Volume 2 — 79 THE WIFE OF USHER'S WELL
Reading edition
A. 'The Wife of Usher's Well,' Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, II, 111, ed. 1802.
B. 'The Clerk's Twa Sons o Owsenford,' stanzas 18-23, Kinloch MSS, V, 403.
B forms the conclusion, as already said, to a beautiful copy of 'The Clerk's Twa Sons o Owsenford,' recited by the grandmother of Robert Chambers.
A motive for the return of the wife's three sons is not found in the fragments which remain to us. The mother had cursed the sea when she first heard they were lost, and can only go mad when she finds that after all she has not recovered them; nor will a little wee while, B 5, make any difference. There is no indication that the sons come back to forbid obstinate grief, as the dead often do. But supplying a motive would add nothing to the impressiveness of these verses. Nothing that we have is more profoundly affecting.
A is translated by Grundtvig, Engelske og skotske Folkeviser, No 14; by Freiligrath, Zwischen den Garben, II, 227, ed. Stuttgart, 1877; by Doenniges, p. 61; by Rosa Warrens, Schottische Volkslieder, No 9, with insertion of B 5, 6; and by Knortz, Lieder und Romanzen Alt-Englands, p. 227, after Allingham.
A
Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, II, 111, 1802, from the recitation of an old woman residing near Kirkhill, in West Lothian.
1 There lived a wife at Usher's Well, And a wealthy wife was she; She had three stout and stalwart sons, And sent them oer the sea. 2 They hadna been a week from her, A week but barely ane, Whan word came to the carline wife That her three sons were gane. 3 They hadna been a week from her, A week but barely three, Whan word came to the carlin wife That her sons she'd never see. 4 'I wish the wind may never cease, Nor fashes in the flood, Till my three sons come hame to me, In earthly flesh and blood.' 5 It fell about the Martinmass, When nights are lang and mirk, The carlin wife's three sons came hame, And their hats were o the birk. 6 It neither grew in syke nor ditch, Nor yet in ony sheugh; But at the gates o Paradise, That birk grew fair eneugh. * * * * * 7 'Blow up the fire, my maidens, Bring water from the well; For a' my house shall feast this night, Since my three sons are well.' 8 And she has made to them a bed, She's made it large and wide, And she's taen her mantle her about, Sat down at the bed-side. * * * * * 9 Up then crew the red, red cock, And up and crew the gray; The eldest to the youngest said, 'Tis time we were away. 10 The cock he hadna crawd but once, And clappd his wings at a', When the youngest to the eldest said, Brother, we must awa. 11 'The cock doth craw, the day doth daw, The channerin worm doth chide; Gin we be mist out o our place, A sair pain we maun bide. 12 'Fare ye weel, my mother dear! Fareweel to barn and byre! And fare ye weel, the bonny lass That kindles my mother's fire!'
B
Kinloch MSS, V, 403, stanzas 18-23. In the handwriting of James Chambers, as sung to his maternal grandmother, Janet Grieve, seventy years before, by an old woman, a Miss Ann Gray, of the Neidpath Castle, Peeblesshire: January 1, 1829.
1 The hallow days o Yule are come, The nights are lang an dark, An in an cam her ain twa sons, Wi their hats made o the bark. 2 'O eat an drink, my merry men a', The better shall ye fare, For my twa sons the are come hame To me for evermair.' 3 She has gaen an made their bed, An she's made it saft an fine, An she's happit them wi her gay mantel, Because they were her ain. 4 O the young cock crew i the merry Linkem, An the wild fowl chirpd for day; The aulder to the younger did say, Dear brother, we maun away. 5 'Lie still, lie still a little wee while, Lie still but if we may; For gin my mother miss us away She'll gae mad or it be day.' 6 O it's they've taen up their mother's mantel, An they've hangd it on the pin: 'O lang may ye hing, my mother's mantel, Or ye hap us again!'
A.
42. fishes. The correction is suggested in ed. 1833 of the Border Minstrelsy. Aytoun reads freshes.