Oxford Girl- Audrey Hellums (MS) 1924 Hudson B
[From: Ballads and Songs from Mississippi- Arthur Palmer Hudson The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 39, No. 152 (Apr. - Jun., 1926), pp. 93-194. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2016]
20. THE WEXFORD GIRL
B. "The Oxford Girl." Communicated by Mr. T. A. Bickerstaff, a student in the University of Mississippi, who obtained it from his sister, Mrs. Audrey Hellums, of Tishomingo, Mississippi. In a letter to her brother, Mrs. Hellums remarks of the ballad: "I think there is a verse or two missing, but I can't remember it or them. There are some places where the language is not very good; but this is the only way I ever knew the ballad." Mr. Bickerstaff states that this ballad was once very popular in his county, Tishomingo. This county, situated in the extreme northeastern corner of Mississippi and bordered partially by the Tennessee River and the states of Tennessee and Alabama, is a hundred miles north of Calhoun County, from which the A version and many of the other specimens in this collection were obtained.
1. It was in the town of Oxford
I used to live and dwell;
It was in the town of Oxford
I ran a flour mill.
2. I fell in love with an Oxford girl
With dark and rolling eye.
I asked her if she'd marry me.
She said she'd never deny.
3. I asked her to take a walk with me
To view the meadows gay,
That we might have some secret talk
And appoint our wedding day.
4. We walked along, we talked along
Till we came to level ground,
And there I picked up a hedgewood stake
And knocked that fair maid down.
5. She came to me on bended knees;
"Have mercy, Lord," she cried.
"Don't murder me, Willie, my dear;
I'm not prepared to die."
6. Of the Oxford girl I never took heed.
I beat her more and more,
Till the flames of hell around me seemed
Almost to crack and roar.
7. I picked her up by the yellow locks;
I slung her round and round;
I carried her to the river's side
And slung her in to drown.
8. I called at my mother's house
At twelve o'clock that night.
My mother, being weary,
Woke up into a fright.
9. "God bless you, son - what have you done?
You've bloodied your hands and clothes."
The answer I gave her was,
"I'm bleeding at the nose."
10. I asked her for a candle
To light me off to bed,
And also for a handkerchief
To bind my aching head.
11. I rolled and I tumbled;
I could not sleep no more,
For the flames of hell around me
Seemed almost in a roar.
12. A day or two after that
The Oxford girl was found
A-floating down the river stream
That flows through Oxford town.
13. Oh, Lord, they're going to hang me -
The death I hate to die;
Oh, Lord, they're going to hang me
Between the earth and sky.