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Come all young men and maidens, come listen to my song,
I'll tell you of two pretty fair maids, it won't delay you long;
In a lonesome spot near Folkestone this dreadful deed was done,
Maria and sweet Caroline were murdered by Alan Young.
He went unto their parents' house at ten o'clock that night,
But little did sweet Caroline think he held her in his spite;
Will you take a walk, sweet Caroline, this villain he did say,
And she agreed to accompany him all for a walk next day.
Said the mother to her daughter, you'd better stay at home,
For it's not safe for you to walk with that young man alone;
You'd better take your sister Maria along with you,
And I'll have no objections, dear daughter, you may go.
'Twas early the next morning, just at the break of day,
Maria and sweet Caroline far over the hills did stray;
In a lonesome spot near Folkestone this villain drew his knife,
Maria and sweet Caroline he took away their life.
He stripped the clothes all from their back whilst underneath was found,
He kissed their tender pale cold lips as they lay on the ground;
He bid farewell, sweet Caroline, to this world I am undone,
Now I must die for murder far from my happy home.
When the news it reached their parents' house they cried what shall we do,
Maria she is murdered and lovely Caroline too;
They wrung their hands and tore their hair in sorrow and surprise,
The tears rolled down in torrents all from their aged eyes.
'Twas early the next morning their bodies they were found,
In a lonesome spot near Folkestone lay bleeding on the ground;
If ever you chance to go that way, in letters there you'll find,
So deep lies in the grass so green, Maria and Caroline.
This villain he was taken, his own life for to try,
He first was sent to London and there condemned to die;
Now come all young men take warning by this sad rant of mine,
And always do remember Maria and Caroline.
Collected in 1951 from Mrs. Ambrose Coombs of Biscay Bay, NL, and published in MacEdward Leach And The Songs Of Atlantic Canada © 2004 Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive (MUNFLA).
MacEdward Leach also collected a variant published as #11, Mary And Sweet Caroline, on p.50, in Folk Ballads And Songs Of The Lower Labrador Coast by the National Museum of Canada (Ottawa, 1965) Crown Copyrights Reserved.
A variant was published as #61, Maria and Caroline, on p.125 in Ballads And Sea Songs Of Newfoundland by Elisabeth Bristol Greenleaf and Grace Yarrow Mansfield (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1933; Folklore Associates, Hatboro, PA, 1968).
Notes: A spot called Steddy Hole, in the village of Capel Le Ferne, was the scene of a notorious murder when Dedea Redanies, a Serbian soldier serving with the British Army at nearby Shorncliffe, killed an eighteen year old Dover girl, Caroline Back, and her sixteen year old sister Maria.
Redanies had courted Caroline for some time and on August 3, 1856, her parents agreed to let her go with him to see his sister in Folkestone on condition that Maria went too. But it seems Caroline had given Redanies cause to suspect she was less serious about him than he was about her and when they reached Steddy Hole, according to his subsequent confession, he stabbed first Maria and then Caroline to death, leaving their bodies there while he went on towards Canterbury, where he was arrested.
The crime caused quite a stir at the time, as did his trial at Maidstone Assizes. His execution on New Year's Day, 1857, was witnessed by a crowd of up to 5,000 people who filled the street in front of the scaffold, on top of the porter's lodge of Maidstone Prison. (Paraphrase from Historic Kent - Village of Capel Le Ferne.)
