death bed you do lie
what need the tale you telling
I cannot keep you from your death
fare well said barbara Allan.
4 he turned his face unto the wall
and death was with him dealin
adieu adieu my friends all
adieu to to barbara allan.
as she was walking over the fields
she heard the bells a knellin
and every stroke did seem to say
unworthy barbara allan.
5 She turned her body round about
and spied the corpse a coming
lay down lay down the corpse she cried
that I may look upon him.
with scornful eye she look down
her cheeks with laughter swellin
whilest all her friends cried out amain
unworthy barbara allan.
6 when he was dead and in his grave
her heart was struk with sorrow
o mother mother make my bed
for I shall die tomorrow
hard-hearted creature him to slight
who loved me so dearly
ah that I had been kind to him
when he was alive and near me.
7 she on her death bed as she lay
begged to be buried by him
and sore repented of the day
that she did eer deny hime
fare well she said, ye Virgininns[1] all
and shun the fault I fell in
henceforth take warning by my fall
of cruel barbara allan.
1. virgins