Mollie Vaughn- Valera Ervine (WV) c.1814 Cox C
[My date based on information supplied. From: Folk Songs of the South, 1925 by John Harrington Cox. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2016]
102. MOLLIE VAUGHN
Three fairly good copies of this song have been found in West Virginia under the titles, "Mollie Vaunders," "Molly Vaunder," and "Mollie Vaughn."
The earliest known record of this ballad is Jamieson's printed circular letter of 1799. The piece was published, in an incomplete text, in his Popular Ballads, 1806, 1, 194 ("Peggy Baun"). A variant ("Molly Whan") was issued by Pitts as a slip-song very early in the nineteenth century. An American broadside ("Polly Wand") is among the ballads purchased "from a Ballad Printer and
Seller in Boston" by Isaiah Thomas in 1813 (11, 122, American Antiquarian Society). Barry prints a four-stanza medley from Maine which contains four lines of the ballad {Journal, XXII, 387). Kittredge prints three versions (Journal, xxx, 358), one from a very old lady in Massachusetts, the others from Wyman's MS. Kentucky collection. Pound, No. 22, reprints the third of these.
Campbell and Sharp, No. 40, give a text from North Carolina and a fragment from Tennessee. For British and American references see Journal, xxx, 358. Add Journal of the Folk-Song Society, 11, 59; VII, 17; Journal of the Irish Folk-Song Society, III, 25.
C. "Mollie Vaughn." Communicated by Mr. C. R. Bishop, Green Bank, Pocahontas County, 1917; obtained from Miss Valera Ervine, who got it from her mother, who had it from her mother, who got it from an aunt, who got it from her grandfather, all natives of West Virginia and untravelled.
1 Mollie Vaughn was a- walking, when a shower came on;
She ran under a tree, the shower to shun.
Jimmie Randells was a-hunting, a-hunting in the dark;
He shot at his true love and he missed not his mark.
2 He picked up his gun, to his uncle did run,
Saying, "Uncle, dearest uncle, I killed Mollie Vaughn!
I've killed that fair damsel, the joy of my life,
And I always intended to make her my wife."
3 Up stepped Jimmie's father, with his locks turning gray,
Saying, "Jimmie, dearest Jimmie, do not run away!
Stay with your country till your trial comes on;
You ne'er shall be hurt for killing Mollie Vaughn."
4 On the day of Jimmie's trial, Mollie's ghost did appear:
"Say, ye gentlemen of the jury, young Jimmie goes clear.
With a white apron round me, he took me for a swan,
And Jimmie shall ne'er be hurt for killing Mollie Vaughn."