Butcher's Boy- Jane Goon (OH) 1915 JAF Eddy A
[From: Some Songs Traditional in the United States, by Albert Tolman, c. 1915; reprint JAF 1916, notes by Kittredge in brackets. Eddy has two other collected versions in Ballads and Songs from Ohio, 1939. Notes by Tolman and Kittredge follow:
R. Matteson 2017]
THE BUTCHER'S BOY.
The following was obtained by Miss Mary O. Eddy from Miss Jane Goon, both of Perrysville, O. Shearin's text (p. 24) lays the scene in New York; Barry's (No. 41), “in London city;” Belden's (No. 21), as here. Pound, p. 18."
There is an English version in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society, ii, 159. It seems strange that this should begin, “In Jessie's city, oh, there did dwell.”
1. New Jersey city[1] where I did dwell,
A butcher's boy I loved so well;
He courted me my heart away,
And then with me he would not stay.
2. There is a man in this same town,
Where my love goes and sits him down,
And there he takes strange girls on his knee,
And tells to them what he did to me.
3. It's grief and pain to tell you why:
Because they had more gold than I.
But in time of need she will be as poor as I.
4. I went upstairs to make my bed,
And nothing to my mother said.
My mother she came up to me;
“Oh, what['s] the matter, my daughter dear?”
5. O mother dear, it's, don't you know,
It's grief and pain and sorrow, woe.
Go get me a chair to sit me on,
A pen and ink to write it down;
And every line she dropped a tear,
Calling home her Willie dear.
6. And when her father he came home,
He says: “Where's my daughter gone?”
He went up stairs, the door he broke;
And there she hung upon a rope.
7. He took his knife and cut her down,
And in her breast these words he found:
“Oh! what a silly maid was I,
To hang myself for a butcher's boy!
8. “Go dig my grave both wide and deep,
Place marble stone at my head and feet,
And on my breast a turtle dove,
To show this world that I died for love.”[2]
1. [Barry prints the tune in this Journal, xxii, 78. See also Belden, this Journal, xxv, 13. A Virginian version of the words was published by Mr. W. H. Babcock in Folk-Lore, vii. 32.]
2. [“The Butcher Boy,” almost word for word identical with the text here printed, is found in an American broadside of about 1860 (H. de Marsan, New York, Harvard College, 25242.5.5 [138]). It was No. 8 in de Marsan's list No. 7,” and also in a New York broadside of 1880–90 (“Henry J. Wehman, Song Publisher,” No. 302, Harvard College, 25241.29). The same piece is in “Journal of Folk-Song Society,” II, 159–160. For the last four stanzas see “Early, Early all in the Spring” (“Journal of Folk-Song Society,” II, 293–294).
The piece appears to be an amalgamation of “The Squire's Daughter” (also known as “The Cruel Father, or, Deceived Maid”*) with “There is an Alehouse in Yonder Town” (well known as a student song in this country under the title “There is a Tavern in the Town”)."
An absurdly confused (but quite singable) piece, “The Rambling Boy,”" concludes as follows:–
My father coming home at night,
And asked for his heart's delight,
He ran up stairs the door he broke
And found her hanging in a rope.
He took a knife and cut her down,
And in her bosom a note was found,
Dig me a grave both wide and deep,
And a marble stone to cover it."]
* These last four lines also conclude other English songs. See Journal of Folk-Song Society, ii, 158–159; iii, 188.
* The Brown University collection of Andrews and de Marsan broadsides has the list, from which the number can be ascertained.
* [Early nineteenth-century English broadside in Harvard College Library, 25242.5.5 (147), no. 7 (“W. Shelmerdine & Co. Printers, Manchester”).]
* [Early nineteenth-century slip in Harvard College Library, 25242.2, fol. 65.]
* [Journal of the Folk-Song Society, i, 252-253; ii, 168-169; Leather, Folk-Lore of Herefordshire, pp. 205-206 (“A Brisk Young Sailor"); cf. Kidson, Traditional Tunes, pp. 4446; Broadwood, Traditional Songs, pp. 92-95.]
* [Pitt's broadside (Harvard College Library, 25242.2, fol. 120); cf. “I am a Rover” (Kidson, pp. 147-148). For the last stanza of “The Butcher Boy” see also Journal of the Folk-Song Society, ii, 158; iii, 188.]
* [Cf. a somewhat similar stanza (6) in “The Sailor's Tragedy” (this Journal, xxvi, 177). To the references there given add: The Universal Songster, London, 1834, ii, 273; The Lover's Harmony, London, (ca. 1840), p. 278; Gavin Greig, Folk-Song of the North-East, Peterhead, 1914, no. cxxx..]