> Martin Carthy > Songs > Prince Heathen

Prince Heathen

[ Roud 3336 ; Child 104 ; Ballad Index C104 ; trad.]

Martin Carthy sang Prince Heathen on his 1969 album with Dave Swarbrick, Prince Heathen. A second recording, released on The Carthy Chronicles in 2001, was taken from a previously unreleased radio session from 1974, from John Peel's "Top Gear" BBC radio show. Martin Carthy sang Prince Heathen in the Sunflower Folk Club, Belfast, on October 20, 1978; a recording of this concert was published in 2011 on the CD The January Man. He recorded Prince Heathen again in 1998 for his CD Signs of Life; this recording was included in 2003 on his anthology The Definitive Collection. The lyrics vary between the recordings in tiny details only.

Martin Carthy commented in the original album's sleeve notes:

This is a rewrite of a song that appears in Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads and set to an imperfectly remembered tune usually sung to either The Broomfield Hill or The Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter.

and in the Signs of Life sleeve notes:

It's always been a source of bewilderment to much of humanity as to why people behave in such a disgusting way to other people, and that's why there are songs like Prince Heathen. The day I came across that song was a day which shook my world, and, when I read what I still think is the stupidest last verse in songdom, I was raging. When I finally calmed down and was able to hear the siren voice in my head, which had been crooning, “Ditch it, for god's sake, ditch it”, I did just that, and was left with, what I still think after thirty years, is one of the very greatest songs in the entire canon. A pillow on which to rest your weary head it ain't, but an exposition and and affirmation of Firmness in the Truth it surely is. Push it to the brink and you'll reveal a hero. She is, and so is the man who swears never to bow the knee...

A.L. Lloyd sang Prince Heathen live at the Top Lock Folk Club, Runcorn, on November 5, 1972. This concert was published in 2010 on the Fellside CD An Evening with A.L. Lloyd.

Lyrics

Martin Carthy sings Prince Heathen

Lady sits in her garden fair, sewing a silken seam
And by there come this Prince Heathen, and he vowed her love he'd gain

O lady will you weep for me, lady tell me true
Oh never yet you, heathen dog, I never shall for you

She turned her around and aloud did cry, begone I love not you
And then he vowed him Prince Heathen, that she would weep full sore

O lady will you weep for me, lady tell me true
Oh never yet you, heathen dog, I never shall for you

So he's laid her all on the ground between himself and the wall
And there he's stripped her of her will and her maidenhead and all

O lady will you weep for me, lady tell me true
Oh never yet you, heathen dog, I never shall for you

Oh I slew your father in his bed and your mother by his side
And your seven brothers one by one, I drowned them in the tide

O lady will you weep for me, lady tell me true
Oh never yet you, heathen dog, I never shall for you

Oh I'll lay you in a vault of stone with thirty locks upon
And meat nor drink you will never get till your baby it is born

O lady will you weep for me, lady tell me true
Oh never yet you, heathen dog, I never shall for you

So he's laid her in a vault of stone with thirty locks upon
And he's taken the key in his right hand to the mountain he has gone

O lady will you weep for me, lady tell me true
Oh never yet you, heathen dog, I never shall for you

Prince Heathen he from the mountains came with his merry men all in a line
And he sought out this fair young maid down in her vault of stone

And how d'you do and do you weep, lady tell me true
I'm never weeping, heathen dog, but dying here for you

Oh meat nor drink you'll never get, nor out of prison come
Oh meat nor drink you will never get, till your baby it is born

O lady will you weep for me, lady tell me true
Ah never yet you, heathen dog, I never shall for you

Her time came on and further on, in labour there she lay
She laboured up she laboured down, but lighter she could not be

O lady will you weep for me, lady tell me true
Ah never yet you, heathen dog, and never yet for you

So he's laid her all on the green and his merry men stood around
And how they laughed and how they mocked, as she brought forth a son

O lady will you weep for me, lady tell me true
Ah never yet you, heathen dog, I never shall for you

A drink, a drink, the young girl cries, all from Prince Heathen's hand
Oh never a drop, Prince Heathen cries, till ye give up your son

Then lend to me a silken shawl or a blanket or a sheet
That I may wrap this little baby, that lies in me arms asleep

Oh I'll lend you an old horse blanket to wrap him head and feet
And there she took it in her hand, so bitter she did weep

O lady do you weep for me, lady tell me true
Oh never yet you, heathen dog, and never now for you

Could you not give any better thing than a horse blanket or a sheet
To wrap and swaddle your own young son, that lies in my arms asleep

He's borne her up so very soft, borne her up so slow
He's laid her down in a soft green bed, so dearly he loved her now

O lady will you weep for me, lady tell me true
Ah never yet you, heathen dog, I never shall for you

Acknowledgements

Transcribed by Garry Gillard. The transcription was originally of the Prince Heathen performance, but in a few places he changed it to follow Martin Carthy's later preferences, in Signs of Life, where they make the sense clearer.