The song began as a ballad in the seventeenth century or earlier, before quickly spreading (both orally and in print) throughout Britain and Ireland and later North America.

[3] In it, he recalls the fun and games at a New Years party: ...but above all, my dear Mrs Knipp, with whom I sang; and in perfect pleasure I was to hear her sing, and especially her little Scotch song of Barbary Allen.

[8]From this, Steve Roud and Julia Bishop have inferred the song was popular at that time, suggesting that it may have been written for stage performance, as Elizabeth Knepp was a professional actress, singer, and dancer.

[9] Charles Seeger points out that Pepys' delight at hearing a libelous song about the King's mistress was perfectly in character.

One 1690 broadside of the song was published in London under the title "Barbara Allen's cruelty: or, the young-man's tragedy" (see lyrics below).

[15] Ethnomusicologist Francis James Child compiled these renditions together in the nineteenth century with several others found in the Roxburghe Ballads to create his A and B standard versions,[7] used by later scholars as a reference.

Throughout New England, for example, it was passed orally and spread by inclusion in songbooks and newspaper columns, along with other popular ballads such as "The Farmer's Curst Wife" and "The Golden Vanity".

[19] Other authentic recordings include those of African American Hule "Queen" Hines of Florida (1939),[20] Welshman Phil Tanner (1949),[21] Irishwoman Elizabeth Cronin (early 1950s),[22] Norfolk folk-singer Sam Larner (1958),[23] and Appalachian folk singer Jean Ritchie (1961).

All in the merry month of May, When green leaves they was springing, This young man on his death-bed lay, For the love of Barbara Allen.

[9] Nonetheless, American folklorist Harry Smith was known to, as a party trick, ask people to sing a verse of the song, after which he would tell what county they were born in.

American versions of the ballad often call him some variation of William, James, or Jimmy; his last name may be specified as Grove, Green, Grame, or another.

[citation needed] The song often concludes with poetic motif of a rose growing from his grave and a brier from hers forming a "true lovers' knot", which symbolises their fidelity in love even after death.

The minor-mode Scottish tune seems to be the oldest, as it is the version found in James Oswald's Caledonian Pocket Companion which was written in the mid-1700s.

[32] That tune survived in the oral tradition in Scotland until the twentieth century; a version sung by a Mrs. Ann Lyell (1869–1945) collected by James Madison Carpenter from in the 1930s can be heard on the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library website,[33] and Ewan MacColl recorded a version learned from his mother Betsy Miller.

[9] Roger Quilter wrote an arrangement in 1921, dedicated to the noted Irish baritone Frederick Ranalow, who had become famous for his performance as Macheath in The Beggar's Opera at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith.

June Tabor, the English folk singer includes the song as "Barbry Allen" on her 2001 album Rosa Mundi.

Barbriallen on his two music albums Così è se mi pare – EP[43] " and Il Rovo e la rosa[44] in Italian.

In the early twentieth century, the American writer Robert E. Howard wove verses of the song into a civil war ghost story that was posthumously published under the title ""For the Love of Barbara Allen".

"[51] Howard Richardson and William Berney's 1942 stage play Dark of the Moon is based on the ballad, as a reference to the influence of English, Irish and Scottish folktales and songs in Appalachia.

It was also retold as a radio drama on the program Suspense, which aired 20 October 1952, and was entitled "The Death of Barbara Allen" with Anne Baxter in the titular role.