Oxford Girl- Phoebe Smith (Suf) 1956 REC
[Collected Peter Kennedy, 1956 (8 July) The Oxford Girl London. BBC Sound Archives 23099 http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudFS/S186869 Folktracks 60-029 (`Black Velvet Band') (Roud says Kennedy without year) http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudFS/S218080 Folktracks FSA 100 (`I am a Romany') (Roud says Kennedy, 1956-62) http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudFS/S218078 Topic TSCD 673T ('Good People Take Warning'), CD1 track 18 http://www.topicrecords.co.uk/good-people-take-warning-tscd673t/ (Roud specifies Kennedy 1956(8 July) http://www.vwml.org/record/RoudFS/S339058
Folksongs of Britain and Ireland. Ed. Peter Kennedy. London, 1975, p. 713, No. 327.
Listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovi8Is675R4
http://www.last.fm/music/Phoebe+Smith/_/The+Oxford+Girl
Listen also to Shirley Collins' cover song based on Phoebe's version.
R. Matteson 2016]
Oxford Girl- Sung by Phoebe Smith at Woodbridge, Suffolk; Recorded by Peter Kennedy, 8 July, 1956.
I fell in love with a Oxford girl,
She had dark and a-rolling eyes,
And I feeled too shamed to marry her,
Her being too young a maid.
I went along to her sister's house
About eight o'clock that night,
Asking her if she'd take a walk
Through the fields and meadows gay.
And the answer what she gave to me,
That laid so far away.
I caught fast hold of her lily-white hand
And I kissed those cheek and chin[1],
And I had no thoughts of murdering her
And hid no evil ways.
I pulled the hedgestick all from the hedge
And I gently knocked her down,
And the blood from that poor innocent girl
Come trinkling on the ground.
I caught fast hold of her curly, curly locks
And I dragged her through the field,
Until I came to a deep river side
I gently flung'ed her in.
Look how she go, look how she flows[2]
She's a-floating by the tide,
And, instead of her having a watery grave,
She ought to've been my bride.
I went alone to my uncle's house
About ten o'clock that night,
Asking him for a candle
To light me up to bed.
He answered me and close-questioned me,
What had stained my hands in blood?
And the answer I gave to him,
"I've been bleeding from the nose."
It was about three weeks afterwards
When that pretty fair maid were found,
Come floating down by her own mother's door,
One near called Oxford town.
1. Similar to or from Distressed Maid; "He took her by the lilly white hand he kist her cheek and chin,"
2. See also "Lily-White Hand" as sung by William Reed of Sutton on Hull, 1979:
See there she goes, see there she goes,
She's floating with the tide,
Instead of having a watery grave,
She should have been a bride.