Farmer's Boy- Lura Wagoner (NC) 1913 Brown K
[From The Brown Collection of NC Folklore, Volume 2, 1952. Their notes follow. It has two unusual stanzas, 4 and 8 which are found in several US versions (hybrids, see K) with a pastoral setting with 8 becoming the opening stanza. Stanzas 11 and 12 are also unusual. It's likely this is a compilation of several versions considering its length.
R. Matteson 2017]
The Butcher Boy
The British antecedents and the currency in modern tradition of this ballad are given in some detail in BSM 201-3. To the references there given should be added Lincolnshire (ETSC 92-5), Essex (FSE 11 g-n), Massachusetts (FSONE 179-81), New York (NYFLQ III 29-30), Virginia (FSV 72-5; a trace of it in SharpK II 381), Kentucky (FSKM 30-1), Florida (FSF 334-6), Arkansas (OFS I 230), Missouri (OFS i 226-30), Ohio (BSO 129-31), Indiana (BSI 198-201), and Michigan (BSSM 117-19). Mrs. Steely found it in the Ebenezer community in Wake county. Not versions of 'The Butcher Boy' strictly speaking, but related to it are 'She's Like the Swallow,' reported from Newfoundland (FSN 112), 'The Auxville Love,' reported from Kentucky (FSMEU 205), 'Love Has Brought Me to Despair,' reported from West Virginia (FSS 428-9), and 'I Am a Rambling Rowdy Boy,' reported from North Carolina (SSSA 173-4). 'The Butcher Boy' was printed as a stall ballad by Partridge of Boston and by De Marsan and Wehman of New York, and Kittredge has noted (JAFL XXXV 361) that it is to be found in five American song-books published between 1869 and 1914. Its appearance in print is as likely to be the effect as the cause of its wide popularity. The scene is most often Jersey City, but it may be any one of a considerable number of cities or may be unspecified. A peculiarity of nearly all the texts reported is the illogical shift of grammatical person — it begins as a narrative by the girl and passes, at different places in different texts but generally about the middle of the story, to third-person narration about the girl. The texts in our collection, one is surprised to find, never locate the action in Jersey City; the scene is Boston town or Johnson City or New York City or Jefferson City or London City; and in only three of them is the faithless lover a butcher boy.
Elements of 'The Butcher Boy' enter into combination with elements of other ballads and songs. Some composites of this sort are given after the more normal 'Butcher Boy' texts. For some others, see 'The Sailor Boy' C, D, I, and J (no. 104, below), and 'Little Sparrow' F, in Vol. III.
K. 'The Farmer's Boy.' From Miss Lura Wagoner's manuscript book of songs lent to Dr. Brown in 1936, in which this song is dated March 15, 1913. Although for the most part a normal text, it introduces the lover, repentant, at the close and so puts the directions for burial in his mouth, not hers. Its relation to our other texts can best be shown by giving it entire.
1 In London City where I did dwell
Lived a farmer's boy I loved so well.
He courted me my life away,
And then with me he would not stay.
2 There is a strange house in this town,
He goes up there, sits himself down,
And takes a strange girl on his knee,
And tells her things that he won't tell me.
3 I hate to grieve, and I'll tell you why:
Because she has more gold than I.
But her gold will melt and her silver fly,
In time to come be poor as I,
4 Must I be bound and the boys go free?
Must I love a boy when he don't love me?
Alas! Oh no, that never will be,
Till oranges grow on apple trees,
5 I went upstairs to make my bed
And nothing to my mama said.
She came up, saying unto me,
'Oh, what is the matter, daughter dear ?'
6 'Oh, mama dear, you need not know
The grief and sorrow, pain and woe.
Go bring me a chair [to] sit myself down,
A pen and ink to write it down.'
7 On each line she dropped a tear,
Calling back her Willie dear,
And on each line she dropped a tear,
Calling back her Willie dear.
8 I went out one evening fair[1]
To view the plains and take the air.
I thought I heard some young man say
He loved a girl that was going away.
9 When her father first came home
Saying, 'Where is my daughter? Where has she gone?'
He went upstairs and the lock he broke ;
He found her hanging by a rope.
10 He drew his knife and he cut her down,
And on her breast these lines were found:
'What a foolish girl I am, you know,
To kill myself for a farmer's boy.'
11 When he first went to her grave,
It called him back to his love again.
He says, 'O God ! how can I live
To think of the girl I have deceived?
12 'Come all young men and warning take,
Never do a girl's heart break.
For if you do you're sure to be
In sin and sorrow just like me.
13 'Go dig my grave both wide and deep,
Place a marble stone at my head and feet.
And on my breast place a snow-white dove
To show the world I died for love.'
1. Cf. Forsaken Love- Eden Hash TN published 1947 by McDowell.