Hangman- Stafford (MS-KY) pre1936 Hudson F
[My title. From Arthur Palmer Hudson, Folksongs of Mississippi 1936. His notes follow. The last verse was not supplied although it should have been.
R. Matteson 2015]
THE MAID FREED FROM THE GALLOWS
(Child, No. 95)
Six texts of this ballad have been recovered for the present collection. Two and a note on a third were published in my "Ballads and Songs from Mississippi," Journal, XXXIX, 105 ff. For a general discussion of the ballad in Mississippi, see p. 55. For other American variants, see Brown, p. 91 Campbell and Sharp, No. 24; Cox, No. 18; Davis, No. 27 (who notes that in Virginia the ballad has been used as a game and has also been dramatized); Pound, No. 13; Reed Smith, No. 10; Scarborough, p. 35; Wyman and Brockway, p. 44; Barry, No. 21.
F. [Hangman] No title given. Copy from Mr. George F. Swetnam, University, from the singing of his mother, Mrs. Flora Stafford Swetnam, who learned it from her mother, a native of Kentucky.
1 Hangman, hangman, slack your rope,
And slack it for a while,
For I believe I see my father
Come running a many a mile.
2 "Have you brought me gold,
Have you paid me fee?
Have you come to see me hang,
All on the gallows tree.
3 "I have not brought you gold,
I have not paid your fee.
I have come to see you hung,
All on the gallows tree.
[So with "mother," "brother," "sister," and "lover," the last of whom replies, as satisfactorily as the "lover" does in the other texts, though in words belonging to this particular text.]