“In Scarlet town, where I was born,
There was a fair maid dwelling,
Made every youth cry ‘Well away!’
Her name was Barbara Allen.

All in the merry month of May,
When green buds they are swelling,
Young Jimmy Green on his death bed lay
For the love of Barbara Allen.”

—Barbara Allen, the first verses of a version from West Virgina, published in 1925; The Viking Book of Folk Ballads of the English-Speaking World, edited by Albert B. Friedman, 1956.