- The Wife of Usher's Well
"The Wife of Usher's Well" is a traditional
ballad , catalogued asChild Ballad 79, originally from Britain, but also popular inNorth America . [Francis James Child , "English and Scottish Popular Ballads", [http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/child/ch079.htm "The Wife of Usher's Well"] ] No complete original version has survived, but the song as been "remade" in America in a cohesive form.The ballad concerns a woman from Usher's Well, who sends her three sons away, to school in some versions, and a few weeks after learns that they had died. The woman grieves bitterly for the loss of her children, cursing the winds and sea.
:"I wish the wind may never cease,:Nor fashes in the flood,:Till my three sons come home to me,:In earthly flesh and blood."
The song implicitly draws on an old belief that one should mourn a death for a year and a day, for any longer may cause the dead to return; it has this in common with the ballad "
The Unquiet Grave ". When the children return to their mother aroundMartinmas it is as revenants, not, as she hoped, "in earthly flesh and blood", and it is a bleak affair. They wear hats made ofbirch , which is said to protect the dead from the influences of the living, from a tree that grows at the gates of Paradise. The mother expects a joyous reunion, in some versions preparing a celebratory feast for them, which, as subjects of Death, they are unable to eat. They consistently remind her that they are no longer living; they are unable to sleep as well, and must depart at the break of day.:"The cock doth craw, the day doth daw,:The channerin worm doth chide;:Gin we be mist out o our place,:A sair pain we maun bide."
The most popular versions in America have a different tone, and an overtly religious nature. They return at
Christmas , rather than Martinmas, and happily return to their Savior at the end. Indeed, Jesus may speak to her at the end, telling her she had nine days to repent; she dies at that time and is taken to heaven.The ballad has much in common with some variants of "
The Clerk's Twa Sons O Owsenford ". [Francis James Child, "The English and Scottish Popular Ballads", v 2, p 238, Dover Publications, New York 1965] The Christmas appearance has been cited to explain why, in that ballad, the two sons are executed, but their father tells their mother they will return at Christmas; the father may mean they will return as ghosts.A version of the ballad by folk-rock pioneers
Steeleye Span can be heard on their 1975 album "All Around My Hat".References
External links
* [http://www.contemplator.com/child/usher.html "The Wife of Usher's Well"] with commentary
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