Prentice Boy- Hooper/White (Hamb) 1903 Sharp MS
[Cecil Sharp Manuscript Collection (at Clare College, Cambridge) (CJS2/9/41) with music.
R. Matteson 2016]
Prentice Boy- sung by Louie Hooper and Lucy White of Hambridge, Sept. 1903.
My father bound me a prentice boy,
A millard[1] for to be,
'Till I picked up with an Oxford girl
With a dark and rolling eye.
I went unto her sister
At eight o'clock in the night.
How little did that fair maid think
I owed her any spite.
I asked of her to take a walk
Down in some shady grove
And there we sat and talked of love
And fixed the wedding-day.
He pulled a stick out of the hedge
And striked her to the ground
Until the blood of the innocent
Came trink'ling to the ground.
Down on her bended knees she fall
And loudly she did cry,
Crying: Jimmy dear, don't murder me
For I am not fit to die.
He tooked her by her curly locks
And dragged her through the green
Until he came to the large water-side
And there he throwed her in.
And he went on to his master's house
At twelve o'clock in the night.
His master rose and let him in
By striking of a light.
He asked of me and questioned me
What stains my hands and clothes,
I quickly made him answer
‘Twas the bleeding of my nose.
No rest, no peace all that long night
I did in torments lie
For the murdering of my own true love
And for it I must die.
1. a miller with wings ;)