The Cruel Mother (20)

For this post I tried to pick the most disturbing Child Ballad – or at least the one I had the strongest reaction to. It wasn’t an easy task. People can be hateful and vicious to each other. They can also kill, rape, or maim with chilling indifference. There’s a ballad about a blood libel – a common medieval anti-Semitic belief that Jews killed Christian children and used their blood to make matzah bread. “The Prioress’s Tale” in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales tells a similar story. There’s a ballad where a man massacres a woman’s family, rapes her, and then imprisons her until she bears him a child.

Honestly, as I’m writing this, all I can think about is that I’m really looking forward to my next post where I’m done with my self-inflicted sojourn into the darkest Child Ballads. This might be shorter than usual.

The ballad I settled on is titled “The Cruel Mother” and concerns a woman who is pregnant with illegitimate twins. She gives birth to them alone in the woods and then kills them with a penknife. In one version, after burying them, she attempts to wipe the blade clean but the more she wipes the redder it grows.

She wiped the penknife in the sludge;

The more she wiped it, the more the blood showed.

This was a common storytelling trope indicating guilt, as in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Later she finds two children playing with a ball and tells them that if they were her own she would dress them in finery and take care of them. They turn and inform her that they are the ghosts of her murdered children and know she would do no such thing. They tell her that hell awaits her.

This is a well known ballad in Scotland, England, and America. There are also related versions in other countries, most notably Germany. In the German song, the children appear to a bride at her wedding and she denies having had them, wishing the devil would take her if it was true. So the devil comes and snatches her up.

a1985897666_10 — Illustration by Arthur Rackham for “Some British Ballads” (1919)

I probably don’t need much of an explanation for why this is so disturbing to me. Acts of violence are harder to bear when done to infants and children. The way their ghosts appear to her also makes my skin crawl. The song has little sympathy for her. It was probably meant to impart a moral lesson to young girls. The Birmingham singer Cecilia Costello, born in the 1880s, recalled her father putting her on his knee and singing it to her with the admonition that she was not to act so. Modern singers have made note of the difficulties of the woman, however, living in a time where postpartum depression was not understood and where if her illegitimate birth was to be made public she could be disowned and exiled. Historians have noted that such infanticides were probably quite common in the past, but little reported for obvious reasons. As horrified as I am by her actions I do feel something for her.

My preferred version of the song (though I rarely listen to it) is by the New Zealand band Lothlórien. It is grim and matter of fact about the subject matter.

I don’t have much more to say except that I’m not against making songs about such awful things. In fact, I believe in the capability of music to help us face the harrowing aspects of life. It’s just that sometimes I really don’t like it.

Ballad Text

Internet Sacred Text Archive

My Favorite Recordings

Lothlórien – YouTube|Spotify

Appalachian Celtic Consort – YouTube| Spotify

Shirley Collins – YouTube| Spotify

Lizzie Higgins – YouTube| Spotify

Edward (13)

My last post about the murder of a poacher and his dogs was a bit on the darker side. At first I thought, “let’s balance this out and write about a love ballad or something whimsical.” But, thinking about this more, I feel like I’ve been avoiding some of the really harrowing ballads and I should probably tackle a few as they’re an important part of the border ballad tradition. “Edward” is not the darkest, but it’s getting closer. I think in my next couple posts I’ll see how far down we can go.

“Edward” or “My Son David” is pure dialogue between a son and his mother which is unusual for a ballad. It begins when a young man comes home and his mother asks about the blood stains on his clothes or sword. He claims they’re from his hawk but his mother says the blood of a hawk could never be so red. He claims they’re from his horse but she doesn’t believe that either.

‘O I hae killed my reid-roan steid [horse],

Mither, mither,

O I hae killed my reid-roan steid,

That erst was sae fair and frie O.’ [that used to be so fair and free]

–

‘Your steid was auld [old], and ye hae gat mair [more],

Edward, Edward,

Your steid was auld, and ye hae gat mair,

Sum other dule ye drie O.’ [some other grief you are enduring]

He then admits he has killed a man, usually his father or brother. His reasons are not entirely clear but more on that later. His mother usually asks what he’s going to do with his wife, children, house, and lands. He says he must abandon them and sail across the sea (or sometimes commit suicide). Some versions end here but in others the mother asks what he’s leaving for her and he answers “a curse from hell” with the implication that she put him up to the murder. This short addition changes the ending dramatically from a sorrowful farewell to a shocking revelation.

I wasn’t able to find much analysis of this ballad which is strange because it has been and remains immensely popular. Then again, it does add some allure to an already enigmatic story. Most versions of this have been found in America and there are quite a few variants in Scandinavia as well. In Scotland it was considered lost until it was rediscovered in the 20th century as a popular song with Scottish Travelers which is fitting, I think, considering the protagonist decides to banish himself in most versions.

The Scottish versions usually have the father as the murder victim and the mother implicated at the end. In America it’s usually the brother who is slain and the mother is not complicit. I’ve heard it suggested that the ending was toned down to make it more palatable in America which could be true but I’m not convinced. The Scandinavian ones tend to match the American versions and theirs are quite old. I’m guessing there have just been a lot of versions of this song floating around for a while.

Now about the motive for the murder – in the Scottish versions it’s suggested the mother lied to her son to manipulate him into killing his father. What she lied about is never said. In the American versions, on the other hand, he says something like “it was mostly over the cutting of a rod that never will be a tree” i.e. his brother cut down a sapling. Now, this could be taken at face value – fatal arguments often occur over trivial matters. But some have suggested that the sapling is a euphemism for a child and the brother has killed a pregnant woman. Such euphemisms are common in other ballads but are usually a bit more obvious to the listeners. So it’s hard to say what exactly caused the brother’s murder. But like I say, this adds an aura of mystery to the ballad, which for me just makes it more interesting.

My favorite recording of this is by the American folk band Red Tail Ring. I love the slow mournful playing of the fiddle and the Southern sounding twang and drawl in the vocals.

I’ve made a distinction between the Scottish and American versions but since the mid 1900s there has been a good deal of cross-contamination with musicians setting the Scottish words to an American tune or vice-versa which is pretty cool.

Kinslaying has been considered a particularly monstrous deed since Cain and Abel. In Greek Tragedy, Oedipus blinds himself on discovering he killed his father. Orestes is relentlessly hounded by the Furies for killing his mother. The “protagonist” of this ballad seems to realize his life is over whatever the provocation was. Even so, this is not as grim as the Child Ballads get as you’ll discover in my next post.

Ballad Text

Internet Sacred Text Archive

My Favorite Recordings

Red Tail Ring – YouTube | Spotify

Hex – YouTube | Spotify

The Johnstons – YouTube | Spotify

The Furrow Collective – YouTube | Spotify

Old Blind Dogs – YouTube

Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard (81)

It’s worth talking about the relationship between Britain and America here. I think it gets lost how connected these two countries are because of the American revolution. We like to think of ourselves as free and untethered to anyone. We define our own destiny. This sort of thinking, I believe, can obfuscate just how British the United States is. Most people, if they sit down to think about it, would probably recognize this on some level. We speak English, after all, and our legal system is based on English Common Law. If we were to dig down further, we’d learn how much of our society has British roots from architecture to music to the free market. But most of us aren’t ethnically British. We’re German, West African, Irish, Polish, Italian, Mexican, Chinese, etc. The first three of those groups might each outnumber Brits. But the British were the majority of the original settlers and immigrants tend to assimilate into a dominant culture. So here I am, with my Norwegian and German ancestry, listening to and writing about Child Ballads.

Side note: 23andMe tells me I have a small amount of British ancestry. It makes sense I wouldn’t have known about this. Immigrants who marry “natives” (meaning here the descendants of first settlers) tend to identify as the recent ancestry e.g. the child of a Polish immigrant and an American with English ancestry usually identifies as Polish-American. So British ancestry is probably under-reported.

A_lamentable_ballad_of_the_little_Musgrove_(Bod_23499) — A 17th century broadside of today’s ballad (held in the Bodleian Library)

Why is this important? I’ve talked previously about how the Child Ballads are rooted in the Scottish-English border region. But cultures are always in flux. Most of the people who sings these songs now don’t live there. Many have no ties to that people or region whatsoever. In one sense that’s a little tragic. Much of the language, culture, and stories passed down from my Norwegian ancestors have been lost here in Minnesota. For others, like African Americans, it’s been violently ripped away. On the other hand it’s hopeful. I and others have adopted a new culture from the Anglo-sphere. These songs don’t belong to anyone. They’re constantly moving across ethnic, geographical, and even language boundaries.

With that being said, learning about the specific cultures and regions that propagated a style of music can teach us a lot. “Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard” (much more commonly known as “Matty Groves”) is one of the Child Ballads that has many more versions in North America than it does in Britain. That tells us a couple things. One – it’s old. Most of the immigration from Britain happened early – in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Child Ballads from the 19th century on tend to be sung more often in the land of Albion. Another thing it tells us is that its themes stayed relevant outside of its birthplace. Ballads like “The Bonnie Earl O’ Moray” that involve historical events that happened in Scotland for instance, tended to become less popular in the colonies for obvious reasons. “Matty Groves”, in pretty much all versions, takes place in England but murder and adultery are not purely English affairs.

The song begins with Lady Barnard going to church. After the service she approaches “Little Matty Groves” and asks him to come to bed with her. He refuses at first, afraid of her husband, but she assures him her husband is away tending to livestock. Her foot page, deciding his loyalties lie with the lord rather than the lady of the house, runs off and tells his master. When Lady Barnard and her lover awake in the morning, Lord Barnard is standing over them. He demands Matty Groves get up and fight him (the names are all a little different in each version).

‘Win up, win up, ye Little Munsgrove,

Put all your armour an;

It’s never be said anither day

I killed a naked man.

–
‘I hae twa brands [swords] in ae scabbard,

Cost me merks [silver coins] twenty-nine;

Take ye the best, gie me the warst,

For ye’re the weakest man.’

–
The firs an stroke that Munsgrove drew

Wounded Lord Burnett sair [sore];

The next an stroke Lord Burnett drew,

Munsgrove he spake nae mair [no more].

Having killed the poor boy, Lord Barnard seizes his wife and asks who she prefers. She responds:

‘O better love I this well-faird face,

Lyes weltering in his blude [blood],

Then eer [ever] I’ll do this ill-faird face,

That stands straight by my side.’

This response enrages her husband who kills her on the spot. The song ends with a softening of Lord Barnard’s heart and he demands they both be buried, though his wife will be buried on top “for she was of noble kin”. It’s one of those lines that feels very alien to modern sensibilities. Having just committed double murder, he’s still careful to observe distinctions of class.

The song is easily one of the most tragic ballads I’ve encountered. Matty Groves and Lady Barnard – who one can imagine have longed for one another during many a church service – both seem to be speeding towards an end they can see coming. They even appear to invite the inevitable – Matty by telling Lord Barnard how much he enjoyed being with his wife – and she with her taunt of preferring a dead Matty Groves to him. Even Lord Barnard appears to recognize the tragedy of what he’s done by demanding they be buried together. In a few versions he then kills himself.

Though most recordings are from America (primarily around Appalachia) my favorite recording is by the British folk rock band Fairport Convention. They were hugely influential in the folk revival of the 60s, themselves having been influenced by earlier American artists like Bob Dylan. See! Musical styles and traditions continue to influence each other across the Atlantic.

This has ended up being a rather long post but I’ll leave with an interesting anecdote. “Matty Groves” is one of the few ballads to survive in recognizable form in Jamaica after British colonial governance. This again I think speaks to the universality of the subject matter but it also touches on a subject I hope to explore in a future blog post: the often fraught but mutually enriching relationship between the musical traditions of African-Americans and the Scotch-Irish

Ballad Text

Internet Sacred Text Archive

My Favorite Recordings

Fairport Convention – YouTube | Spotify

Jim Pipkin – YouTube | Spotify

Linde Nijland – YouTube | Spotify

Wylde Nept – YouTube | Spotify

Iona Fyfe – Spotify

The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood (132)

About one in ten of the Child Ballads feature the folk-hero Robin Hood. Stories of the outlaw have been enormously popular since the 15th century and if the rate of Robin Hood movies coming out of Hollywood are any indication – quality notwithstanding – he remains a beloved figure. Over time, he has been adapted and re-appropriated to represent many causes and fight many injustices. For instance, 20th century adaptations often show him fighting for an England where Norman and Saxon can live together in peace (seemingly a way to comment on modern race relations).

My favorite of the Robin Hood movies – “The Adventures of Robin Hood” starring Errol Flynn

The earliest accounts we have available of the British folk-hero actually come from the ballads that Francis Child collected. In these stories, Robin Hood is closer to a petty outlaw than the nobleman-on-the-run he would become. He is identified specifically as a yeoman (commoner) and isn’t at all concerned with Richard the Lionheart being the rightful King. The ballads are mostly playful, exciting, and sometimes comedic – a tone that sets them apart from most of the other ballads.

“The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood” is a brief tale about Robin and Little John encountering a peddler on the road and demanding he give up half his wares. Apparently these early incarnations were less concerned with robbing exclusively from the rich. The peddler proclaims he will grant them half his pack if they are able to move him from where he stands. Little John whips out his sword but the peddler beats him back. Robin then tries his luck but is defeated in turn.

Then Robin Hood he drew his sword,

And the pedlar by his pack did stand;

They fought till the blood in streams did flow,

Till he cried, Pedlar, pray hold your hand!

Robin asks for his name but the peddler, as the victor, refuses until they give him their names. Once satisfied, he reveals himself to be “Gamble Gold of the gay green woods” who has fled from his home for murder. Robin Hood recognizes him as his “mother’s sister’s son” (cousin), and they happily set off to an alehouse and drink the day away.

The ending reminds me of something that the popular science author Jared Diamond wrote about in Guns, Germs, and Steel. He mentions that if a tribesman from the highlands of New Guinea encounters a stranger in the woods they will often sit down and go through their family tree – trying to find a connection and a reason they won’t have to fight each other. The closest social unit in any culture has always been the family, but the importance of blood and kin always seems significantly magnified outside of modern, urban, individualistic societies. The fact that most of us encounter multiple strangers a day without fearing for our lives is, perhaps, not something to be taken for granted.

The trope of Robin Hood losing a fight and then becoming friends with his enemy is quite common in these ballads. Many of his foes end up joining his band of merry men. I find it interesting that he isn’t terribly concerned with his status as the “best” and more with attracting talented comrades. That, I believe, is the mark of a good leader.

My favorite rendition of the ballad is by Chris Caswell and Danny Carnahan, a duo from California I don’t know very well but their paired singing here is wonderfully spirited.

Child got his version of the song from “an aged female in Bermondsey, Surrey” who claimed to have often heard her grandmother singing it. It’s quite common for Child’s sources to have been old women. Similarly, the Grimm brothers’ best sources when collecting their German folk tales were older women. Many turned out to be extraordinary repositories of folk culture, such as Dorothea Viehmann, who was able to retell her stories over and over without changing a word. Whether named or not I want to salute the contributions of these matriarchs who were so instrumental in passing down the stories of the world and shaping their communities.

Ballad Text

Internet Sacred Text Archive

My Favorite Recordings

Chris Caswell & Danny Carnahan – YouTube | Spotify

Joshua Burnell – Spotify

Barry Dransfield – YouTube | Spotify

Steeleye Span – YouTube | Spotify

The Three Ravens (26)

“The Three Ravens” is a particularly old ballad, first recorded in 1611 but possibly much older. There’s a Scottish variant – “Twa Corbies” – that has a darker flavor than its English sibling though, honestly, both are quite bleak.

In the English version, the eponymous birds sit talking about where to take their next meal. One suggests the corpse of a knight in a nearby field. He is, however, still guarded by his faithful hawks and hounds. As they’re talking a “fallow doe” – meant to symbolize the knight’s pregnant lover – comes upon his body. She proceeds to clean and bury him, then dies herself. All in all, it’s an intensely somber reflection on death.

The Scottish version is grimmer. Usually titled “Twa Corbies” (“corbies” being Scots for “crows”) it sets up a similar scene but here, the knight’s hawks and hounds have abandoned him and his wife has taken another lover. The lyrics also go into gruesome detail about how the crows will use his body parts to build their nest.

‘Ye’ll sit on his white hause-bane [breast-bone],
And I’ll pike out his bonny blue een [eyes];
Wi ae lock o his gowden hair
We’ll theek [feather] our nest when it grows bare.

I feel like it’s too easy to say the Scottish one is more pessimistic because Scotland has had a difficult history of colonialism, poverty, warring clans, etc. Other pairing of Scottish/English songs (“The Battle of Otterburn”/”The Hunting of the Cheviot”) seem to be unbalanced in the other direction. Besides, from what I know, the people to either side of the border had more in common with each other than with the rest of their respective countries.

“The Three Ravens” – Henry Matthew Brock

The tune for “The Three Ravens” was, remarkably, preserved from the start. “Twa Corbies” – though less old than its counterpart – lost its melody somewhere along the way until the Scots poet R.M. Blythman set it to the music from an old Breton (French) song “An Alarc’h.” It fit so well that it became a very popular song again.

I love both versions but I think I prefer the English one here. The music is just so wonderfully melancholy and the way the story subtly moves from the perspective of the ravens to an omniscient narrator gives it a satisfying mythic quality.

The rendition below is one that drew me into the Child Ballads in the first place. It’s by a short-lived trio from the ’60s – The Black Country Three. I’ve listened to it more times than I can count.

One question that I keep dwelling on is what this meant for the people who sang it originally. A part of its appeal for me (and probably others who still sing it) is the window it gives me into the past. But that element obviously didn’t exist for the original singers.

It’s basically a story about a nameless knight who has died of unknown causes and his lover who quickly follows him to the grave. In this way it’s pretty broad and universal in its imagery. Even ravens are ubiquitous in the Northern Hemisphere. And death finds everyone everywhere.

The imagery of hawks and hounds – the proper accessories for a medieval knight while hunting – tie it closer to a particular place and time. And of course we don’t keep time by the canonical hours – “the prime” is around dawn and “euen-song time” is evening.

But I think the common themes explain part of its appeal and offer an explanation for its longevity in folk traditions.

The final lines are a commendation of the knight’s loyal companions.

God send euery gentleman,
Such haukes, such hounds, and such a Leman [Lover].

This makes for a hopeful note to go out on though I suppose there’s the suggestion that not everyone experiences such love and devotion – an idea the Scottish version takes and runs with.

Ballad Text

The Three Ravens – Internet Sacred Text Archive

The Twa Corbies – Bartleby

My Favorite Recordings

The Black Country Three – YouTube | Spotify

Kay McCarthy – Spotify

Andreas Scholl – YouTube | Spotify

Ayreheart – YouTube | Spotify

Bardmageddon – Spotify

Hamish Imlach – YouTube | Spotify

The Trooper and the Maid (299)

719UyiTKfhL._SL1161_ — Canadian folk band The Duhks

“The Trooper and the Maid” (or “The Light Dragoon”) tells the story of an eager young woman who meets her soldier sweetheart one evening and plies him with food and drink until they finally fall into bed together. They’re awakened the next morning by trumpets and the sounds of the soldier’s regiment departing. As he hurries to join them, the woman ask him when he’ll be back to marry her and be her “bairnie’s” (Scots for “baby’s”) daddy. He responds with a series of poetic put-offs – “when cockle shells grow silver bells” or “when apples trees grow in the seas” – that indicate it will never happen.

The theme of youthful love and seduction is about as common a theme as you can come across in Child Ballads – or probably most genres of music past and present for that matter. The more unusual element is the woman playing the role of seducer. This fact was so off-putting to one collector, the Rev. Baring-Gould, that he rewrote it with the roles swapped.

My favorite rendition of this is by the Canadian folk band The Duhks.

One of the things I love so much about the Child Ballads is their preservation of the female perspective. It’s a testament both to their status as “low art” that lacked the kind of gate-keeping present in loftier institutions and the critical role of women in preserving oral folk traditions. So many of these songs were preserved simply because mothers would sing them to their children.

Most versions of the song are Scottish in origin, though some exist in England and North America. This is especially apparent in the heavily Scots inflected lyrics Child records.

‘O when will we twa meet again?

Or when will you me marry?’

‘When rashin rinds grow gay gowd rings,

I winna langer tarry.’

As progressive or perhaps just lascivious as the ballad is in some ways it ends with a sharp conservative lesson for the woman. Don’t trust men, even if they wear dashing uniforms, and don’t let your passions get the better of you.

As difficult as being a single mother might be today it surely doesn’t compare to the early 19th century. And, honestly, for me it’s a good reminder that as easy as it might be to mock past puritanical attitudes, actions carried more weight back then and sex – mostly for women – could have heavy consequences.

That pull between passion and practicality, is wonderfully played out here. It’s hard not to feel for the maid’s predicament.

Ballad Text

Internet Sacred Text Archive

My Favorite Recordings

The Duhks – YouTube | Spotify

Malinky – YouTube | Spotify

North Sea Gas – Spotify

The Claire Hastings Band – YouTube

Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger – YouTube | Spotify