> Spiers & Boden > Songs > Cruel Knife

Cruel Knife / The Jealous Lover / Pearl Bryan

[ Roud 500 ; Laws F1 ; Ballad Index LF01 ; DT PERLBRY1 ; Mudcat 3817 , 73375 ; trad.]

The Stanley Brothers and the Clinch Mountain Boys sang The Jealous Lover to Mike Seeger on 8 August 1956. This recording was included in 1978 on the Blue Ridge Institute album in their Virginia Traditions series, Ballads From British Tradition.

Paul Clayton sang Pearl Bryan in 1956 on his Riverside album Bloody Ballads. Kenneth S. Goldstein noted:

This precisely detailed murder balled concerns the decapitation of Pearl Bryan of Greencastle, Indiana, by Scott Jackson, her lover and father of her unborn child. and his accomplice, Alonzo Walling. Her headless body was found near Fort Thomas Kentucky, on 1 February 1896. Jackson and Walling were executed on 20 March 1897.

Elsie Vanover of Pound, Virginia sang The Jealous Lover to Mark Wilson on 8 September 1996. This recording was included in 2007 on the Musical Traditions anthology Meeting Is a Pleasure Volume 2. Mark Wilson noted:

Next to Pretty Polly, this was once the best known of the characteristically American murder ballads. To the best of my knowledge, its generic narrative has never been pinned to any authenticated historical event, although some later versions adjust its setting to suit the dreadful Pearl Bryan abduction of 1896 in Cincinnati (e.g., Burnett and Rutherford’s sterling performance on Co 15113).

John Spiers and Jon Boden recorded Cruel Knife—a song obviously related to The Banks of Red Roses—in 2005 for their Fellside CD Songs. Jon Boden also sang it on 11 August 2010 in his A Folk Song a Day project. He commented:

There’s a preponderance of girlfriend murdering songs and this is my contribution to the canon. The words are from The Viking/Penguin Book of Folk Ballads of the English Speaking World, but I had to tweak them a bit (sweet Florilla seemed a little improbable as the heroine’s name) and I nicked the tune from The Flying Cloud, one of Louis Killen’s big numbers.

Albert Barron Friedman’s The Viking Book of Folk Ballads of the English Speaking World (Viking 1956; Penguin 1964) became, to the surprise of its compiler, a must-have for the folk revival in the United States. According to the words of Timothy Lloyd, executive director of the American Folklore Society, that book “introduced generations of students to folk music scholarship.” The compilation sampled the entire corpus of Anglo-American balladry, from F.J. Child’s canonical 305, through broadsides and songsters, both British and American, to Native American ballads. Most unusually for a popular collection, Friedman’s Folk Ballads included versions and variants of many of the songs.

Lyrics

Elsie Vanover sings The Jealous Lover

Down in the lone green valley where the violets fade and bloom
That’s where my sweetheart Ella lies molded in her tomb.

She died not broken hearted nor by disease she fell
But in a moment she parted from the ones she loved so well.

One night the moon was shining, the stars were shining too
And slowly to her cottage her jealous lover drew.

“Come, love, and let’s go wander out in these woods so gay.
While wandering we will ponder and plan our wedding day.”

The way grew dark before them, said she, “I’m afraid to roam.
I’ll bid fare ye well forever, to parents, friends and home.”

“Now, Ella, you see I have you, you have no wings to fly.
You have no hands to guide you; Ella, you must die.”

Down on her knees before him, she pleaded for her life
Into her fair small bosom he plunged a dagger knife.

“Your parents must forgive me for the deed that I have done
I’ll go to some far country and never more return.”

“Yes, Willy, I’ll forgive you; I wish we never had met.
Yes, Willy, I’ll forgive you,” and she closed her eyes in death.

One night the moon was shining, a-coming through the mound
The angels found her body a-lying upon the ground.

He took little Ellen’s body and placed it in the grave
Way down in yonder’s valley where the weeping willows wave.

Jon Boden sings Cruel Knife

Down by a weeping willow, where the white violets bloom,
There lies sweet lovely Nancy so silent in her tomb.
She died not broken-hearted nor sickness her befell,
But in one moment was parted from the life she loved so well.

One night the moon shone brightly and the gentle zephyrs blew
When to her bedroom window her lover then he drew.
He said, “Come let us wander, in those dark woods we’ll stray,
And there we’ll sit and ponder all upon our wedding day.”

“These woods are dark and dreadful, I am afraid to stay,
Of wandering I am weary, so I’ll retrace my way.”
“Those woods, these gentle zephyrs your feet no more will roam,
So bid farewell forever to all the things that you have known.”

Down on her knees before him then she pleaded for her life
When deep into her bosom he plunged the cruel knife.
“Oh William, cruel William,” it was her dying breath;
Her heart’s blood stained the leaves below and her eyes were closed in death.

(repeat first verse)