Hi,

This is a version from Songs Sung in the Southern Appalachians, by Mellinger Henry, London c.1934. Taken from Rena Hicks, the wife of dulcimer maker Nathan Hicks and the niece of Buna Hicks, who also had the same family version, "Rude and Rambling Boy," probably from Rena's source.

It's loosely based on "Cruel Father" broadside (my B version) which has the 'rambling boy' opening. After the cruel father discovers his daughter is in love with the "wild and roving lad" the father presses him to sea, where the lad is killed by a cannonball. His ghost haunts the father that night and later his daughter hangs herself leaving a note that blames her father. It ends with the "Died for Love" stanza.

The second half of stanza one a corruption of "Nelly's Constancy" a broadside of 1686, which begins in later versions: "I love you Willie." One indication of the age of this version is that she was hung by her own "bed rope" a term that precedes the mid-1800s.


I Am a Rambling Rowdy Boy- sung by Rena Hick of Beech Mountain, NC collected in December 1933 by Melinger Henry.

I am a rambling rowdy boy,
A rambling still I be;
I give this world,
If that she knowed I loved her so.

Her old father caused this to know,
That he loved his daughter so,
He carried her away.

He[1] swore against them all
That he would use his cannonball,
He came home so late at night
A-grieving for his heart's delight.

Upstairs he run, the door he broke,
And he found her hung there by her own bed rope—
Out with his knife, he cut her down,
And in her bosom a letter he found:

Go dig my grave, both deep and wide;
Bury Sweet William by my side,
While friends and relative a-weeping around.

While there she lay beneath the ground,
There came a turtle dove,
To show the world
That she died for love.

1. Originally "She" throughout which makes no sense but it's "He" in Buna's version.