The Butcher Boy- Unknown (Aber) c.1910 Greig FSNE
[No informant named. From: Folk-Song of the North-East; article 137 dated about August 1910, by Gavin Greig. His notes follow. From a reprint of articles contributed to the "Buchan Observer" from December 1907 to June 1911; 2 vols. Peterhead, 1909 & 1914; represented as one vol., Hatboro, 1963.
This appears to be a compilation but it may not be. No informant named.
R. Matteson 2016]
The folk-singer is fond of tragedy. Ballads of Murder and Execution, in particular, are pretty numerous, although it must be allowed that, as far as our North-Eastern minstrelsy is concerned, they are mainly importations. They have likely enough been introduced through broadsides. "The Butcher Boy'' is well known in our part of the country, judging from the records which we
have got of both words and tune.
GAVIN GREIG, New Deer. Folk-Song of the North-East, article 137, dated about August 1910.
THE BUTCHER BOY.
My parents gave me good learning,
Good learning they gave unto me,
They sent me to a butcher's shop,
A butcher's boy to be.
I fell in love with a nice young girl,
She'd a dark and rolling eye;
I promised for to marry her
In the month of sweet July.
This fair maid being beguiled by me,
Upon me she did cry,-
O Willie dear, you'll marry me,
Or else for you I'll die.
I went unto her mother's house,
'Twixt the hours of eight and nine,
And asked if she would take a walk
Down by yon running stream.
They've walkèd up, and they've walkèd down,
And they've walkèd all along,
Till from his breast he drew a knife,
And stabbed her to the bone.
She fell upon her bended knees,
And for mercy she did cry,
O Willie dear, don't murder me,
And leave me here to die.
He's ta'en her by the lily white hand,
And dragged her all along,
Until be came to yon running stream,
And he plunged her body in.
He went into his mother's house,
"Twixt the hours of twelve and one;
But little did his poor mother think
What her only son had done.
The question she did put to him,
Why blood did stain his clothes?
But the only answer he gave to her,
'Twas a bleeding at the nose.
He asked her for a handkerchief
To roll around his head;
He asked her for a candle
To let him see to bed.
No rest nor peace could this young man get,
No rest nor peace could he find;
For he saw the burning flames of hell
Approaching in his mind.
The young man's crime it being found out,
The gallows was his doom,
For the murdering of sweet Mary Ann,
The flower that was in bloom.