The Tragedy- Dayton Wiles (WV) c.1916 Cox A
[My date, none given. From Cox, "Folk-Songs Of The South," p. 311-313, 1925. Cox's excellent notes, which have been quoted numerous times, follow. The text represents 12 stanzas with divided lines.
The first two stanzas with 'farmer' are mixed with "Girl I left Behind Me" text and found in a number of versions usually in Canada.
R. Matteson 2016]
90. THE WEXFORD GIRL (THE CRUEL MILLER)
In West Virginia this ballad is known as "The Tragedy" and as "Johnny McDowell." It has been found in oral circulation in Virginia and Tennessee (Focus, IV, 370), Missouri (Belden, Journal, xxv, n), and Kentucky (Shearin and Combs, pp. 13, 28). Belden has noted that it is "a reduction of 'The Wittam Miller.'" Of "The Berkshire Tragedy, or, The Wittam Miller" the Harvard College Library has English broadsides of the eighteenth and the early nineteenth century (Stonecutter-street, Fleet Market; J. Evans; Howard & Evans; Turner, Coventry; Pitts; cf. Roxburghe Ballads, ed. Ebsworth, vm, ii, 629). According to an Edinburgh chapbook of 1744 (catalogued by Halliwell, Notices of Fugitive Tracts, Percy Society, xxix, 90), the miller's name was John Mauge and he was hanged at Reading (Berkshire) in that year. An American broadside of the early part of the nineteenth century (Boston, Corner of Cross and Fulton Streets) affords a condensed version of "The Wittam Miller" under the title of "The Lexington Miller." A condensed text, "The Cruel Miller," substantially like the West Virginia version, is found in modern English broadsides (Catnach; Ryle; Such, No. 622); see also Journal of the Folk-Song Society, vil, 23, and cf. Baring-Gould and Sheppard, Songs of the West, IV, xxx.
A. "The Tragedy." Communicated by Miss Marie Rennar, Morgantown, Monongalia County; obtained from Mrs. Dayton Wiles, who learned it from her mother, who lived many years in the mountains near Rowlesburg, Preston County.
1 There was a rich old farmer in Wexford divine,
Who had two charming daughters; for my love they did pine.
I went to see those charming girls just eight o'clock at night;
Little did poor sister dear, when I left her in great spite.
2 I asked the other to take a walk and view the meadow o'er,
So we might have a chance to talk, and appoint our wedding hour.
We strolled along both hand in hand, till we came to the level ground;
I drew a stake out of the hedge and knocked my fair one down.
3 She fell upon her bended knees, and for mercy she did cry:
"O Johnny, dear, don't murder me here, for I'm not prepared to die!"
I took her by the curly locks, and dragged her o'er the ground,
And threw her into the waters that ran through Wexford town.
4 Straight home, straight, poor Johnny went at twelve o'clock that night,
Which caused his aged mother to wake up in great fright:
"O Johnny dear, what have you done? There are bloodstains on your hands!"
The answer that he gave her was, "Bleeding at the nose."
5 He asked her for a candle to light him up to bed,
While the groans and moans of the Wexford girl went roaming through his head.
Six or seven days afterward the Wexford girl was found,
A-floating on the waters that run through Wexford town.
6 Marshall came and arrested me and dragged me off to jail;
There was no one to pity me, no one to go my bail.
Now come, all you tender-hearted men, and warning take in time;
Never murder a poor girl, or your fate will be like mine.