Why Did Barbara Allen Refuse?

Subject: RE: Why Did Barbara Allen Refuse?
From: BB
Date: 10 Apr 07 - 03:12 PM

The version I sing has a further verse after she states that she was slighted - he says, 'I made the health to the ladies go round, but my heart was for Barbara Allen.' After saying a fair bit more, he dies, after which she feels remorse. No hysterical laughter in mine - she bursts out crying rather than laughing.

It seems to me that the whole thing is a case of misunderstanding, which, when people have strong emotions, can happen all too easily.

Barbara

Subject: RE: Why Did Barbara Allen Refuse?
From: GUEST,Eli
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 06:23 PM

this is the one most like a sad ballad that explains it all

In Scarlet Town where I was born
there was a fair maid dwelling,
and her name was known both far and near,
and they called her Barbara Allen.

T'was in the merry month of may
the green buds they were swelling,
sweet William on his death bed lay
for the love of Barbara Allen.

He sent his man down to town
to the place where she was dwelling,
saying: master bids your company
if your name be Barbara Allen.

Slowly slowly she got up
to the place where he was lying,
and when she pulled the curtain back,
said: young man, I believe you're dying.

Oh yes oh yes I'm very sick
and I shall not be better
unless I have the love of one,
the love of Barbara Allen.

Don't you remember that night ago
that night down in the tavern,
you gave a toast to all the ladies there
but you slighted Barbara Allen.

Oh yes oh yes I remember it well
that night down in the tavern.
I gave a toast to the ladies there
but I gave my heart to Barbara Allen.

As she was walking in yonder field
She could hear them death-bells knellin'
And every toll seemed to say:
Hard-hearted Barbara Allen

The more they tolled the more she wept
til her heart was filled with sorrow
She said: "sweet William died for me today,
I will die for him tomorrow."

They buried her in the old churchyard,
they buried him beside her.
And from her heart grew a red red rose
and from his heart a brier.

They grew they grew so awfully high
till they could grow no higher,
and there they tied a lover's knot,
the red rose and the brier.

Subject: RE: Why Did Barbara Allen Refuse?
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 Apr 08 - 06:55 PM

In the version that I first heard (and the version I sing), the rose grew out of William's grave because his was the love that was true. The briar grew out of Barbara's grave because her stiff-necked pride had blighted the course of true love.

Although a rose is actually a kind of briar because, botanically speaking, a briar is characterized by having a thorny stem.

Also, far be it from me to quibble with Robert Graves, but in almost all versions I've heard, the witch idea just doesn't cut it. She and William are buried beside each other "in the old church yard," and as I understand it, you can't bury a witch in consecrated ground.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Why Did Barbara Allen Refuse?
From: GUEST,Wondering myself
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 11:31 AM

After finding many versions of this song, and seeing that it was first obtained in 1665, I have come to believe that a lot of different people have added to this song.

I came across a verse that reads.....
"Oh mother dear, you caused all this
You would not let me have him
I might have saved this young man's life
And kept him from hard dying."

Back then it was a lady's honor and her family's reputation that something like that would have hurt. A Mother would have persuaded her daughter that he was not good for them.

As for the unknown verses, it was comman to add to a song you learned. When it changed languages and origins, verses and words changed. If a tune was catching, but someone didn't know all of the words, then they may have added or changed words.

Best way to find out, is to research scottish archives.

Subject: RE: Why Did Barbara Allen Refuse?
From: BB
Date: 17 Apr 08 - 02:53 PM

I find the verse about the mother's attitude quite interesting. The version I have goes:

'Rise up, rise up,' her mother did say,
'Rise up and go and see him.'
'Oh mother, oh mother, d'you mind the day
When you told me for to shun him?'

In the next verse:

'Rise up, rise up,' her father did say,
'Rise up and go and see him.'
'Oh father, oh father, d'you mind the day
When you were going to shoot him?'

Barbara

Subject: RE: Why Did Barbara Allen Refuse?
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 12:43 PM

i must say, i have enjoyed reading this thread.
i found it by chance while looking for the version of this song that i most enjoy. since there are so many variations i don't think it matters so much which is perfectly original. as it has become a song that has been changed and modified over hundreds of years to suit the tale teller.

i have a particular interest in the song because my grandma sang it to me all the time when i was a child. her name is Barbara Ellen and her dad sang it to her. and i was named after her, my middle name is Barbara-Ellen (yes, with a hyphen). also, while reading online exerts from the diary of Samuel Pepys i saw the piece about his dear Mrs. Knipp, whom he so fondly referred to.

"Mrs. Knipp"



Seems like if she was a "Mrs" she had to have been married to a "Mr" and she had a little something going on the side there with Mr. Pepys. i thought that was kind of funny. but mostly i was shocked that he would refer to the song and to a Mrs. Knipp in the same paragraph, Not only for the Barbara Ellen (Allen) reference, but because Knipp is also a family name for me. My grandmother's maiden name was Barbara Ellen Knipp.

Ellen is a family name passed down also.. (likewise, "ALLEN" is also a family name that has carried on my father's side of the family and my husband's family also. but not so much as a surname)
Anyway, The eldest daughter of the eldest daughter, etc. has always been given the name Ellen in some sort of arrangement. If the eldest daughter had no daughters then the second-eldest daughter, or son if a lack for more daughters, carried on the name. I personally think that this had something to do with the reference in an above post regarding the power women held in old scots society. celt and pictish women were allowed more power than other women in other societies, and that was undermined, overthrown and revoked with the corruption and invasion of the roman catholic empire.

Also, in that part of my family (the Knipps, also very scot/irish with other euro influences e.g. german), 9 out of 10 women are the "boss". maybe a coincidence, but seems like a generational trait that has carried on.

i found much useful information here. as well as a few laughs... which i really needed. and if anyone has light to shed on the "Knipp's" I would love to hear it, as there is not a lot of recorded information on my own Knipp roots. mostly stories handed down from relatives that are gone now.

Subject: RE: Why Did Barbara Allen Refuse?
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 12:44 PM

By the way, email me if you have info on the Knipp's

[e-mail]

Brandy <3

Subject: RE: Why Did Barbara Allen Refuse?
From: The Sandman
Date: 28 Apr 08 - 01:50 PM

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=V_PoPY-mDpA
hope you like it.Dick Miles

Subject: RE: Why Did Barbara Allen Refuse?
From: GUEST,Suffolk Miracle
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 07:15 AM

The non-drinkers/non-toasters might prefer this version - from Packie I think:

BA: Do you remember the other day
In the gardens at Glenwellyn
You picked a flower for all fair maids
But none for Barbara Allen

YW: I well remember the other day
In the gardens at Glenwellyn
I picked a flower for all fair maids
And the rose for Barbara Allen

Subject: RE: Why Did Barbara Allen Refuse?
From: Joe_F
Date: 29 Apr 08 - 09:44 PM

If GBS said the last word on men dying for love, WS must have said the first:

Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

Subject: RE: Why Did Barbara Allen Refuse?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 11 Oct 08 - 06:30 PM

A flight of fancy, if ever there was one. Probably as valid as claiming that it is a parable of how church and state depend on each other.

I can see three probable explanations for the laughter.

1) BA is the most callous and cruel creature in balladry.
2) BA is demented.
3) BA suffered a nervous breakdown.

#3 makes the most sense to me, personally.

As for the bloody shirts, an allusion to the Gospel of Luke is a more reasonable assumption. 22:44 "And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great droops of blood falling down to the ground."
If one prefers a medical to poetical explanation, then what about bleeding ulcers or vomiting blood? Admittedly, I'm not a doctor, so could be wrong.

I've found Robert Graves' comment (it is in "English & Scottish Ballads", 1957: "It is clear enough that Sir John Graeme did not die merely of a broken heart. Like Clerk Colvill, he seems to have been a landowner who had an affair with a country girl, but later decided to marry a woman of his own class. When this marriage was announced, the girl avenged herself by bewitching him; the procedure being to model a wax image of the victim, make it more real by adding his own (stolen) hair-trimmings and nail-pairings, and then gradually waste it over a candle, sticking pins into parts that the witch wanted to injure most". I don't know whether Robert Graves is right or not, but somehow we must try to explain Barbara Allen's laughter when she sees his corpse and all the verses about the bloody shirts, the watch, the basin full of tears etc. I've chosen some of these verses from some of the most beautiful versions of the ballad I know:
From Martin Carthy's:

And look at my bed-foot", he cries,
And there you'll find them lyin',
My sheets and bloody shirts,
I sweat them for you, my Ellen."

She walked over yon garden field
She heard the dead-bell knelling
And every stroke that the dead-bell gave
It cried, "Woe be to you now, Ellen."

As she walked over the garden field
She saw his corpse a-comin',
"Lay down, lay down your weary load
Until I get to look upon him."

She lifted the lid from off the corpse,
She bursted out with laughin',
And all of his friends that stood round about
They cried, "Woe be to you now, Ellen."

Subject: RE: Why Did Barbara Allen Refuse?
From: GUEST,Wizo1945
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 06:24 AM

I always assumed (because ballads were often cleaned up) that he thought she had given him the pox (STD), and then she had to laugh because there was nothing else to do. ('put a brave face on it') Then of course she died of it as well, later, full of regrets. I am not putting this forward as a new explanation, but I would like it to be eliminated. It was also a common belief that a virgin could cure STD.

These Willie/William and Graham/Graeme names are common in southern Scotland, see Frazer's book 'The Steel Bonnets'. This book is concerned with the history of the same period.

Some versions that I have seen refer to him travelling to study. A southern Scots young gentleman could have gone/been sent to Reading to study, and there done what students commonly do (go a bit wild).

Subject: RE: Why Did Barbara Allen Refuse?
From: GUEST,Guest DTM
Date: 14 Sep 12 - 07:27 AM

This is a perfect example of a song that gives you the skeleton of a plot and lets you fill in the fleshy parts as you see fit.

Akin to little girls dressing up Barbie (oh the irony) and Ken in different clothes.