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The Widow of Westmorland's Daughter

[ Roud 228 ; Ballad Index DTwidwst ; trad.]

A.L. Lloyd sang The Widow of Westmorland's Daughter on the 1966 theme album The Bird in the Bush: Traditional Erotic Songs. He was accompanied by Dave Swarbrick on fiddle and Alf Edwards on concertina. He recorded it a second time in 1966 for his album The Best of A.L. Lloyd. Lloyd said in the latter album's sleeve notes:

The ballad scholar Francis James Child was sent a copy of this sly song but he omitted it from his printed collection. He rejected a number of ballads that he felt offended against the prevailing standard of decency, and perhaps that was his reason here. Fortunately the folk have not been so squeamish as the scholars, and so the humorous tale of the girl so innocent that she thought her lost maidenhead could be replaced if she lay downside up, has survived in good shape in oral tradition despite its absence from print.

A third version, recorded by John Kaneen live at the Top Lock Folk Club, Runcorn, on November 5, 1972 was included in the compilation Classic A.L. Lloyd and in 2010 on the CD An Evening with A.L. Lloyd.

John Kirkpatrick sang The Widow of Westmorland's Daughter on his 1972 Trailer album Jump at the Sun with Richard Thompson and Ashley Hutchings playing guitar and bass. For contractual reasons, though, they were masked behind the pseudonyms Agnes Mirren and Humphrey de Echyngham.

It was also sung by Dave Swarbrick on Fairport Convention's album Tipplers Tales as The Widow of Westmorland and was included in the their compilation CD Fiddlestix. A live version from Cropredy 1982 is on the video Forever Young. Another version was recorded live-in-the-studio on their 1987 album In Real Time.

Lyrics

There was a widow in Westmorland who had no daughter but one.
And she has prayed both night and day the girl might keep her maidenhead long.
“Oh don't be daft, dear mother,” she said, “and say no more to me,
For a fine young man in the Grenadier Guards me maidenhead's taken from me.”
“You saucy cat, you impudent cat, then cursed may you be
If some idle young rogue in the Grenadier Guards your maidenhead's taken from thee.”

So the gal is off to the grenadier guard as fast as go could she,
Saying, “Give me back me maidenhead for me mommy she nags at me.”
So he kissed her and undressed her and he laid her on the bed
And he put her head where her feet was before and so give back her maidenhead.
And then he kissed her and he dressed her with a rose in either hand
And invited her round to St Mary's Church to see his fine wedding.

So the gal if off to her mummy's house as fast as go could she.
“I'm as whole a maiden, mother dear, as the day that you bore me.
For he kissed me and undressed me and he laid me on the bed
And he put me head where me feet was before and so give back me maidenhead.
Then he kissed me and he dressed me with a rose in either hand
And invited me round to St Mary's Church to see his fine wedding.”
“Oh never on foot,” the mother she said, “and a carriage-and-pair you'll ride
And four-and-twenty fine young girls should go with you beside.”

“Oh who is this,” the bride she said, “that comes so high to me?
Oh I see it is the widow's daughter who ran home and told her mummy.
How could she do it, how would she do it? How could she do it for shame?
Eleven long nights I lay with a man and I never told anyone.”
“If eleven long nights you lay with a man, you never shall lie with me.
Oh, I'd rather marry the widow's daughter who ran home and told her mummy.”

Acknowledgements

Transcribed by Reinhard Zierke.