Thank you! This Scottish ballad speaks of the carlin wife and her attempt to bring her sons back from the dead.
The Wife of Usher’s Well
There lived a wife at Usher’s Well,
And a wealthy wife was she;
She had three stout and stalwart sons,
And sent them oer the sea.
They hadna been a week from her,
A week but barely ane,
Whan word came to the carline wife
That her three sons were gane.
They hadna been a week from her,
A week but barely three,
Whan word came to the carlin wife
That her sons she’d never see.
‘I wish the wind may never cease,
Nor fashes in the flood,
Till my three sons come hame to me,
In earthly flesh and blood.’
It fell about the Martinmas,
When nights are lang and mirk.
The carline wife’s three sons came hame,
And their hats were o’ the birk.
It neither grew in syke nor ditch,
Nor yet in ony sheugh;
But at the gates o’ Paradise,
That birk grew fair eneugh.
‘Blow up the fire, my maidens,
Bring water from the well;
For a’ my house shall feast this night,
Since my three sons are well.’
And she has made to them a bed,
She’s made it large and wide;
And she’s ta’en her mantle her about,
Sat down at the bed-side.
Up then crew the red, red cock,
And up and crew the gray
The eldest to the youngest said,
‘Tis time we were away.’
The cock he hadna craw’d but once,
And clapp’d his wings at a’,
When the youngest to the eldest said,
‘Brother, we must awa’.
‘The cock doth craw, the day doth daw,
The channerin’ worm doth chide;
Gin we be miss’d out o’ our place,
A sair pain we maun bide.’
‘Lie still, lie still but a little wee while,
Lie still but if we may;
Gin my mother should miss us when she wakes,
She’ll go mad ere it be day.’
‘Fare ye weel, my mother dear!
Fareweel to barn and byre!
And fare ye weel, the bonny lass
That kindles my mother’s fire!’
This ancient ballad, shaped over centuries by the keen tongues and inventive memories of “Anon”, appeared in print for the first time in 1802, in Walter Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Scott’s incomplete version was recited to him by an old woman living in Kirkhill, West Lothian. Also collected by Francis James Child, the ballad became particularly popular in America. There are many variants. The expanded version I’ve picked is online here.
The first stanza briskly sets the scene. Our suspense, now sharpened, builds in the time-span of one to three weeks noted in the second line refrains of stanzas two and three. The Wife’s three sea-going sons are “gane” (but just conceivably might have survived the shipwreck) in stanza two, but the worst is confirmed in three, “Whan word came to the carline wife / That her sons she’d never see.”
The term “carline” can apparently allude to both “old woman” and “witch” – concepts once thought naturally interchangeable. Stanza four may echo a mother’s cry of grief, or a witch’s spell: it’s possibly both. The wish centres on images of relentless wind and “troubles” (fashes) “in the flood” – eternal shipwrecking weather until the drowned sons “ come hame to me / In earthly flesh and blood”. It’s a terrific stanza, true to the psychology of intense grief, in which lamentations for the unjustly dead may be intertwined with vengeful anger against the living.
Martinmas, a festive occasion, falls on 11 November. It’s time for the ghostly visitation. The night is “lang and mirk” … and all we initially see of the visitors are the three hats hanging on the birch tree. Anon is plainly a poet of Imagist potential …
More mysteriously still, the tree itself seems a kind of haunting. It grows in no earthly “syke” (marsh, small stream), ditch or trench, but only at the “gate o’ paradise” – so why is it here at Usher’s Well? Have the wife and her retinue been “ushered” into some outpost of paradise? Perhaps the entire worlds of death and life have somehow fused – a pleasantly spine-chilling thought. Meanwhile, the maids set the fire blazing, water is fetched, the feast prepared. The narrator doesn’t show us any direct inter-action between the sons and their mother. The mother simply rejoices that they are “well”. And by the next verse, the feast is already over: the mother has wrapped herself in her mantle to sit by the boys’ carefully-made bed, as if finally keeping the death vigil denied her.
Dawn cock-crow, as is traditional, warns the ghosts to hurry to their graves. That there are two cocks, one red, one grey, might be another suggestion that two states, red-blooded life and shadowy death, are working in counterpoint. The story is suddenly enlivened by eldest and youngest sons’ voices. The differing pronunciation of “away” and “awa” adds a little characterisation.
Touchingly, in the current version, the sons decide not to move before the mother wakes, because of the distress their sudden disappearance would cause her. That stanza is omitted from Scott’s version, leaving us simply with the sons’ collective expression of regret – a regret for appetite and sexual vigour, nearly restored, and now again to be lost.
This tragi-comic ghost story still maintains its appeal. It demonstrates the power of love (aided or not by witchcraft) to call up the dead in defiance of logic and those channerin’ (fretting) worms. Time-marking repetitions in the narrative (“They hadna been a week from her”, “The cock he hadna crawd but once”) are the conventional rhythmic tropes of balladry, but they recognisably sound the pulse of all life-stories – the rituals and reassurances, hopes and losses, and the rapid drum-beat of time, time, time.
Dear Caitlin, thank you so much! This is utterly fascinating! In truth I think it deserves a Substack post in its own right. And isn't it a wonderful thing to compare traditions from different corners of Europe and find correspondences?
Actually, may I add your comment to expand next year's essay and credit you (obviously)?
The Crone is here, here frosted fingers have just lifted the Sun above the treetops, but only for a short while. Soon Darkness returns...
I was surprised to reach the description of the Granny Knot as holding fast! When I learned how to tie a square knot—a knot that holds fast—I learned that tying it the wrong way resulted in a weak “granny knot.” Now I wonder if the meaning was changed on purpose at some point, in an attempt to weaken the old ways!
Wonderful read. I seem to remember the murder of Knut as a scene in the series The Last Kingdom, but had no wider context for it at the time of watching.
Yes Imelda today we celebrate Tjugondag Knut and now all the shiny Christmas things are sent away until next year ...we hope it will come. I am interested in the cosmic granny knot ...I will think about this...and how to make the best of it. In the big royal theaterhouse and outside here in the old town ...I will tie myself to great things...to patience and to greatness! All the best Baba Y.
Dear Baba Anneli Yaga! You have already tied yourself to great things, but kindly spare a thought for the Universe! : ) It will be interesting to hear how you apply the wisdom of the Kärring to world of Theatre in frozen Stockholm. Please keep me posted of what unfolds! X
Thank you! This Scottish ballad speaks of the carlin wife and her attempt to bring her sons back from the dead.
The Wife of Usher’s Well
There lived a wife at Usher’s Well,
And a wealthy wife was she;
She had three stout and stalwart sons,
And sent them oer the sea.
They hadna been a week from her,
A week but barely ane,
Whan word came to the carline wife
That her three sons were gane.
They hadna been a week from her,
A week but barely three,
Whan word came to the carlin wife
That her sons she’d never see.
‘I wish the wind may never cease,
Nor fashes in the flood,
Till my three sons come hame to me,
In earthly flesh and blood.’
It fell about the Martinmas,
When nights are lang and mirk.
The carline wife’s three sons came hame,
And their hats were o’ the birk.
It neither grew in syke nor ditch,
Nor yet in ony sheugh;
But at the gates o’ Paradise,
That birk grew fair eneugh.
‘Blow up the fire, my maidens,
Bring water from the well;
For a’ my house shall feast this night,
Since my three sons are well.’
And she has made to them a bed,
She’s made it large and wide;
And she’s ta’en her mantle her about,
Sat down at the bed-side.
Up then crew the red, red cock,
And up and crew the gray
The eldest to the youngest said,
‘Tis time we were away.’
The cock he hadna craw’d but once,
And clapp’d his wings at a’,
When the youngest to the eldest said,
‘Brother, we must awa’.
‘The cock doth craw, the day doth daw,
The channerin’ worm doth chide;
Gin we be miss’d out o’ our place,
A sair pain we maun bide.’
‘Lie still, lie still but a little wee while,
Lie still but if we may;
Gin my mother should miss us when she wakes,
She’ll go mad ere it be day.’
‘Fare ye weel, my mother dear!
Fareweel to barn and byre!
And fare ye weel, the bonny lass
That kindles my mother’s fire!’
This ancient ballad, shaped over centuries by the keen tongues and inventive memories of “Anon”, appeared in print for the first time in 1802, in Walter Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Scott’s incomplete version was recited to him by an old woman living in Kirkhill, West Lothian. Also collected by Francis James Child, the ballad became particularly popular in America. There are many variants. The expanded version I’ve picked is online here.
The first stanza briskly sets the scene. Our suspense, now sharpened, builds in the time-span of one to three weeks noted in the second line refrains of stanzas two and three. The Wife’s three sea-going sons are “gane” (but just conceivably might have survived the shipwreck) in stanza two, but the worst is confirmed in three, “Whan word came to the carline wife / That her sons she’d never see.”
The term “carline” can apparently allude to both “old woman” and “witch” – concepts once thought naturally interchangeable. Stanza four may echo a mother’s cry of grief, or a witch’s spell: it’s possibly both. The wish centres on images of relentless wind and “troubles” (fashes) “in the flood” – eternal shipwrecking weather until the drowned sons “ come hame to me / In earthly flesh and blood”. It’s a terrific stanza, true to the psychology of intense grief, in which lamentations for the unjustly dead may be intertwined with vengeful anger against the living.
Martinmas, a festive occasion, falls on 11 November. It’s time for the ghostly visitation. The night is “lang and mirk” … and all we initially see of the visitors are the three hats hanging on the birch tree. Anon is plainly a poet of Imagist potential …
More mysteriously still, the tree itself seems a kind of haunting. It grows in no earthly “syke” (marsh, small stream), ditch or trench, but only at the “gate o’ paradise” – so why is it here at Usher’s Well? Have the wife and her retinue been “ushered” into some outpost of paradise? Perhaps the entire worlds of death and life have somehow fused – a pleasantly spine-chilling thought. Meanwhile, the maids set the fire blazing, water is fetched, the feast prepared. The narrator doesn’t show us any direct inter-action between the sons and their mother. The mother simply rejoices that they are “well”. And by the next verse, the feast is already over: the mother has wrapped herself in her mantle to sit by the boys’ carefully-made bed, as if finally keeping the death vigil denied her.
Dawn cock-crow, as is traditional, warns the ghosts to hurry to their graves. That there are two cocks, one red, one grey, might be another suggestion that two states, red-blooded life and shadowy death, are working in counterpoint. The story is suddenly enlivened by eldest and youngest sons’ voices. The differing pronunciation of “away” and “awa” adds a little characterisation.
Touchingly, in the current version, the sons decide not to move before the mother wakes, because of the distress their sudden disappearance would cause her. That stanza is omitted from Scott’s version, leaving us simply with the sons’ collective expression of regret – a regret for appetite and sexual vigour, nearly restored, and now again to be lost.
This tragi-comic ghost story still maintains its appeal. It demonstrates the power of love (aided or not by witchcraft) to call up the dead in defiance of logic and those channerin’ (fretting) worms. Time-marking repetitions in the narrative (“They hadna been a week from her”, “The cock he hadna crawd but once”) are the conventional rhythmic tropes of balladry, but they recognisably sound the pulse of all life-stories – the rituals and reassurances, hopes and losses, and the rapid drum-beat of time, time, time.
Dear Caitlin, thank you so much! This is utterly fascinating! In truth I think it deserves a Substack post in its own right. And isn't it a wonderful thing to compare traditions from different corners of Europe and find correspondences?
Actually, may I add your comment to expand next year's essay and credit you (obviously)?
The Crone is here, here frosted fingers have just lifted the Sun above the treetops, but only for a short while. Soon Darkness returns...
Sending you love from Sweden today!
I was surprised to reach the description of the Granny Knot as holding fast! When I learned how to tie a square knot—a knot that holds fast—I learned that tying it the wrong way resulted in a weak “granny knot.” Now I wonder if the meaning was changed on purpose at some point, in an attempt to weaken the old ways!
Wonderful read. I seem to remember the murder of Knut as a scene in the series The Last Kingdom, but had no wider context for it at the time of watching.
Yes Imelda today we celebrate Tjugondag Knut and now all the shiny Christmas things are sent away until next year ...we hope it will come. I am interested in the cosmic granny knot ...I will think about this...and how to make the best of it. In the big royal theaterhouse and outside here in the old town ...I will tie myself to great things...to patience and to greatness! All the best Baba Y.
Dear Baba Anneli Yaga! You have already tied yourself to great things, but kindly spare a thought for the Universe! : ) It will be interesting to hear how you apply the wisdom of the Kärring to world of Theatre in frozen Stockholm. Please keep me posted of what unfolds! X