User:Memtgs/Barbara Allen (song)
Song / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Barbara Allen" (Child 84, Roud 54) is a traditional Scottish ballad; it later travelled to America both orally and in print, where it became a popular folk song.[1][2][3] Ethnomusicologists Steve Roud and Julia Bishop described it as "far and away the most widely collected song in the English language — equally popular in England, Scotland and Ireland, and with hundreds of versions collected over the years in North America."[4]
The ballad generally follows a standard plot, although narrative details vary between versions. Barbara Allen visits the bedside of a heartbroken young man, who pleads for her love. She refuses, claiming that he had slighted her at a prior affair; he dies soon thereafter. Barbara Allen later hears his funeral bells tolling; stricken with grief, she dies as well.[5][6]