Omie Wise

So, I have to say, murder ballads bring out everything that is great about folk music.  I was digging through the freakin mess that is the 500 gigs of music my brother gave me as a yuletide gift & I came across an entire compilation devoted to reiterations of this very old song, Omie Wise.  (There is another compilation that has about 20 versions of John Barleycorn--great marauder's tale about a famous bootlegger for anyone not familiar with the story).  Anyhow, the lyrics are beautiful and I love hearing all the different voices & instrumentation.  They are all so good it's hard to pick a favorite--Clarence "Tom" Ashley plays some really F*^%$(# great  banjo & the a capella version of Addie Graham is completely raw and kind of tugs at your emotions.  Dock Boggs is almost delighted with his story... not sure what to make of that.... also good banjo, on that one.  Doug & Jack Wallin have a bit of fiddle and really solid vocals--that might just be my favorite one so far, sort of tied neck & neck with Doc Watson.
Anyhow, enough rambling--the point of this is that this is a really old story, a true story about the murder of Naomi Wise sometime around 1808.  The fact that this woman's death has been preserved & passed down in via this sort of musical oral history for about 2 centuries, spawning a thousand different variations--a song sung by hundreds of singers, played on all sorts of different instruments--is simply incredible.  The lyrics, of course, have evolved and collaged themselves over time, so that the story has become a sort of fictionalized folk myth--though it began in the truthful story of a man named Jonathan Lewis who drowned a woman in Deep River, North Carolina.  He was arrested in 1808, promptly escaped, was captured & then acquitted of the murder, despite the fact that "it seems certain that Lewis murdered wise."

I'll tell you a story about Omie Wise,
How she was deluded by John Lewis's lies.
He promised to marry her at Adams's spring;
He 'd give her some money and other fine things.
He gave her no money, but flattered the case.
Says, "We will get married; there'll be no disgrace."
She got up behind him; away they did go
They rode till they came where the Deep River flowed.
"Now Omie, little Omie, I'll tell you my mind:
My mind is to drown you and leave you behind."
"Oh, pity your poor infant and spare me my life!
Let me go rejected and not be your wife."
"No pity, no pity," the monster did cry.
"On Deep River's bottom your body will lie."
The wretch he did choke her as we understand;
He threw her in the river below the mill dam.
Now Omie is missing as we all do know,
And down to the river a-hunting we 'II go.
Two little boys were fishing just at the break of dawn;
They spied poor Omie's body come floating along.
They arrested John Lewis; they arrested him today.
They buried little Omie down in the cold clay.
"Go hang me or kill me, for I am the man
Who murdered poor Naomi below the mill-dam."

If I ever figure out how to do it, I'll post some audio.  Reading the lyrics just isn't the same as listening to the song...