Please read and comment:

With some trepidation I will give a partial analysis or summary of this ballad here, realizing the daunting task of sorting through the many collected versions to reach any conclusions. With regards to the study of this ballad several sources must be consulted:

1) Early sources: including Pepys; Golsmith; Ramsay and Owsald - then continuing to Charles K. Sharpe, Kidson and Chappell. An important early copy by Buchan (Harvard Library) has never been published. This 41 stanza version was referenced by Charles Sharpe and later Child and contains stanzas of the toucher (gifts) to Barbara Allen from her love. Some rare versions (especially the Irish versions - see for example Barry BFSSNE 1933; also my US and Canada version headnotes).
2) Child- English and Scottish Popular Ballads (see below). The A version (Scottish) and B version (English) and their variants are fundamental early versions.
3) In the early 1900s the headnotes to several collections must be considered including Belden, Cox, Davis, Randolph (1946).
4) Recent (after 1950) articles:

A) The British Traditional Ballad in North America by Tristram Coffin 1950, from the section A Critical Biographical Study of the Traditional Ballads of North America

B) Bonny Barbara Allen by Joseph W. Hendren in Folk Travelers: Ballads, Tales and Talk. Dallas, Texas. Boatright, Mody Coggin. UNT Digital Library. http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38314/m1/53/

C) "Barbara Allen" in Tradition and in Print- Riley 1957

D) Flanders-Ancient2, pp. 246-292, "Barbara Allen" 1961 Headnotes by Coffin (see also A by Coffin).

E) Bronson: Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads (2)- 1962

F) Versions & Variants of the Tunes of "Barbara Allen"- Seeger 1966 with COMMENT ON THE WORDS by Ed Cray

G) Ed Cray, "''Barbara Allen': Cheap Print and Reprint" article published 1967 in Folklore Internation.

H) "Barbara Allen": Tonal versus Melodic Structure, Part I by Mieczyslaw Kolinski Ethnomusicology, Vol. 12, No. 2 (May, 1968), pp. 208-218 (also followed by Part 2).

I) The Traditional Ballad Index c. 1990

J) Roud Index No. 54 Bonny Barbara Allen (1169 Listings) c. 2000 but updated- also see Keefer's Folk Index, and Child Collection.

This list does not cover in detail the recordings but some of them are found referenced in A-J. It is safe to say that no detailed study of the ballad has been made since the 1960s. Perhaps the best references for the study of the texts would be Coffin (1950) Hendren (1953) Riley (1957) and Cray (1966). I have the texts here and links to the originals (for Hendren and Riley).

So how do we know the ur-ballad, the original ballad from whence the Scottish (Child A) and English (Child B) versions were formed? Riley compares A and B then notes the similarities of both. Hudson, followed somewhat by Riley and then Cray, has sorted the version by opening lines and assigned approximate dates to these versions.

Riley (and I concur) has given the primary area of original dissemination in North America as the Virginia Colony which established the House of Burgess in 1619 a date that probably preceded the ballad landing on the James River's fertile shores. It is important to note the early ballads in that region (extending later to the Appalachians) predate the publication of both Child A and B (and broadsides) from which some influence on the tradition of the ballad was established (Child C Motherwell, 1828).

Dolph in Sound Off! NY, 1949, says that the song was well known in Colonial America and that the tune was borrowed for "Sergeant Champe," a long ballad about an unsuccessful attempt to kidnap General Benedict Arnold. Although this may be true, Dolph provides no actual evidence of its popularity. Dating the ballad back by using individual versions shows that it can be traced (Davis R) to the late 1700s. Barbara (or more properly Barb'ra) certainly arrived on American shores many years earlier and an early date of the late 1600s is not unreasonable-- although conjecture. Lacking evidence, since the early settlers didn't focus on writing down their musical offerings, we must use family lineage to provide an assumed early date for many of the ballads found in North America.

The influence of printed version (Reliques, Miscellany to broadsides) is in my opinion overrated. Tracing traditional versions back to Child A and B may and should be done however, it is likely that they represent traditional versions which eventually may be traced back to the ur-ballad, and should not be considered based on print necessarily. This is an important distinction:

The traditional versions found in the 1900s (and even rarely today) are based mainly on tradition and not on print.

This has become clear in my research on Lord Thomas and other ballads where a large number of print versions were made. It is my postulation that ballads by the folk and of the folk tend to remain with the folk through oral circulation and are passed down from generation to generation through the extended family circle (which includes friends and neighbors).

There is no doubt (and this is sometimes hard to recognize) that some versions were influenced by print and later recordings (from 1927). Other ballads are recreations by informants and collectors (authors). However, the number of ballads based on print or that have been recreated are relatively small. In most cases these untraditional versions will be commented on in my blue-font headnotes (See, for example, US and Canada Versions).

It will be noted that even our earliest versions (Child A and B) have been recreated to some extent (by Percy for example) and do not represent the true ur-ballad. Some of Percy's additions have been uncovered by Riley and others. Riley gives the following:

An examination of the text at the end of this chapter will show phrases that Percy introduced into subsequent history of the ballad. Some of the moat significant are:

Made Every youth cry wel-aways,

Green buds they were swellin'

Young Jemmye Grove

And o'er his heart is stealing

O lovely Barbara Allen

And slowly she came nigh him.

What needs the tale you are tellin'

When ye the cups were filian

As deadly pangs he tell in

As she was walking o'er the fields

She turned her body round about

Her cheeks with laughter "wallin'

Her heart was struok with sorrow

    and the following stanzas:

She on her death-bed as she laye
Beg'd to be Buried by him;
And sore repented of the dye
That she did ere denye him.

Farewell she sayd ye vergins all,
And shun the fault I fell in,
Henceforth take warning by the fall
Of cruel Barbara Allen.

Thus we have a chance to uncover the traditional and those influenced by print. Because of the length of any analysis I will not give additional details here but will write an article detailing my thoughts which eventually will be found attached to the Recordings & Info page.

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TY Richie