The Oxford Tragedy (or the Miller's Apprentice)



Once there was a little tailor boy

About sixteen years of age;

My father hired me to a miller

That I might learn the trade.



I fell in love with a Knoxville girl,

Her name was Flora Dean.

Her rosy cheeks, her curly hair,

I really did admire.



Her father he persuaded me

To take Flora for a wife;

The devil he persuaded me

To take Flora's life.



Up stepped her mother so bold and gay,

So boldly she did stand;

Johnny dear, go marry her

And take her off my hands.



I went unto her father's house

About nine o'clock at night,

A-asking her to take a walk

To do some prively talk.



We had not got so very far

Till looking around and around,

He stooping down picked up a stick

And knocks little Flora down.



She fell upon her bended knees,

For mercy she did cry:

O Johnny dear, don't murder me,

For I'm not fit to die.



I took her by her lily-white hands

A-slung her around and around ;

I drug her off to the river-side,

And plunged her in to drown.



I returned back to my miller's house

About nine o'clock at night,

But little did my miller know

What I had been about.



The miller turned around and about,

Said:" Johnny, what blooded your clothes?"

Me being so apt to take a hint:

By bleeding at the nose.



About nine or ten days after that,

Little Flora she was found

A-floating down by her father's house

Who lived in Knoxville town.



From English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, Sharp

Collected from Mary Wilson and Mrs. Townley, Kentucky, 1917

@murder

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