Oxford Girl- Mrs. G. V. Easley (MS) 1924 Hudson A
[From: Ballads and Songs from Mississippi- Arthur Palmer Hudson The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 39, No. 152 (Apr. - Jun., 1926), pp. 93-194. Reprinted in Folksongs of Mississippi, 1936. His notes follow.
Mrs. G. V. Easley lives about 25 miles southeast of Oxford, MS. Hudson visited her in he summer of 1924.
R. Matteson 2016]
20. THE WEXFORD GIRL
A. "The Oxford Girl." Written down from memory by Mrs. G. V. Easley, Tula, Mississippi, who describes it as one of the most popular 'ballets' in Calhoun county in her girlhood. This is a version of "The Wexford Girl" ("The Cruel Miller"). The corruption of the name Wexford is undoubtedly due to the prominence in North Mississippi of Oxford, seat of the State University and of the United States Court for the Northern District of Mississippi. See Cox, No. 90.
I. I fell in love with an Oxford girl
With dark and rolling eye.
I asked that girl to marry me;
She said, "I'll never deny."
2. I called up to her sister's house
At eight o'clock one night,
And her not knowing I was there,
I took her on surprise.
3. I told her that we'd take a walk
To view the meadow gay,
That we might have some secret talk
About our wedding day.
4. We walked along, we talked along
Till we come to Oxford town,
And there I upped with a heavy wood stick
And knocked that maiden down.
5. She fell upon her bended knees,
She cried, "Oh, Willie, dear boy,
Don't murder me here, oh, please,
For I'm not prepared to die."
6. I listened not to a word she said,
But I beat her more and more,
Until the ground where she lay
Was in a bloody gore.
7. I picked her up by her lily-white hands
I threw her round and round
I threw her in the river stream
That flows through Oxford town.
8. "Lay there, lay there, you Oxford girl;
Lay there, lay there, I say;
Lay there, lay there, you Oxford girl;
My bride you never will be."
9. I called up to my mother's house
At twelve o'clock that night,
And her not knowing I was there,
I woke her in a fright.
10. "O Willie, my boy, what have you done
To bloody your hands and clothes?"
I answered her in a low sweet tone,
"A bleeding at the nose."
11. I asked her for a handkerchief
To bind my aching head;
I asked her for a candlestick
To light my way to bed.
12. I rolled and tumbled all night long;
Not a moment did I sleep,
For the demons of hell around my bed,
And I could not sleep a wink.
13. Six days, six weeks, six weeks or more,
This maiden's body was found,
Floating down the deep river stream
That flows through Oxford town.
14. Her brother[1] swore my life away,
He swore it o'er and o'er;
He swore that I was the very boy
That caused his sister's death.
15. O Lordy, they're going to hang me now
Between the earth and sky;
They're going to hang me by the neck -
What an awful death to die!
1. usually "sister"