Wexford Girl- Eldin Colsie (ME) 194 Flanders D
[From recording in Helen Hartness Flanders Ballad Collection at Middlebury College Special Collections & Archives. Classification #: LAP35. Track 08b. Dated 1941.
Listen: https://archive.org/details/HHFBC_tapes_D19B (time 25.40)
The quality of the recording is poor- he sings two lines then starts over reciting the ballad at a very fast clip.
R. Matteson 2016]
Wexford Girl - recitation by Eldin Colsie at Stacyville (Me.) dated 1941.
[beginning missing]
I went to father's house
'Bout eight o'clock at night.
And asked for to take he out
To view those meadows gay
That we would have a chance to talk
And 'point our wedding day.
We strolled along together
Till we came to level ground;
I drew a stake from out of the fence,
And knocked this fair maid down.
She fell upon her bended knees,
For mercy she did cry,
"Willie dear don't murder me,
I'm not prepared to die."
I took her by the yellow locks,
And threw her all around,
And threw her in the river,
That flows through Wexford town.
I returned to my father's house,
Bout twelve o'clock at night,
My mother she woke up,
Was in a dreadful fright.
Said, "Son, oh son what have you done,
That stain'd your hands clothes?
And the answer that I gave to them,
Was, bleeding from the nose.
I asked for a candle
To light myself to bed
Likewise a handkerchief,
To tie around my head.
I rolled and tumbled in my bed,
No comfort could I find
The gates of hell around me,
And in my eyes did shine.
Bout ten days after
Her body it was found
A-floating down the river
That flows through Wexford Town.
They took me on suspicion,
And sent me off to jail,
[With no one there to bring me out,
No one to go my bail.
Her sister swore my life away
And that's beyond a doubt
She said I was the very young man,
That took her sister out.]