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> Martin Carthy > Songs > The Wife of Usher's Well

The Wife of Usher's Well

[ Roud 196 ; Child 79 ; Ballad Index C079 ; trad.]

Steeleye Span recorded this ghostly ballad for their album All Around My Hat. A live recording from the Rainbow Theatre between 1975 and 1977 was released on the UK version of the 2 LP collection Original Masters.

Frankie Armstrong sang The Wife of Usher's Well in 1996 on her ballads album Till the Grass O'ergrew the Corn. The sleeve notes commented:

The coldest of all the ballads and the most stark, a song in which the world seems bound tight by the glacial cold of the bereaved mother's implacable longing for her dead children. There is something very Scandinavian about her, some kinship to those fierce, enduring women from the Icelandic sagas. The ballad seems to have died out in Britain, but has been dear to the Appalachian singers in the present century. Frankie has anglicised the beautiful text published by Walter Scott “from the recitation of an old woman residing near Kirkhill, in West Lothian” and added some stanzas from other versions. Cecil Sharp collected the lovely tune from Mrs Zippo Rice, Rice Cove, Big Laurel, NC, in 1906.

And Martin Carthy sang The Wife of Usher's Well on his 1998 album Signs of Life. He played guitar and Eliza Carthy played fiddle. This track was also included in 2001 on the English folk anthology And We'll All Have Tea. Martin Carthy commented in his album's sleeve notes:

… A huge tragedy told in such matter-of-fact terms as to make you ache all over. The matter-of-fact is a cloak donned by many songs the better to carry such ideas. Similarly, certain conventions are there in song, the better to help the subject of the song to cope with things like dead. Such as the notion fuelling The Wife of Usher's Well, that one should mourn the dead for one year and one day and then let go, or else the dead will return—but then, sometimes such things make not a scrap of difference to the plummeting, consuming grief that the wife feels. The tune is Basque and bent slightly from that taught to me by Ruper Ordorika and Bixente Martínez of Hiru Truku and it's called Bakarrik Aurkitzen Naz [which can be found on the CD Hiru Truku II, and Martin Carthy is playing on this track, too; -Ed.]

Lyrics

Martin Carthy sings The Wife of Usher's Well	Steeleye Span sing The Wife of Usher's Well
There lived a wife in Usher's Well And a wealthy wife was she She'd three fine and stalwart sons And sent them o'er the sea	There lived a wife in Ushers Well A wealthy wife was she She had three stout and stalwart sons And sent them o'er the sea
They'd not been gone a week And a week but barely one When death sweeping over the land Took 'em one by one	They had not been from Ushers Well A week but barely one When word came to this carlin wife That her three sons were gone
And they'd not been gone a week A week but barely three When word come to that young girl Her babes she'd never see
I wish the wind would never blow No fish swim in the flood Till my darling babes are home They're home in flesh and blood	I wish the wind may never cease Nor flashes in the flood Till my three sons return to me In earthly flesh and blood
And there about the Martinmas Nights are long and dark Her three kids come to her door Their hats were made of bark	It fell about the Martinmas The nights were long and dark Three sons came home to Ushers Well Their hats were made of bark
And the tree never grew in any ditch Nor down by any wall But at the gates of Paradise Grew strong grew tall	That neither grew in forest green Nor on any wooded rise But from the north side of the tree That grows in Paradise
Blow up the fire my maidens all Bring water from the well Since my darling babes are home They've come home safe and well	Blow up the fire my merry merry maidens Bring water from the well For all my house shall feed this night Since my three sons are well
So she has laid the table With bread and with wine Come eat and drink my darling babes Eat and drink of mine
We may not eat your bread mother Nor may we drink your wine For cold death is lord of all To him we must resign
The green grass is at our head And the clay is at our feet And your tears come tumbling down And wet our winding sheet
So she has made the bed for them Spread the milk-white sheet She's laid it all with cloth of gold To see if they could sleep
And up and crew the red cock Up and crew the grey And the youngest to the eldest says Brother we must away	Then up and crowed the blood red cock And up and crowed the grey The oldest to the youngest said It's time we were away
And the cock had not crowed once And clapped his wings for day When the eldest to the youngest says Brother we must away
For the cock crow the day dawn The chunnering worm chide And if we're missed out of our place Then pain we must bide	For the cock does crow and the day doth show And the channerin worm doth chide And we must go from Ushers Well To the gates of Paradise
Farewell farewell my mother dear Farewell to barn and byre And farewell the sweet young girl Kindling my mother's fire
	I wish the wind may never cease Nor flashes in the flood Till my three sons return to me In earthly flesh and blood

Acknowledgements and Links

Transcribed from Martin Carthy's singing by Garry Gillard.

See also the Mudcat Café thread Origins: Wife of Usher's Well: Carthy version.