Roun’ de oak tree.
A Gypsy I wuz born’d,
A lady I wuz bred;
Dey made me a coffin
Afore I wuz dead.’
‘An’ dat’s de rogue deah.’
An’ she tell’t all de tale into de party, how he wur agoin’ to kill her an’ tek her heart an’ pluck home. An’ all de gentry took’t an’ gibbeted him alive, both him an’ his mother. An’ dis young squire married her, an’ med her a lady for life. Ah! ef we could know her name, an’ what breed she wur, what a beautiful ting dat would be. But de tale doan’ say.
I can offer no exact parallel for this story, though it presents such commonplaces of folklore as the marriage of a poor girl by a rich man, his mother’s jealousy, her order to take the bride into a forest and kill her, and bring back her heart or something as a token,[2] the substitution of some other creature’s heart, and the ultimate retribution. The husband, however, is nearly always guiltless. The close of our story is reminiscent of ‘Laula’ or ‘Mr. Fox’ (pp. 174–5).