Young Benjie
From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search
Young Benjie is Child ballad 86.
Synopsis
Young Benjie and Marjorie are lovers. They quarrel. She says she would take another love. Benjie tries to get in when her brothers are gone; when she refuses, he says he will take another. She comes down, and he murders her and throws her body in the river.
Her brothers find her body and watch it. At midnight, the cocks crow and she stirs. She tells them that Benjie murdered her and that they are not to kill but to blind him.
This ballad was one of 25 traditional works included in Ballads Weird and Wonderful (1912) and illustrated by Vernon Hill.
