Barbara Allen is #84 in the Child cannon (Bonny Barbara Allen).
Kidson has three and a bit variants to this tune (the "bit" is an
alternative termination to this tune). This variant was "noted down
from
Mr. Holgate, is from the singing of an English girl in Ghent, some
forty years ago".
Kidson only gives one verse for the text (which is the one with the
air). His reason is that the song "is so well known and so easily
accessible that it is perhaps not worth while to reproduce the entire
words, which are for this setting as in Percy." By "Percy" I assume he
means Percy's Reliques. The
Reliques are indeed the source of the text provided.
However, the first verse from Percy does not match the first verse
from Kidson! Despite this, as the words seem to fit the melody, I
have
felt able to marry the two together. Percy's words are "Given, with
some corrections, from an old black-letter copy, intitled, "Barbara
Allen's cruelty, or the young man's tragedy.""
Some warning. I have the Sixth Edition of the Reliques. I do not
know how these differ from the earlier editions, or whether anyone
(apart from Percy) has made amendments. It needs to be noted that
Child(1882-1898)CPB, vol II, p277,
acknowledges the
Percy version (along with others) above his variant #84B. The words in
Child are
slightly different again. Child, it should be noted, references the
First Edition of the Reliques.
(1765, vol III, p125).
