Barbary Allen- Doyel (MO) 1936 Barbour JAF
[My title. From: Some Fusions in Missouri Ballads by Frances M. Barbour; The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 49, No. 193 (Jul. - Sep., 1936), pp. 207-214.
Barbour's notes follow.
R. Matteson 2015]
Such lines are common, almost identical stanzas occurring at the end of "Lord Thomas and Fair Annet" (Child 73), "Lord Lovel" (Child 75), "The Lass of Roch Royal" (Child 76), and perhaps others. The shifting of these stanzas to "Barbara Allen," however, seems to have occurred relatively recently. They do not occur in any of the Child versions, but it is obvious that this adaptation is now quite common in America. Six out of eight Missouri texts of "Barbara Allen" contain similar lines (H. M. Belden's A, B, C, and F,1 and Louise Pound's A2).
Approximately the same proportion obtains elsewhere, for some trace of these stanzas is found in two of John H. Cox's three southern variants (B and CI), in four of Reed Smith's six,[2] (South Carolina), and in five of Campbell and Sharp's six,[3] (southern Appalachian). They also occur in W. R. Mackenzie's Nova Scotia text (B4).
The last five lines of this variant of "Barbara Allen" are a condensation of these two stanzas from "Fair Margaret and Sweet William" (Child 74):
Margaret was buried in the lower chancel,
Sweet William in the higher;
Out of her breast there sprang a rose,
And out of his a briar.
They grew as high as the church-top
Till they could grow no higher,
And there they grew in a true lovers' knot,
Which made all people admire.
BARBARY ALLEN[1] sung by Miss Minnie Doyel, Arlington,
Phelps County, Missouri.
(Child 84)
He sent his servant down to tell
The town where she was dwellin',
Saying, "Come, O come to my master's bed
If your name be Barbary Allen.
"For death is printed on his lips
And o'er his heart is stealin'
And none the better will he be
Till he sees Barbary Allen."
"If death be printed on his lips
And o'er his heart is stealin',
Then none the better will he be
While my name's Barbary Allen."
As she was walking in the fields
She heard the death bells pealin'
And every stroke they seemed to say,
"Hard-hearted Barbary Allen."
She turned her body round and round
And spied the corpse a-comin'.
Saying, "Let him down, O let him down
That I may gaze upon him."
The more she looked, the more she cried,
Her heart was filled with sorrow,
Saying, "Mother, O Mother, go fix my bed,
I'm bound to die to-morrow."
Saying, "Mother, O Mother, go fix my bed,
And fix it soft and narrow,
Sweet William died for me to-day;
I'll die for him to-morrow."
From her breast there sprang a red rose,
From his there sprang a briar;
They climbed and climbed to the church steeple top
And there they tied in a true lovers' knot,
The rose around the briar.
1 Journal of American Folk-Lore, Vol. XIX, pp. 286 and following.
2 Louise Pound, American Ballads and Songs, I3, P. 9.