Barbara Allen- McAdams 2 (MS) pre-1936 Hudson K
[Single stanza provided from Arthur Palmer Hudson's Folksongs of Mississippi, 1936. Hudson's notes follow.
R. Matteson 2015]
BONNY BARBARA ALLEN
(Child, No. 84)
As is the case in other Southern states the balladry of which has been extensively gleaned, so in Mississippi this is the best known of the traditional English and Scottish ballads. The Mississippi collection made under my direction contains sixteen texts, and the number might easily have been doubled. All these are fairly complete; each has some distinctive feature or features.
Since the number of texts is so large, it is deemed permissible to omit from some of them stanzas practically identical with those given in full length texts and to reproduce only those stanzas of some texts that have interesting or significant variant details.
K. Barbara Allen. Copy made by Mr. F. B. Ladd, Charleston, from the singing of Mr. I. W. McAdams, Oakland, who knew two texts of the ballad (see F, above, which begins "In Scarlet town"). Ten stanzas. Only stanza one has variant details worth noting:
1. May, o May, in the month of May,
When all that's green's a-swelling,
Sweet Willie fell upon his bed
For the love of Barbara Allen.