Barbara Allan- Duff (Kilbirnie) 1825 Child C
Child lists this for C.:
2[1. bonny should perhaps be comely, as in 3[1.
4[2. Originally written To see my white... courting.
5[2. Originally dwelling.
5[8. Originally it 's.
5[4. The is written over His, probably as a conjecture.
7[2. After stoutly, slowly? as a conjectural emendation.
7[4. lying. 'An ingenious friend' of Percy's suggested the transposition of lying and dying in A 3[2,4.
'Barbara Allan'- Version C; Child 84 Bonny Barbara Allen
Motherwell's Manuscript, p. 288; from Mrs. Duff, Kilbirnie, February 9, 1825.
1 It fell about the Lammas time,
When the woods grow green and yellow,
There came a wooer out of the West
A wooing to Barbara Allan.
2 'It is not for your bonny face,
Nor for your beauty bonny,
But it is all for your tocher good
I come so far about ye.'
3 'If it be not for my comely face,
Nor for my beauty bonnie,
My tocher good ye'll never get paid
Down on the board before ye.'
4 'O will ye go to the Highland hills,
To see my white corn growing?
Or will ye go to the river-side,
To see my boats a rowing?'
5 O he's awa, and awa he's gone,
And death's within him dealing,
And it is all for the sake of her,
His bonnie Barbara Allan.
6 O he sent his man unto the house,
Where that she was a dwelling:
'O you must come my master to see,
If you be Barbara Allan.'
7 So slowly aye as she put on,
And so stoutly as she gaed till him,
And so slowly as she could say,
'I think, young man, you're lying.'
8 'O I am lying in my bed,
And death within me dwelling;
And it is all for the love of thee,
My bonny Barbara Allan.'
9 She was not ae mile frae the town,
Till she heard the dead-bell ringing:
'Och hone, oh hone, he's dead and gone,
For the love of Barbara Allan!'