Butcher Boy- Betty Smith (NC) 1981 REC
[From The continuing tradition. Volume 1: Ballads on Folk-Legacy Records, 1981. Featured on the compilation are Betty N Smith (Butcher Boy) along with other ballads by Tony Saletan; Irene Saletan; Ed Trickett; Max Hunter; Joan Sprung; Joseph Charles Hickerson; Gordon Bok; Helen Schneyer; Harry Tuft; Sara Grey; and Grant Rogers.
R. Matteson 2017]
THE BUTCHER BOY- as sung by Betty Smith of NC. No source named.
In London city, where I did dwell
A butcher boy I loved right well.
He courted me my life away,
And now with me he will not stay.
I wish, I wish, I wish in vain
I wish I were a maid again.
But a maid again I ne'er will be
Till cherries grow on an ivy tree.
I wish my baby it were born
And smiling on its daddy's knee,
And I, poor girl, to be dead and gone
With the long green grass growing over me.
She went upstairs to go to bed,
And calling to her mother said,
"Give me a chair till I sit down
And a pad and pen, till I write down."
And every line cried, "Willie, dear,"
At every word she dropped a tear;
"Oh, what a foolish girl was I
To be led astray by a butcher boy."
He went upstairs, the door he broke
And found her hanging by a rope.
He took a knife and he cut her down.
And in her pocket, these words he found.
"Go dig my grave both wide and deep,
Put a marble stone at my head and feet.
And in the middle a turtle dove
To show the world that I died for love."