Thanks a lot, Peg. Your typing gave me a huge head start on my transcription from the Franke recording. Looks like you have the song down almost exactly, but here's what I get from the recording.
-Joe Offer-

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I BUT A LITTLE GIRL
(Bob Franke)

I know it is a wicked thing in such a fashion for to sing
With no regard for God or king, and I but a little girl
But evil shapes do bid my tongue, great judges and divines among,
To say things strange to one so young, and I but a little girl.

My friends and I thought little harm to go to Reverend Parris' farm
Our secret fortunes for to charm, such sport for a little girl
But Betty's eyes did roll about, and Abigail began to shout
And so the devil found us out, and shapes began to swirl.

Unholy shapes of girls and men, and women to our torment then
Pronounced us damned and damned again, we being but little girls
What recourse had we but to cry, and name each shape as it flew by
To hold us in its evil eye, we being but little girls.

And so we cried and cried aloud, the names of mighty men and proud
And haughty women in a crowd, we being but little girls
And mothers, fathers, children dear, did crowd around those names to hear
And how the crowd began to fear the namings of little girls.

And learned men from near and far did drag their prisoners to the bar
Examined for the witch's scar, and the curse of little girls
And witch and wizard once confessed cried out their comrades all unblessed
And all the world brought to the test at the word of little girls.

And you, thought safe within your bed, who send your shape about my head
Tomorrow you shall lie in dread of the hearts of little girls
And the justice of the holy court will show its terror of our sport
And the powers of this world resort to the whims of little girls.

For the evil that attacks my heart in pride of power got its start
You lie; you say you have no part in the sins of little girls
The prison's full, the gallows moan, the old man crushed beneath the stones
Are not a work of mine alone, for I'm but a little girl.

Copyright Bob Franke, Telephone Pole Music Publishing Company (BMI)
This song about the 1692 Salem Witch Trials was recorded by Franke on his 1989 album, "Brief Histories."

@America @history @witch @trial
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