Hangsman- Bowyer (VA) 1918 Sharp K
[My title. Single stanza from English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians; 1932. Collected by Cecil J. Sharp (1859-1924) and Olive Dame Campbell. Edited by Maud Karpeles. Their notes follow.
R. Matteson 2015]
Notes: No. 24. The Maid Freed from the Gallows.
Texts without tunes:—Child, No. 95.
Texts with tunes:—English County Songs, p. 112. Folk Songs from Somerset, No. 121.
Journal of the Folk-Song Society, v., 228. American variants:—American Journal of Folk-Lore, xxi., 56; xxvi., 175. Musical Quarterly, January, 1916, pp. 10 and 11 (without tunes). Wyman and Brockway's Lonesome Tunes, p. 44.
K. [Hangsman] Sung by Mrs. MOLLY E. BOWYER at Villamont, Va., June 10, 1918
Hexatonic (no 6th).
Hangsman, hangsman, slack your rope,
Slack it for a while;
I think I see my mother come,
She's riding a-many a long mile.