BUTCHER BOY
(collected during the 1960s, from Charley Brown, i think;-compare Once my true love courted me for another version of this ballad>
In London town there does dwell
Now there's a place down in the town
It's grief and pain, I'll tell you why:
She went upstairs to make her bed,
O mother dear, it's don't you know,
She wrote a letter, she wrote a song;
And when her father, he came home,
He took a knife and cut her down,
I wish, I wish, I wish in vain,
O dig my grave both wide and deep,
(from miriam berg's folksong collection)
The butcher's boy I love so well;
He courted me my heart away
And then with me he would not stay.
Where my love goes and sits him down;
He takes strange girls upon his knee;
And he tells to them what he won't tell me.
Because she's got more gold than I.
But gold will melt, and silver fly,
In the time of need she'll be poor as I.
And nothing to her mother said.
Her mother, she came up to her,
O what's the matter, daughter dear?
It's grief and pain, and sorrow, woe;
Get me a chair to sit upon,
And pen and ink to write it down;
She wrote a letter, she wrote it long;
At ev'ry word she dropped a tear,
At ev'ry line cried, Willy dear!
He said, Where has my daughter gone?
He went upstairs, the door he broke,
He found her hanging from a rope.
And in her breast these words he found:
O what a silly girl was I,
To hang myself for a butcher's boy.
I wish I was a maid again;
But a maid again I ne'er shall be
Till cherries bloom on a cherry tree.
Place tombstones at my head and feet,
And at my breast a turtle dove
To tell the world I died for love.