Bolakin- Aunt Polly Gainer (WV) 1975 Gainer
[Gainer, Folk Songs from the West Virginia Hills, 1975.
Everything Gainer has done is questionable and this apparently came from his sather's sister (his father died when Gainer was very young). This ballad has been found only one time in West Virginia. Nothing resembling the wording in his version has ever been found. The odds of this being authentic are very slim.
His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2015]
BOLAKIN
(CHILD 93, "LAMKIN")
This is an incomplete version of the Child ballad "Lamkin," but the fragment we have found, does agree with the old-world story. Bolakin is a stonemason uho does not receive payment for building the lord's castle, He gets revenge by killing the lord's child. Bolakin became a name in oral tradition to frighten young children when they became unruly. Sung by Aunt Polly Gainer.
Bolakin was a mason good,
A good stone mason was he,
He built a fine castle for a lord,
But never got any fee.
Bolakin came to the castle gate,
Where he saw the lord's child at play,
He seized the child by the neck,
And carried him away.
Thev found the child's body by the road,
His life had been taken away.
But Bolakin was never seen again,
He's alive to this day, they say.