Polly- Eliza Pace (KY) 1917 Sharp E
[My title. Single stanza (end) from: English Folk Songs From The Southern Appalachians, I (1932) by Olive Dame Campbell, Cecil James Sharp, ed. Maud Karpeles. The 1932 notes follow.
R. Matteson 2016]
1932 Notes: No. 50. Shooting of his Dear.
Texts without tunes :—Journal of American Folk-Lore, xxii. 387 ; xxxix. 136.
Texts with tunes: Journal of the Folk-Song Society, ii. 59; vii. 17. Journal of the Irish Folk-Song Society, iii. 25. Songs of the West, 2nd ed., No. 62. Folk Songs from Somerset, No. 16. ' Molly Ban (pronounced Van) so fair/ Petrie's Collection of Irish Music, Nos. 724 and 1171 (tunes only). Joyce's Ancient Irish Music, p. 20. Journal of American Folk-Lore, xxx. 358, Cox's Folk Songs of the South, pp. 339 (see also further references) and 529.
E. [Polly] Sung by Mrs. ELIZA PACE at Hyden, Leslie Co., Ky., Oct. 6, 1917
Three ladies in a cambric and eight in a row,
Pretty Polly in the middle like a mountain of snow.
Jimmy Randals, remember to the day that you die
I saved you from hanging with the rope that did tie.