[From Ballads and Songs collected by the Missouri Folk-Lore Society, 1940, ed. Belden. An excerpt of his notes follow.
R. Matteson 2014]
The name of the poisoned one varies greatly; one name, Tyranty, belongs exclusively, so far as the record goes, to New England. The poisoner is commonly the victim's sweetheart, but may be his stepmother, his grandmother, his sister, his wife, or even (BBM version N) himself.[1] The poison is commonly snake venom (often described as 'eels' or spotted, striped, or speckled fish caught in a hedge or ditch ) but may be simply 'bread and poison' or 'a cup of cold poison'; in Child M it is apparently and in the Cumberland version listed above it is specifically toads. Altho there is little if anything that is distinctive in the Missouri versions, it seems best to give them here for the benefit of future students of this particular ballad story.
1. In a text from family tradition in Vermont given me in 1920 by Mr. P. G. Perrin the poisoner is 'grandpa'!
E. [Jimmy Rando.] Miss E. M. Denny of Columbia remembered in 1934 the following as sung 'more than thirty years ago' by negroes in Randolph County.
'O what have you left for your sweetheart, Jimmy Rando,
my sweet and pretty one ?
O what have you left for your sweetheart, Jimmy Rando, my son?
'Here's hell-fire and brimstone to burn her bones brown,
For she is the cause of my wantin' to lie down.'