Butcher Boy- Mrs. Harrington (VT) 1930 Brown
[From "Vermont Folk Songs and Ballads" Flanders/Brown, 1933.
R. Matteson 2017]
The Butcher Boy- Recovered Mr. Brown, September 15, 1930 in Bennington, Vermont, from the singing of Mrs. Ralph Harrington. She learned this from her mother. It is typical of a large class of late ballads of British origin.
[music]
In London city where I did dwell,
Lived a butcher boy I loved so well,
He courted me my heart away,
And then with me he would not stay.
There is a girl in this same town
Where my love goes and he sets him down,
He takes this strange girl on his knee
Anel tells to her what he once told me'
O grief, O grief, and I'll tell you why,
It's because she has more gold than I.
But gold will melt and silver fly.
She'll see the day she'll be poor as I.
I went upstairs to make my bed
And nothing to my mother I said.
I took a chair and sit me down
With pen and ink and I wrote it down.
On every line I dropped a tear
A-calling home my Willy dear,
And when her (my?) father, he came home[1]
He says, "Where has my daughter gone?"
"Where is my daughter? She's not here.
She's upstairs writing to her Willy dear."
He went upstairs. The door he broke.
He found her hanging by a rope.
He took his knife and he cut her down,
And on her breast these words were found,
"Oh, what a foolish maid am I
To hang myself for a 'Boocher' boy!
"Go dig my grave both wide and deep.
Place a marble stone at my head and feet,
And on my breast place a turtle dove
To show the world I died for love."
1. Abrupt shift to third person narrative.