> Martin Carthy > Songs > Willie's Lady

Willie's Lady

[ Roud 220 ; Child 6 ; Ballad Index C006 ; trad.]

King Willie's choice of bride apparently does not meet with his mother's approval, and she puts a curse on her: although come to full term with her pregnancy, she cannot give birth. The king tries to bribe his mother with various gifts: a fine horse and a jewelled belt. However, the queen has an idea as to how to outwit the witch. Willie is to make a fake baby out of wax, with glass eyes, so that she can pretend she has successfully born a child. He then overhears his mother, in her surprise, give away the details of the curse: there were witches' knots in the queen's hair, her left shoe was tightly laced, and there was a toad, the witch's familiar, under the queen's bed. Hearing this, Willie undoes all the spells, and she is now successful in her delivery.

This song is the title track of Ray Fisher's 1982 album, Willie's Lady.

Martin Carthy sang Willie's Lady on his 1976 album Crown of Horn; this recording was also included in 1993 on his anthology The Collection. A live recording from the Sunflower Folk Club, Belfast, on October 20, 1978 was published in 2011 on his CD The January Man; and he sang it live at Ruskin Mill in December 2004. Martin Carthy commented in the first album's sleeve notes:

It was a particularly happy stroke of genius on Ray Fisher's part to marry the song Willie's Lady to the tune of the Breton song Son Ar Chistr (The Song of Cider), and it is with her permission that I have recorded it. I was informed by a young Breton that the tune was written in 1930 by a piper who became a tramp on the streets of Paris. The story of the song is very close to that of the birth of Hercules, although there the timing of the trickery is, if anything, even more critical.

This YouTube video shows Martin Carthy explaining and singing Willie's Lady at Watford Folk Club on June 18, 2010:

Rubus sang Willie's Lady in 2008 on their CD Nine Witch Knots; the CD title is a phrase from this song. Emily Portman commented in their liner notes:

A ballad about the age-old problem of jealous mother-in-laws. To make matters worse, and much more interesting in this case, this mother is also a witch (a doubly branded woman) who puts a spell on her blonde bombshell of a daughter-in-law, rendering her perpetually pregnant. Luckily Billie Blind, a magical helper who saves the day in various ballads, helps to trick the witch into revealing her spells which include nine witch knots tied in the lady's hair. Superstition once had it that all knots should be untied and animals freed to ease a difficult birth. Although the “master kid” is probably a phrase that has distorted over time, I like the image of a baby goat running around under her bed!

Willie's Lady was the first ballad I learnt and it has remained with me as a mongrel hybrid, mis-remembered from the singing of Ray Fisher who adapted the Breton melody Son Ar Chistr to fit the text, and Martin Carthy who anglicised the Scots dialect.

Jon Boden got Willie's Lady from Martin Carthy and the Australian duo Cloudstreet; he sang it as the March 3, 2011 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day.

Lady Maisery sang Willie's Lady in 2011 on their CD Weave & Spin. They commented in their liner notes:

Our version of this ballad is based on the Scottish version from the Fraser Tytler MS, which Hazel [Askew] edited and wrote the tune for. Billy the Blind appears in lots of ballads and is a handy household sprite who often gives good advice.

This YouTube video shows Lady Maisery singing Willie's Lady at the Shrewsbury Folk Festival in August 2011:

Lyrics

Martin Carthy sings Willie's Lady

King Willie he's sailed over the raging foam,
He's wooed a wife and he's brought her home.

He wooed her for her long golden hair,
His mother wrought her a mighty care.

A weary spell she's laid on her:
She'd be with child for long and many's the year
But a child she would never bear.

And in her bower she lies in pain.
King Willie at her bedhead he do stand
As down his cheeks salten tears do run.

King Willie back to his mother he did run,
He's gone there as a begging son.

Says, “Me true love has this fine noble steed
The like of which you ne'er did see.

At every part of this horse's mane
There's hanging fifty silver bells and ten
There's hanging fifty bells and ten.

This goodly gift shall be your own
If back to my own true love you'll turn again
That she might bear her baby son.”

“Oh, the child she'll never lighter be
Nor from sickness will she e'er be free.

But she will die and she will turn to clay
And you will wed with another maid.”

Then sighing said this weary man
As back to his own true love he's gone again,
“I wish my life was at an end.”

King Willie back to his mother he did run,
He's gone there as a begging son.

Says, “Me true love has this fine golden girdle
Set with jewels all about the middle

At every part of this girdle's hem
There's hanging fifty silver bells and ten
There's hanging fifty bells and ten.

This goodly gift shall be your own
If back to my own true love you'll turn again
That she might bear her baby son.”

“Oh, of her child she'll never lighter be
Nor from sickness will she e'er be free.

But she will die and she will turn to clay
And you will wed with another maid.”

Sighing says this weary man
As back to his own true love he's gone again,
“I wish my life was at an end.”

Then up and spoke his noble queen
And she has told King Willie of a plan
How she might bear her baby son.

She says, “You must go get you down to the market place
And you must buy you a loaf of wax.

And you must shape it as a babe that is to nurse
And you must make two eyes of glass.

Ask your mother to a christening day,
And you must stand there close as you can be
That you might hear what she do say”

King Willie he's gone down to the market place
And he has bought him a loaf of wax.

And he has shaped it as a babe that is to nurse
And he has made two eyes of glass.

He asked his mother to a christening day
And he has stood there close as he could be
That he might hear what she did say.

How she spoke and how she swore,
She spied the babe where no babe could be before,
She spied the babe where none could be before.

Says, “Who was it who undid the nine witch knots
Braided in amongst this lady's locks?

And who was it who took out the combs of care
Braided in amongst this lady's hair?

And who was it slew the master kid
That ran and slept all beneath this lady's bed
That ran and slept all beneath her bed?

And who was it unlaced her left shoe
And who was it that let her lighter be
That she might bear her baby boy?”

And it was Willie who undid the nine witch knots
Braided in amongst this lady's locks.

And it was Willie who took out the combs of care
Braided in amongst this lady's hair.

And it was Willie the master kid did slay
And it was Willie who unlaced her left foot shoe
And he has let her lighter be.

And she is born of a baby son
And greater the blessings that be them upon
And greater the blessings them upon.

Acknowledgements and Links

Transcription from Mudcat Café, carefully checked by Garry Gillard. There are three Mudcat discussion lists about this: Origin: Willie's Lady (Child #6), Lyr Req: Willie's Lady (from Ray Fisher) and Willie's Lady:more info?. In the first thread, Abby Sale refers to The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection, #III, Simon's Lady, and says, following him, that the “kid” under the bed is in fact a “ted”, ie. a toad, a witch's familiar.