Murder of Maria Marten

The Murder Of Maria Marten - Shirley Collins/Albion Country Band

Written by：Traditional

If you'll meet me at the Red Barn

As sure as I have life

I will take you to Ipswich Town

And there make you my wife

He straight went home and fetched his gun

His pickaxe and his spade

He went unto the Red Barn

And there he dug her grave

Come all you thoughtless young men

A warning take by me

To think on my unhappy fate

To be hanged upon a tree

My name is William Corder

To you I do declare

I courted Maria Marten

Most beautiful and fair

I promised I would marry her

Upon a certain day

Instead of that I was resolved

To take her life away

I went unto her father's house

The eighteenth day of May

And said my dear Maria

We will fix a wedding day

With her heart so light she thought no harm

To meet me she did go

I murdered her all in the barn

And laid her body low

After the horrid deed was done

She laid there in her gore

Her bleeding mangled body lay

Beneath the Red Barn floor

Now all things being silent

Her spirit could not rest

She appeared unto her mother

Who'd suckled her at her breast

For many a long month or more

Her mind being sore oppressed

Neither at night nor yet by day

Could she take any rest

Her mother's mind being so disturbed

She dreamed it three nights o'er

Her daughter she lay murdered

Beneath the Red Barn floor

She sent the father to the Barn

Where he the ground did thrust

And there he found his daughter

Lay mingling with the dust

My trial was hard I could not stand

Most woeful was the sight

When her dear bones was brought to prove

Which pierced my heart quite

Her aged father standing by

Likewise his loving wife

And in her grief her hair she tore

She scarcely could keep life

Adieu adieu my loving friends

My glass is almost run

On Monday next will be my last

When I am to be hung

So all young men who do pass by

With pity look on me

For murdering of that young girl

I was hung upon a tree