ABSTRACT
This song is usually found with a consistent stanzaic pattern. The early part o f the story is not given in Mrs H ughes’s abbreviated text: A servant (or occasionally a sailor or ploughman) gains the interested attention o f the daughter o f the house. He presses his suit towards m arriage, but she declares h e rse lf ‘ too young to marry, too young’ to lose the joys o f single life. He follows her to a dance, sees her dancing with another and resolves to poison her. He puts the poison in a glass o f wine - and Mrs Hughes finishes the story for us.
