Love Henry- McAllister (VA) 1958 Foss
[From Anglo-American Folksong Style; Abrahams and Foss, 1968. This is of many versions from the Brown's Cove area in Virginia- and, it's an ancient version. It has the sounding of the horn (Bronson) and a pistol instead of a bow and arrow to shoot the parrot. George Foss describes the region in From White Hall to Bacon Hollow, an excerpt follows.
Marybird father Larkin Bruce married her mother Polly Shiflett in 1872. She married Lemuel McAllister. Several collectors have collected ballads from her and her sister (?) Lucy.
R. Matteson 2014]
From White Hall to Bacon Hollow is about a place and about its culture and people. I have granted myself the author's indulgence of selecting a title significant in its double meaning. White Hall to Bacon Hollow is a stretch of twisting country road, Virginia route 810, crossing the line between Albemarle and Greene Counties. Heading west from Charlottesville toward Staunton across the mountains in the valley of Virginia and the Shenandoah River, turn north through the small industrial town of Crozet past orchards of apples and peaches and fields of corn and rye to a small country store in the fork of the road which is White Hall. From there the road winds ever closer to the mountains northward some twenty miles to Bacon Hollow. This region is bounded on the west by the southernmost section of the Skyline Drive and nestles into the gaps and coves which reach up to the Shenandoah National Park line near the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The main road is met by many dirt and rocky roads which reach up into the climbing crevices of the Great Blue Ridge on the left and down into the lesser mountains and foot hills back to the east. This is the place and the home of the people I have come to know so well. Whitehall also has a second meaning for me, as the great palace of the Tudor kings and queens of England. It was the cultural center of the English Renaissance at the time the very ballads and songs which I was seeking in the Virginia Blue Ridge originated or were in popular currency. Whitehall is still mentioned in some of the classic ballads sung in that region.[George Foss]
Love Henry- Marybird McAllister, 1958
1 Lady Marg'ret was a-goin' to her bed one night,
She heard the sound of a Jericho (?) horn,
And which it made her sad and glad
To think it was her brother, brother John.
But who should it be but her true love Henathree
Come in from his wild hunting.
2 Oh light, oh light Love Hen-ri-ee
And stay all night with me.
For you was a-playing of a Jericho fair
The best that I can give thee.
For you was a-playing of a Jericho fair
The best that I can give thee.
3 I will not light nor I won't not light
To stay all night with thee,
For there's some pretty girls in merry Greenleaf
That I love more better 'an thee.
For there's some pretty girls in merry Greenleaf
That I love more better 'an thee.
4 He went to the bed to little Marg'ret
And give her a farewell kiss.
And with a penknife in her right hand
She wounded him full death.
And with a penknife in her right hand
She wounded him full death.
5 Woe be, woe be, Lady Marg'ret, woe be,
Woe be, woe be, on to you,
Oh don't you see my own heart's blood
Come twinkling down by me?
Oh don't you see my own heart's blood
Come twinkling down by me?
6 She called in her old missv servant
"Keep a secret, keep a secret on me,
And those fine robes on my body
It's you shall a-bein' of them.
And those fine robes on my body
It's you shall a-bein' of them."
7 One taken him by his long yellow hair,
And the other by his feet,
And throwed him into the well water
Which was both cold and deep.
And throwed him into the well water
Which was both cold and deep.
8 "Lie there, lie there, Love Hen-ri-ee
Till the flesh rots offa your bones,
And them pretty girls in merry Greenleaf
A-thinking of your comin' home.
And them pretty girls in merry Greenleaf
A-thinking of your comin' home."
9 There is a parrot on the limb,
A portion of the willow tree,
Says, "There never was a pretty girl in merry Greenleaf
That he ever loved half well as thee.
There never was a pretty girl in merry Greenleaf
That he ever loved half well as thee."'
10 "Come down, come down, my pretty parrot,
And sit upon my knee,
For your cage door can be lined with gold
Can stay in the willow tree.
For your cage door can be lined with gold
Can stay in the willow tree."
11. "I won't come down nor I shan't come down
And sit upon your knee,
For you have murdered your own true love
And sooner you will kill me.
For you have murdered your own true love
And sooner you will kill me."
12. "If I had my iron(t) in my hand
And strung it out full death,
Oh I'd pierce a ball through your little tiny heart
'at you couldn't sing no more.
Oh I'd pierce a ball through your little tiny heart
'at you couldn't sing no more."
13. "If you had your iron (t) in your hand
And strung it out full death,
Oh, I'd take a flight and I'd fly, fly away
And tune my voice to sing.
Oh, I'd take a flight and I'd fly, fly away
And tune my voice to sing."