Henry Lee

[Yinzer]

I have a cover version of the song and on the back of the CD where it usually says who the words and lyrics are by it says "Traditional". Traditional where??? What a weird and gruesome folk song!!

[Ouisch]

Here are some notes on the song from Peggy Seeger's (folk singer and half-sister of Pete Seeger) web site: HENRY LEE traditional USA This glorious version of Child Ballad # 68, "Young Hunting." is one of Peggy's favorites. Her text is an amalgam from many sources; the tune is derived from that sung by Jane Gentry to Cecil Sharp at Hot Springs, NC, 1916. This in turn has been printed in Sharp's English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians (1932), vol. 1, p. 101; in Bertrand Harris Bronson's The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads, vol. 2, p. 78; and in Betty Smith's Jane Hicks Gentry: A Singer Among Singers (1998), p. 146. For full notes and sources, see Tristram Potter Coffin and Roger deV. Renwick's The British Traditional Ballad in North America (1977), pp. 66-68. Peggy's version fits their Story Type A. She recorded it previously on Prestige 13005, The Best of Peggy Seeger. For comparative purposes, check out her rendition of the Dick Justice version of this ballad on Prestige 13029, Three Sisters. (Joe Hickerson, August 2003)