Barbara Allen- Bost (NC) 1937 Brown K
[From the Brown Collection; Volume 2, 1952; with music in Part 4 added to Part 2. There are also several additional texts in Part 4. The Brown editors' notes follow. Additional text from Abrams MS.
R. Matteson 2015]
27. Bonny Barbara Allan (Child 84)
Of all the ballads in the Child collection this is easily the most widely known and sung, both in the old country and in America. Scarcely a single regional gathering of ballads but has it, and it has been published in unnumbered popular songbooks. See BSM 60-1. Mrs. Eckstorm in a letter written in 1940 informed me that she and Barry had satisfied themselves, before Barry's death, that as sung by Mrs. Knipp to the delight of Samuel Pepys in 1666 it was not a stage song at all but a libel on Barbara Villiers and her relations with Charles II; but so far as I know the details of their argument have never been published. The numerous texts in the North Carolina collection may conveniently be grouped according to the setting in three divisions: (1) those that begin in the first person of Barbara's lover (or at least of the narrator), (2) those that begin with a springtime setting, and (3) those that begin with an autumnal setting. Of course those in group 1 may also have either the springtime or the autumnal setting. The rose-and-brier ending is likely to be attached to any of the texts. The lover's bequests to Barbara, a feature not infrequent in modern British versions but unusual in America, appears once in the North Carolina texts, in F. The first person of the lover commonly is dropped after the opening stanza, but in F it holds through four stanzas. Not all of the texts are given in full.
K. 'Barbara Allen.' Collected by W. Amos Abrams from Mary Bost of Statesville, Iredell county [Sung by Mrs. J. S. Bost sent in September, 1937 by Mary Bost]. The opening seems to have crept in from some other song:
1. J. J. Smith and it is my name.
New Alban is my station.
This is my dwelling here,
Also my respectation.
Honor, Honor was the town
Where there was three fair maids a-dwelling.
There was but one that I called my own
And that was Barbara Allen.
He sent his servant in great haste,
To where Barbara was dwelling,
My master's sick and sends for you,
[If] you name be Barbara Allen.
So slow she fixed,
And slow she went,
And slowly gazed upon him,
[Said,] "Young man I think you're dying."
I'm very bad, I'm very bad,
And death is with me dwelling[1],
No better for me, I never will be,
If I don't get Barbara Allen."
Sweet William died on Saturday
And Barbara on Sunday.
The old woman died for the love of both —
She died on Easter Monday.
"Oh, don't you remember
Down at that little tavern,
You drank a health[2] to the ladies all,
And slighted Barbara Allen.
"Oh yes, oh yes I remember now
All down at that little tavern,
I drank a health[2] to the ladies all,
But I drank for Barbara Allen."
He turned his pale face to the wall,
And Barbara turned her back upon him,
"No longer here, I cannot stay,
Since the life and breath's gone from him."
She had not got but about one mile from town,
When she heard the death-bell ringing,
She looked to the east, she looked to the west,
She saw his cold corpse coming.
She burst into tears crying,
"Bring him here, and set him down by me,
Until I do gaze upon him."
The more she gazed the more she wept,
She burst into full tears crying,
Go dig my grave both deep and narrow,
Sweet willie died for me today,
I'll die for him tomorrow.
Sweet Willie was buried in one churchyard,
And Barbara at Shiloh,
A rose briar was brought from Barbara's springy briar,
And [planted over Sweet Willie's grave.
It grew, it grew to the old church top,
It grew, it grew till it could grow no higher,
It linked and tied in a true love knot,
The white rose and the briar.
1. dealing
2. half