Once upon a time there lived a lady young and fair   Raven hair and rosy cheeks and no one to compare   Daughter of a noble man in a little town   And her name was Nora Lee, and it was spoken all around     It’s told that she was courted by two men of different kin   One of them a shoemaker that made boots of lizard skin   The other was the sheriff in this little town   And he swore he’d marry her or else he’d put her in the ground     One night the moon was brightly shining in the sky   She went to see the shoemaker and with him she did lie   “You are my own true love” she whispered soft and low   But they’d been spied upon that night, and soon the sheriff he would know     Then came a cold and dark night and the wind was blowin’ free   The sheriff and his men they tied poor Nora to a tree   Full of wickedness they stole her maidenhead   Then they stabbed her with a knife ‘till they were sure she was dead     Her body it was found the next day on the banks below   The news was heard and many hearts were filled with grief and woe   “The guilty one will soon be hung” the sheriff he did claim   And he called upon his men, the shoemaker to blame     The scaffold it was built and all the people gathered round   Just to watch that poor boy taken to his hangin’ ground   The rope was tied around his neck for everyone to see   And as the hangman pulled the rope, then he would meet his Nora Lee