Hi, Bridget....

Here's how the Clancys do Butcher Boy. It's one of those old ones where there are countless versions and variants, such as Wild Goose Grasses (The Weavers). The theme occurs over and over again. Try searching past threads and you'll probably find much more.

....Tiger

THE BUTCHER BOY -- performed by The Clancy Brothers

In London city, where I did dwell,
A butcher boy I loved right well;
He courted me my life away,
But now with me he will not stay.

I wish, I wish, I wish in vain,
I wish I was a maid again;
A maid again I ne'er will be
'Till cherries grow on an ivy 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."

She went upstairs to go to bed,
And calling to her mother, said,
"Give me a chair till I sit down
And a pen and ink till I write down."

At every word she dropped a tear,
At every line cried, "Willie, dear,
Oh, what a foolish girl was I,
To be led astray by a butcher boy."

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 turtledove,
That the world may know that I died for love." ^^^