Malcolm, I should have checked there too. I have been busily transcribing it from the Albion Country Band recording - and Carthy's (sometimes annoyingly) mannered singing style does not make for easy transcription! Since there are several minor departures from the text Wolfgang posted, I will post it anyway. It seems that it is Annette's source. Wolfgang has cleared up the town name 'Ekefield' - I had 'Heathfield'. Carthy does not seem to be singing 'river' - sounds more like 'fever there'. What I and Annette have as 'jibe' could be a reference to the gibbet and could be 'gib', but pronounced 'jibe'.

HANGED I SHALL BE
(Traditional)

Now as I was bound apprentice, I was 'prenticed to the mill
And I served me master truly for more than seven year
Until I took up to courting with a lass with that rolling eye
And I promised that I'd marry her in the month of sweet July
And as we went out a-walking through the fields and the meadows gay
Oh it's there we told our tales of love and we fixed our wedding day

And as we were walking and talking of the things that grew around
Oh I took a stick all out of the hedge and I knocked that pretty maid down
Down on her bended knees she fell and loud for mercy cried
'Oh spare the life of an innocent girl for I'm not prepared to die'
But I took her by her curly locks and I dragged her on the ground
And I throwed her into the river (?) there that flows to Ekefield town
That flows so far to the distance, that flows so deep and wide
Oh it's there I threw this pretty fair maid that should have been me bride

Oh I went home to me parents' house, it being late at night
Mother she got out of bed all for to light the light
Oh she asked me and she questioned me, 'What stains your hands and clothes'
And the answer I gave back to her, 'I've been bleeding at me nose'
No rest, no rest all that long night, no rest there could I find
For there's sparks of fire and brimstone around me at the jibe (?)

And it was about three days after that this pretty fair maid was found
Floating by the river (?) there that flows to Ekefield town
That flows so far to the distance, that flows so deep and wide
Oh it's there they found that pretty fair maid that should have been me bride
Oh the judges and the jurymen all on me they did agree
For the murdering of this pretty fair maid a-hanged I shall be

Source: Albion Country Band 'Battle of the Field' Island Records HELP 25 (1976)

--Stewie.