Barbary Ellen- Cunningham (WV) 1915 Cox E
[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.
E. "Barbary Ellen." Communicated by Professor Walter Barnes, Fairmont, Marion County, July, 1915; obtained from Mr. G. W. Cunningham, Elkins, Randolph County, who learned it many years ago from Ellen Howell, Dry Fork.
1 'T was early in the month of May,
When the green buds were swelling,
This young man on his death bed lay,
In love with Barbary Allen.
2 He sent his butler to the place
Where his true love was dwelling.
3 So slowly, slowly she came there,
So slowly she drew nigh him;
And all she said when she came near:
"Young man, I think you're dying."
4 "Yes, I am sick and very sick,
In love with Bar by Ellen;
But one sweet kiss from your tender lips
Will save me from this dying. "
5 "O do you not remember the day,
. . . .
You drank a health to the ladies all,
But slighted Barbary Allen?"
6 He turned his face unto the wall,
His back to Barbary Allen,
And said, "Adieu, adieu to kind friends all,
But a woe to Barbary Allen!"
7 She scarcely went one mile from town,
Till she heard his death knell ringing;
And every toll it seemed to say:
Hard-hearted Barbary Allen."
8 "O mother, mother, make my bed,
And make it straight and narrow;
Young Johnnie Green died for me to-day,
And I'll die for him to-morrow."
9 "O bury him in the churchyard,
And bury me in the choir;
And out of him shall a red rose spread,
And out of me a green brier."
10 They buried him in the churchyard,
They buried her in the choir;
And out of him a red rose spread,
And out of her a green brier.
ii They grew and grew to the church-steeple top,
Till they could grow no higher;
And there they twined in a true-love knot,
With the rose around the brier.