In 1912, in JAFL, Phillips Barry asked for information on this song complex, with names Jealous Lover, Florilla, Emma, Nellie, Lena, Aurilla, Ella, Abie, Summers, Weeping Willows, and said "this ballad, of unknown authorship, is current from Nova Scotia westward and southwardward through the States, New England to Kentucky and westward to Missouri. Some texts contain stanzas derived from a song "She Never Blamed Him," by Thomas A. Bayly."

Other names applied to the song have since been found, and some versions incorporate parts of Pearl Bryan.

Blue-Eyed Ella, in Cox, begins with a verse similar to Lemo, posted above.

Way down in yonder valley, where the early violets bloom,
There lies my blue-eyed Ella, so silent in the tomb.
She died not broken-hearted, nor sickness caused her death;
But she was cruelly murdered by one that she loved best.

In verse four, 'Edward' speaks of going to some foreign country-

On bended knees before him, she pleaded for her life;
But into her lily-white bosom he plunged the fatal knife.
"Your parents must forgive me for the crime I now have done;
And I'll go into some foreign country and never more return."

West Virginia, obtained 1915, but from a copy, so date not known.
J. H. Cox, editor, 1925 (Dover ed. 1967), Folk-Songs of the South, no. 38, The Jealous Lover, pp. 197-203.