> Lal & Norma Waterson > Songs > The Flowers of the Forest

The Flowers of the Forest

[ Roud 3812 ; Ballad Index BdFlOTF ; F.W. Moorman]

Lal and Norma Waterson sang The Flowers of the Forest in 1977 on their album A True Hearted Girl. A live recording by Waterson:Carthy at The Boatrace, Cambridge in 1977 was published as The Flowers of Knaresborough Forest in 2004 on the Watersons' 4CD anthology Mighty River of Song. Anover live recording by Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson from the Fiddlers, Bristol, is on the charity compilation Huntingdon Folk 3.

Norma Waterson introduced this song at a gig in Bristol on May 13, 1998:

We were brought up by my gran when me mam and dad died. She brought up—as well as bringing three of us up—she'd also brought up six kids of her own when my grandfather died, when he was thirty-two. He enlisted in the First World War, on the first day, went right through the trenches, went right through the fighting and everything, came out in 1918, and died about three weeks later of the Spanish Flu that absolutely swept the world, killed millions and millions of people, much more than had died in the First World War. And this is a song from about that time. It appeared in the Yorkshire dialect little booklets that they used to put out. And the song's called The Flowers of Knaresborough Forest. Me and my sister used to sing it together and recorded it many years ago. The names of the places in the song are villages round Knaresborough, where the song, where the originator of the song obviously came from. But the basis of the song itself is a much older song, it's a song from the Battle of Flodden.

The song was written by Frederic William Moorman and published in his book Songs of the Ridings, Elkin Mathews, Cork Street, London, 1918.

Lyrics

Lal & Norma Waterson sing The Flowers of the Forest	Notes by Greer Gilman
Day time is weary, and I caw' dusk dreary, For lasses in missels are rakin the hay. When kye come for strippin' and ewes come for clippin', We think on our soldiers now gone right away.	caw' = call missels (mistals) = cowsheds kye = cows; strippin' = milking clippin' = shearing
The courtin gate's idle, no lad flings his bridle Over the yoke stoup and comes seekin' may. Wae's heart, but we misses our lads' softest kisses: The flowers o' the forest have gone right away.	yoke stoup (yat stoup) = gate post may = flowers of the hawthorn; greenery for May Day wae's heart = woe is the heart; waly, waly
At Martinmas hirin' no ribbon, no tirin', Where God's penny's earned, and the time's come for play. No cheapjacks, no prancin', wi' teamster clogs dancin': The flowers o' the forest have gone right away.	tirin = attiring, adornment God's penny = earnest-money; a small sum given to a servant when hired. cheapjacks = travelling hawkers, with a brisk line of patter
Plough lads from Pannal have crossed o'er the Channel; Shepherds from Fewston have taken King's pay; Thackrays from Dacre have sold every acre; You'll no' find a delver from Haverah to Bray.	have taken King's pay = enlisted as soldiers delver = quarryman I thought at first “Thackerays” might be “thackers” (thatchers), but in both versions I have, it's sung as “thack'ries.” Thackeray is a good Yorkshire surname—perhaps this is a reference to a local family?
Many a lass now is weepin for her man that lies sleepin, No wrap for his corpse but the cold Flanders clay. He'll ne'er lift his limmers, he'll ne'er wean his gimmers: The flowers o' the forest have gone right away.	limmers (limbers) = cart shafts gimmers = young female sheep that have not yet lambed

Martinmas: Traditionally, the hiring fairs for farmhands and servants were held at Martinmas, in mid-November. In Yorkshire, they were called the “stattis,” or statutes, after the labour-laws framed in the reign of Edward III. Lads and lasses seeking work would stand in the market place, wearing tokens (the ribbons and tirings of the song) in their hats or buttonholes; farmers and their wives would walk up and down and choose among them. On coming to terms for the year's wages, they would seal the bargain with a fastening penny, which, by the time of the song, was half-a-crown. Then to the pleasures of the fair!

From early in the Middle Ages, Martinmas was a time of feasting and of slaughter, when all the beasts that could not be overwintered on their scant hay were slain and salted or eaten up. The feast of St. Martin, November 11, took on a new and poignant meaning after 1918.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks for the transcription and notes to Greer Gilman.