Butcher Boy- Enoch Kent (Glas) 1962 REC
[From Enoch Kent, The Butcher Boy and Other Ballads , EP, TOP81, 1962.
I don't know Enoch's source. This is similar to the Robertson traveller's versions and it may be a cover version. He attended Glasgow School of Art in sculpture and ceramics, before formed the traditional Scottish group, The Reivers, with Josh MacRae, Rena Swankie and Moyna Flanagan. Later, when Enoch moved to London, he kept this music alive and well with his folk band “The Exiles”, with fellow Scotsmen Gordon MacCulloch and Bobby Campbell.
In the 1960s he moved to Canada.
R. Mattesopn 2016]
The Butcher Boy-- As sung by Enoch Kent from The Butcher Boy and Other Ballads , EP, TOP81, 1962.
My parents gave me learning, good learning they gave to me
For they sent me to a butcher's shop a butcher boy to be
It's there I met sweet Mary Ann with the dark and the rovin' eye
And I promised I would marry her in the month of sweet July
He went down to her mother's house 'tween the hours of eight and nine
And he asked her for to walk with him down by the foaming brine
Down by the foaming brine we'll go, down by the foaming brine
Now that won't be a pleasant walk, down by the foaming brine
They walked it east and they walked it west and they walked it all alone
Till he took a knife from out his breast and he stabbed her to the ground
She fell upon one bended knee and for mercy she did cry
Roarin' Willie dear, don't murder me, I'm not prepared to die
He took her by the lily-white hands and he dragged her to the brim
And with a mighty downward push he threw her body in
He went back to his mother's house 'tween the hours of twelve and one
And little did his mother think what her only son had done
He asked her for a handkerchief to tie around his head
And he asked her for a candlelight to show him off to bed
No sleep, no rest did the young man get, no rest he could not find
For he thought he saw the gates[1] of hell approaching his bedside
For the murder it was soon found out and the gallows was his doom
For the murdering of sweet Mary Ann who lies where the roses bloom
1. usually flames or fires