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The Ballad of the Butcher and the Bookbinder's Wife

[Gillian Tolfrey, Simon Graham]

The Witches of Elswick sang The Ballad of the Butcher and the Bookbinder's Wife in 2005 on their second and last album, Hell's Belles. They commented in their liner notes:

It was dark outside, there was a noisy, noisy moon and we'd been to a session at The Cumberland Arms. We stumbled back to Becky's house in the Ouseburn Valley for some spooky stories. Once there, her partner Simon entertained us with this glorious tale inspired by local history, a spirited imagination and lots of alcohol. Gillie immortalised it in this lively / tragic / moral / comedy song.

Lyrics

The Witches of Elswick sing The Ballad of the Butcher and the Bookbinder's Wife

In Byker Town there lived a butcher
And he had five handsome sons;
He'd a beautiful wife caused him no strife
And he cherished them everyone.

His days were filled with laughter and lull
Till one day he took a stroll
And there he spied the bookbinder's wife
And lost - it did take hold.

Chorus:

Beware the arms of a nervous lady,
Beware the arms of a nervous wife!

Well this fair lady she was eager,
By his strong arms the was enthralled.
And she just smiled about her features
That surely did say it all

And they walked down all by the Ouseburn
And they drank more than most
When the bookbind saw them kissing
And he was pale as any ghost.

(Chorus)

He had a tower of four young witches
Who could help in this distress
He found them by the Cumberland Alehouse
And where this problem he did impress.

Though we have none we have the power
To cancel guilt that's in your grief
Here is a book that you enforce
The spells on potions are all beneath.

(Chorus)

The butcher's sons were all a-drinking
When one fell on a broken glass
He bled to death with his brothers watching
All for his father's love of the lass.

The second son went out a-walking
Stumbled into a (...)
He stepped inside doors and behind them
He was trapped and there he starved.

The butcher's third son went out a-courting
And walked his lady down by the stream.
He bowed unto her and fell in backwards;
Swans backed out, his eyes so green.

And then the fourth son went out a-hunting,
Rested up by a shady beck.
As he lay sleeping, a beast was creeping
And sunk his teeth deep in his neck.

Now the fifth son he was a dancer,
He went to dance on yon high hill;
He stepped his foot in a pool of water,
A fork of lightning did him kill.

(Chorus)

The butcher, driven in many sorrow,
Jumped off a bridge into a stream.
A pack off rats ate his flesh and features
Licking each and every bone clean.

So any man who takes a notion
To indulge with another's maid:
Think of the bookbinder's evil potions
And the vengeance that he set straight.

(Chorus)