Billy Vite and Molly Green

DESCRIPTION: "Come all you blades both high and low And you shall hear of a dismal go." Billy Vite/White falls in love with Molly Green, but she denies him. The devil comes to him with arsenic; he poisons her; a sheep's head accuses him of murder and takes him to hell
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (Greig/Duncan8) (Digital Tradition claims a date of 1823)
KEYWORDS: homicide poison death sheep ghost devil
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber)) US(NE)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Greig/Duncan8 1787, "Billy Vites" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Flanders/Brown-VermontFolkSongsAndBallads, pp. 109-110, "Billy White" (1 text, 1 tune)
Spaeth-WeepSomeMoreMyLady, pp. 198-199, "Billy Vite and Molly Green" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: Jon Raven, _The Urban and Industrial Songs of the Black Country and Birmingham_, Broadside, 1977, pp. 15-18, "Come All Yew Blaids What's Marryied," "(no title)", "THe Oldbury Chant" (2 texts, 3 tunes)
Roud #12992
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Henry Green (The Murdered Wife)" [Laws F14] (plot)
SAME TUNE:
Why Don't You Shave? ("Come all of you assembled now, I'll tell you of a jolly row") (by Charles R. Thatcher) (Anderson-ColonialMinstrel, p. 34)
File: FlBr109

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