John Lankin- Backus (NC) c.1820 Newell/Child
[From Child, Additions and Corrections, 1898 Volume X, English and Scottish Popular Ballads.
R. Matteson 2012, 2015]
John Lankin- Backus (NC) c.1820 Newell/Child- Communicated by Mr. W.W. Newell, with the superscription (by the original transcriber, Miss Emma M. Backus) "as sung in Newbern, North Carolina, seventy-five years ago" (1895).
1 John Lankin was a good mason
As ever laid a stone;
He built Lord Arnold's castle
And the lord he paid him none.
2 John Lankin then swore,
If the lord did not pay him,
He would break into his castle
And murder all his kinsmen.
3 Lord Arnold soon did hear
Of John Lankin's threat so dour;
He did guard all his castle
With soldiers every hour.
4 He said to his lady,
'I am going away from home,
And what should you do
If John Lankin should come?'
5 'I care not for John Lankin,
Or any of his kin;
I will bar all my doors
And I'll pin my windows in.'
6 The doors were all barred
And the windows pinned in,
And out of the kitchen-window
The nurse she let him in.
7 He killed the good lady
With a cowardly cruel blow,
And threw her pretty baby
To the dank moat below.
8 John Lankin was hung
On the gallows so high,
And the nurse she was chained
In a dungeon to die.