Sweet Willie- (NC) 1933 Warner
[From: Traditional American Folk Songs- Frank and Anne Warner. Mysteriously this version is nearly identical to the version collected by my grandfather Maurice Matteson from Mrs. Lloyd Bare Bragg, Elk Park NC in 1933. Warner collected his version also in NC during the summer. He gives no other information about the source except the date. It is not similar to Nancy Prather's NC version (Frank Proffitt's great-aunt) except for the opening stanza.
R. Matteson 2014]
SWEET WILLIE- summer 1933; collected by Frank Warner.
He rode up to the old man's gate,
And loudly he did say:
"You keep your oldest daughter at home,
he youngest one I will take away."
He got on his milk-white steed,
And she on her dapple grey;
He flang his bugle-horn around his neck
And they went riding away.
They had not gone more'n a mile and a half,
Until they both looked back.
They saw her father and seven of her brothers,
Come a-trippling over the slack.
"Get right down," Sweet Willie he cried,
"And hold my milk-white steed,
Till I fight your father and your seven brothers,
Or go dying in my own hearts's blood."
She got right down without one word,
And helt the milk-white steed,
Till she saw her father and seven of her brothers,
Go dying in their own hearts' blood.
"O slack your hand, Sweet Willie," she cried,
"Your wounds are deep and sore.
O slack your hand, Sweet Willie," she cried,
"For [a] father I can have no more."
"If you don't like what I have done,
You can love some other one;
I wish you away in your mother's chamberee,
And me in some house or room.
They rode on to his father's gate,
And tapped against the ring.
"O father, O mother, asleep or awake,
Arise and let me in.
Sweet Willie died like it was today,
Fair Ellen died tomorrow.
Sweet Willie died of the wounds that he received,
Fair Ellen died of sorrow.