DIED FOR LOVE

There was a young farmer who once courted me
He stole my heart and sweet liberty
He stole my heart with a sweet good will
And I must confess that I love him still.

There is an alehouse in the town.
My love go in and sit himself down.
He takes another girl on his knee,
Now don't you think that's a grief to me.

Grief to me, yes, I'll tell you why
Because she's got more gold than I
Her gold will waste and her silver fly
And she'll become a poor girl like I.

Oh, don't I wish my baby was born,
Sat smiling on its dadda's knee
And I myself in a cold, cold grave
With green grass growing over me

[The farmer]* coming home one night,
He call-ed for his heart's delight.
Upstairs he flew and the door he broke,
He found his love hanging there by a rope.

He took a knife and cut her down.
Unto her bosom a note he found.
"Since I can't be this young farmer's wife,
Then with this rope I have ended my life.

So dig me a grave both long, wide and deep
Strew it with flowers that do smell sweet,
And on my bosom two turtle doves,
To let the world know I died for love."

* "Her father" makes more sense, but since when has logic and
consistency had anything to do with folksong?

Close relatives of every one of these verses are in either
Died for Love or the Butcher's Boy,
but not in the same order.

Collected by Desmond and Shelagh Herring at Rattlesden, Suffolk 1958-59 from the
singing of Emily Sparkes.
It's on a double cassette called "Many a Good Horseman, traditional music making
from mid-Suffolk
recorded 1958-1993", issued by Veteran Tapes of Haughley, Suffolk.

DT #320
filename[ DIEDLOV3
SX
Feb07
mudcat.org

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