Bluegrass Messengers

Bloody Miller- Jane Eller (NC) 1901 Abrams A


[No location is given. From the Abrams Collection/Greer Collection. Lyric Variant 1 titled, Bloody Miller, dated May 27, 1901 Jane Eller-- handwritten MS, 10 stanzas see Greer, Brown B for a variant. Several sheet music versions in the collection give the same melody.

Evidently this was a popular version there are 3 similar versions all beginning with the same stanza. This appears to be the oldest and is 10 stanzas, the next brown B is 12 stanzas and a version collected at Boone Elementary school (Faye Aldridge) is about 6 stanzas.

R, Matteson 2016]

 Bloody Miller- Jane Eller (NC) 1901 Abrams A

1. One month of May since Christmas last,
That most unhappy day
that he devil persuaded me
to take her life away.

2. I met her at her sister's house,
Twas eight o'clock at night
And little did that creature think
I owed her any spite.

3. I asked her to talk a walk with me,
And in the fields a little way,
That we might so well agree,
And appoint the wedding day.

4. I took her along some lonesome place,
In the fields no far away,
I drew a stick from the hedge,
And struck her in the face.

5. And at these thoughts she bended her knees,
"O murderer," she did cry,
For heaven's sake, don't murder me
I am not fit to die.

6 And then, to wash away any sins,
I took her by the hair
And drug her to a river near
And left her body there.

7 Then to my mill, my mill I ran,
The miller was amazed.
He slowly fixed his eyes on me
And slowly he did gaze.

8 'What makes your hands so bloody, sir,
And likewise on your clothes,
I answered him[1] immediately,
"By bleeding at the nose."

9. I snatched the candle from her hand,
And to my bed did run,
I lay there trembling all the night,
As murder I had done.

10. I lay there trembling all the night
And could not take no rest,
For the flames of hell,
Around my guilty breast.

1. MS has "her"