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SONG FACTS

Trad., arranged
by Kirsty

1995 single
Caroline

NOTES:
The man who found her is normally her father, based on the other versions.

The lyrics to the Peggy Seeger version are on the Lyrics Server

Somewhat similar words are presented as an original poem by Hope Hunter (age 13) at Heart-on-Sleeve, and again by Chelsey Mckeown.  

Yet another version (and a wonderfully tacky MIDI version) appears as a Lincolnshire song called Died for love at the English Folksongs page, this time it's a farmer boy who is the villain. 

Thanks to Elyse, who is researching the lyric/poem.

The Butcher Boy

In More Street where I did dwell
A butcher boy I loved right well
He courted me my life away
And now with me he will not stay

I wish, I wish, I wish in vain
I wish I was a maid again
But a maid again I'll never be
Till cherries grow on an apple tree

I wish my baby it was born
And smiling on its daddy's knee
And me poor girl to be dead and gone
With the long green grass growing over me

He went upstairs and the door he broke
He found her hanging from a rope
He took his knife and he cut her down
And in her pocket these words he found

"Oh make my grave large, wide and deep
Put a marble stone at my head and feet
And in the middle a turtle dove
So the world may know I died of love"

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