Barbara Ellen- Lang (WV) 1915 Cox G
[From: Folk-Songs of the South- 1925 by John Harrington Cox. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2015]
16. BONNY BARBARA ALLEN (Child, No. 84)
Twelve variants have been found in West Virginia under various titles. A is a very close reproduction of Child B, stanza for stanza, with an added stanza at the end not found in Child; B, in general, follows Child B, with two stanzas at the beginning not found anywhere in Child; C, D, E, J, agree closely with Child A; the first three stanzas of E are like Child B, the next five, like Child A; the leaving of three rolls of money to Barbara in F indicates some connection with the ballad in Buchan's MS. Cf. Child II, 276, also West Virginia G 3; in H 2 the lover defends himself, an incident not found in Child; for similar stanzas in American texts, see Smith, p. 13; Journal, xix, 286; xix, 287; xxn, 63; Campbell and Sharp, p. 90; Wyman and Brockway, p. 5; McGill, p. 39; Pound, p. 9. In this connection it is interesting to note that one of the American texts makes the lover acknowledge the charge as a just one (Journal, xx, 256).
For American texts, in song-books and in oral circulation, see references in Journal, xxix, 160, Xxx, 317; Xxxv, 343. Add Focus, V, 282; Shoemaker, p. 107; Pound, No. 3; Bulletin, Nos. 6-10; Minish MS.
G. "Barbara Ellen." Communicated by Miss Mabel Richards, Fairmont, Marion County, October, 1915; obtained from Mrs. P. J. Lang; learned from Mrs. Marjory West, Monongalia County.
1 It was in the early spring,
When the green buds were swelling;
I espied a youth on his death bed
For the love of Barbara Ellen.
2 Now this young man was taken very sad
And in a low condition;
And all he could say, both night and day,
Was, "Send for Barbara Ellen.
3 "O mother, O mother, look under my bed,
There you'll find gold and silver;
Take it all, take it all, take it all, I say,
And give to Barbara Ellen."
4 And slowly, slowly she got there,
And slowly she approached him;
And all she could say when she got there,
Was, "My love, you're surely dying."
5 She looked to the east, she looked to the west,
She saw his cold corpse coming:
"Lie him down, lie him down, lie him down, I say,
Till I gaze awhile upon him."
6 She looked upon his corpse of clay,
And turned away a-smiling;
She looked again on his corpse of clay,
And turned away a-crying.
7 "Mother, O mother, go make my bed,
And make it long and narrow;
For little Johnnie Gray has died of love,
And I shall die of sorrow."
8 They buried her in the old churchyard,
They buried him beside her;
And out of his grave there grew a red rose,
And out of hers a briar.
9 They grew till they came to the tallest church tower,
And then they could grow no higher;
And there they entwined in a true-lover's knot,
The red rose and the briar.