Barbara Ellen- Callahan (NC) c1931 Scarborough H
[Dorothy Scarborough, A Song Catcher in the Southern Mountains, 1937, p. 92. All versions are pre-1936, the year Scarborough died. Bronson dates her ballads, c. 1931. Her notes follow.
No indication was made about the date, I've used Bronson's default date.
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 Kyle 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.
* * * *
Miss Clara Callahan of the Weave shop, Saluda, North Carolina, sang the song to her, dulcimer in ihe usual way, except
for the fact that Barbara calls upon her father to dig her grave, instead of urging her mother to do it. It would seem logical to have this division of labor, since Mother has been expected to make her bed. The servant's message sounds somewhat like a paged telephone call.
(H) [Barbara Ellen] Sung by Clara Callahan, Saluda, N.C.
1. All in the merry month of May
When the green buds were swelling,
Young William Green on his death bed lay
For the love of Barbara Ellen.
2. He sent his servant to the town
The place where she was dwelling,
Saying, there is a call for you,
If your name is Barbara Ellen.
3. Slowly, slowly she got up
And slowly came she nigh him,
The only words she said while going,
Young man, I think you're dying.
4. He turned his pale face to the wall,
And death was in him dwelling,
Adieu, adieu, kind friends, adieu to you all,
Be kind to Barbara Ellen.
5. As she was going through the town
She heard the death bells tolling
And every stroke that seemed to say,
Hard-hearted Barbara Ellen.
6. She look-ed, east, she look-ed west,
And saw the cold corpse coming.
Go bring him in and set him down
And let me look upon him.
7. The more she looked, the more she grieved
Until she burst out crying.
Go take him away, go take him away,
For I am now a-dying.
8. Oh, mother, oh, mother, come make my bed,
Come make it long and narrow.
Sweet William died for me today
And I for him tomorrow.
9. Oh, father, oh, father, come dig my grave
Come dig it deep and narrow.
Sweet William died for me in love,
And I for him in sorrow.
10. Sweet William was buried in the old church yard
And Barbara Ellen beside him.
And out of his grave a red rose grew,
And out of hers a brier.
11. They grew and they grew to the old church top
They could not grow any higher.
And at the end they tied in a true lover's knot,
The rose wrapped round the brier.