The Ancient Ballads

Braes of Yarrow

Braes of Yarrow

by John Fitzsimmons | The American Folk Experience

(Child Ballad #14)

‘I dreamed a dreary dream this night,
That fills my heart wi sorrow;
I dreamed I was pouing the heather green
Upon the braes of Yarrow.

‘O true-love mine, stay still and dine,
As ye ha done before, O;’
‘O I’ll be home by hours nine,
From the braes of Yarrow.’

I dreamed a dreary dream this night,
That fills my heart wi sorrow;
I dreamed my love came headless hame,
Fromthe braes of Yarrow!

‘O true-love mine, stay still and dine,
As ye ha done before, O;’
‘O I’ll be home by hours nine,
From the braes of Yarrow.’

‘O are ye going to hawke‘ she says, 
‘As ye ha done before, O?
Or are ye going to wield your brand,
Upon the braes of Yarrow?’

‘O I am not going to hawke,’ he says,
‘As I have done before, O,
But for to meet your brother Jhon,
Upon the braes of Yarrow,

As he went down yon dowy den,
Sorrow went him before, O;
Nine well-built  men lay waiting him,
Upon the braes of Yarrow.

‘I have your sister to my wife,
‘Ye’ think me an unmeet  marrow;
But yet one foot will I never flee
Now frae the braes of Yarrow.’

‘Than’ four he killd and five did wound,
That was an unmeet marrow!
‘And he had weel nigh wan the day
Upon the braes of Yarrow.’

‘Bot’ a cowardly ‘loon‘ came him behind, (10)
Our Lady lend him sorrow!
And wi a rappier pierced his heart,
And laid him low on Yarrow.

‘Now Douglas’ to his sister’s gane,
Wi meikle dule and sorrow:
‘Gae to your luve, sister,’ he says,
‘He’s sleeping sound on Yarrow.’

As she went down yon dowy den,
Sorrow went her before, O;
She saw her true-love lying slain
Upon the braes of Yarrow.

‘She swoond thrice upon his breist
That was her dearest marrow;
Said, Ever alace and wae the day
Thou wentst frae me to Yarrow!’

She kist his mouth, she kaimed his hair,
As she had done before, O ;
She ‘wiped’ the blood that trickled doun
Upon the braes of Yarrow.

Her hair it was three quarters lang, 
It hang baith side and yellow;
She tied it round ‘Her’ white hause-bane,
‘And tint her life on Yarrow.’

 

If you have any more information to share about this song or helpful links, please post as a comment. Thanks for stopping by the site! ~John Fitz

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I am indebted to the many friends who share my love of traditional songs and to the many scholars whose works are too many to include here. I am also incredibly grateful to the collector’s curators and collators of Wikipedia, Mudcat.org, MainlyNorfolk.info, and TheContemplator.com for their wise, thorough and informative contributions to the study of folk music. 

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The Dowie Dens o Yarrow (1860), by Joseph Noel Paton

"The Dowie Dens o Yarrow", also known as "The Braes of Yarrow" or simply "Yarrow", is a Scottish border ballad (Roud 13, Child 214). It has many variants (Child collected at least 19) and it has been printed as a broadside, as well as published in song collections. It is considered to be a folk standard, and many different singers have performed and recorded it.

Synopsis

The song describes an unequal conflict between a group of men and one man, concerning a lady. This takes place in the vicinity of Yarrow. The one man succeeds in overcoming nearly all his opponents but is finally defeated by (usually) the last one of them.

In some versions, the lady (who is not usually named) rejects a number (often nine) wealthy suitors, in preference for a servant or ploughman. The nine make a pact to kill the other man and they ambush him in the "Dens of Yarrow".

There lived a lady in the West,
I neer could find her marrow;
She was courted by nine gentlemen
And a ploughboy-lad in Yarrow.
These nine sat drinking at the wine,
Sat drinking wine in Yarrow;
They made a vow among themselves
To fight for her in Yarrow.[1]

In some versions it is unclear who the nine (or other number of men) are; in others, they are brothers or are men sent by the lady's father.[2] In the ensuing fight, eight of the attackers are generally killed or wounded, but the ninth (often identified as the lady's brother, John or Douglas) fatally wounds the victim of the plot, usually by running him through with a sword and often by a cowardly blow, delivered from behind.

Four he hurt, an five he slew,
Till down it fell himsell O;
There stood a fause lord him behin,
Who thrust his body thorrow.[3]

The lady may see the events in a dream, either before or after they take place and usually has some sort of dialogue with her father about the merits of the man who has been ambushed and killed.

"O hold your tongue, my daughter dear,
An tak it not in sorrow;
I’ll wed you wi as good a lord
As you’ve lost this day in Yarrow."
"O haud your tongue, my father dear,
An wed your sons wi sorrow;
For a fairer flower neer sprang in May nor June
Nor I’ve lost this day in Yarrow."[4]

Some versions of the song end with the lady grieving: in others she dies of grief.[5]

Commentary

Dowie is Scots and Northumbrian English for sad, dismal, dull or dispirited ,[6][7] den Scots and Northumbrian for a narrow wooded valley.[8][7]

The ballad has some similarities with the folk song "Bruton Town" (or "The Bramble Briar"). This song contains a similar murderous plot, usually by a group of brothers, and directed against a servant who has fallen in love with their sister. It also includes the motif, present in some versions of "The Dowie Dens o Yarrow", of the woman dreaming of her murdered lover before discovering the truth of the plot. However, the rhythmical structure of the two songs is quite different and there is no obvious borrowing of phraseology between them.[9]

Historical background

The song is closely associated with the geographical area of the valley of the Yarrow Water that extends through the Scottish borders towards Selkirk. Almost all versions refer to this location, perhaps because the rhyming scheme for multiple verses, in most versions, relies on words which more or less rhyme with "Yarrow": "marrow", "morrow", "sorrow", "thorough", "narrow", "arrow" and "yellow" for example.

The song is believed to be based on an actual incident. The hero of the ballad was a knight of great bravery, popularly believed to be John Scott, sixth son of the Laird of Harden. According to history, he met a treacherous and untimely death in Ettrick Forest at the hands of his kin, the Scotts of Gilmanscleugh in the seventeenth century.[10] However, recent scholars are sceptical about this story as the origin of the song.[11]

Cultural relationships

Standard references

Broadsides

There are several broadside versions:

  • National Library of Scotland, reference RB.m.143(120)[13]

Textual variants

There are numerous versions of the ballad. Child recorded at least 19, the earliest of which was taken from Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1803).[14] However, the song is much older: William Hamilton of Bangour wrote a poem called "The Braes of Yarrow" which has some basis in the ballad. It appears in a collection of his poems first published in Edinburgh in 1724.[citation needed] It is said to be "written in imitation of an old Scottish ballad on a similar subject".[15][16] There are also American versions which go under the corrupted title of "Derry Dens of Arrow."[17] The ballad has also been linked to the American folk song "The Wayfaring Stranger," but there is little solid evidence for any relationship between them.

Non-English variants

Child points out the similarity with "Herr Helmer", a Scandinavian ballad (TSB D 78; SMB 82; DgF 415; NMB 84). In this, Helmer marries a woman whose family are in a state of feud with him because of the unavenged killing of her uncle. Helmer meets his seven brothers-in-law and a fight ensues. He kills six, but spares the seventh who treacherously kills him.[18]


Recordings

Album/Single Performer Year Variant Notes
The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Volume III Ewan MacColl & A. L. Lloyd 1956 MacColl's version is taken from the singing of his father
Carolyn Hester Carolyn Hester 1961
Strings and Things The Corries 1970
Stargazer Shelagh McDonald 1971
Moonshine (Bert Jansch album) Bert Jansch 1973
As I Went Over Blackwater Mick Hanly 1980
Open the Door (Pentangle album) pentangle 1985 The Voice of the People: O'er His Grave the Grass Grew Green John Macdonald 1988
The Voice of the People: It Fell Upon a Bonny Summer's Day Willie Scott 1988
And So It Goes Steve Tilston 1995
Outlaws and Dreamers Dick Gaughan 2001 Variant of Child 214S
The Mountain Announces Scatter 2006
Fairest Floo'er Karine Polwart 2007
The Voice of the People: Good People Take Warning Mary Anne Stewart 2012
Fall Away Blues Red Tail Ring 2016 "Yarrow"
The Back Roads The Back Roads 2016 "Yarrow"

Musical variants

The following is the tune as sung by Ewan MacColl:

Scottish composer Hamish MacCunn composed an orchestral ballad of the same title.


References

  1. ^ Child version 214Q
  2. ^ Child version 214J
  3. ^ Child version 214I
  4. ^ Child version 214B
  5. ^ Child version 214D
  6. ^ Robinson, Mairi (1985). The Concise Scots Dictionary. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press. p. 158. ISBN 0-08-028492-2.
  7. ^ a b Richard Oliver Heslop Northumberland Words. London: for the English Dialect Society (Publications; vol. 28) by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1892
  8. ^ Robinson, Mairi (1985). The Concise Scots Dictionary. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press. p. 141. ISBN 0-08-028492-2.
  9. ^ "The Bramble Briar" published in R. Vaughan Williams & A. L. Lloyd: The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, Penguin Books, 1959
  10. ^ Scott, Sir Walter. "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border". www.humanitiesweb.org. Vol. II. Retrieved 12 July 2007.
  11. ^ A. L. Lloyd: Folk Song in England, Paladin, 1975. p. 129
  12. ^ Gordon Hall Gerould: Old English and Medieval Literature, Ayer Publishing, 1970. ISBN 0-8369-5312-6. p360
  13. ^ National Library of Scotland
  14. ^ Francis James Child: The English and Scottish Popular Ballads; Vol. IV, p. 160
  15. ^ Thomas Percy: Reliques of Ancient English Poetry: Consisting of Ballads, Songs, and Other Pieces of Our Earlier Poets, Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1858; p. 294
  16. ^ William Hamilton: The Poems and Songs of William Hamilton of Bangour, Edinburgh, 1850
  17. ^ "Derry Dens of Arrow". Bluegrass Messengers.
  18. ^ Child p.164

    Source: Mainly Norfolk

    The Dowie Dens of Yarrow

    Roud 13 ; Child 214 ; G/D 2:215 ; Ballad Index C214 ; trad.]

    The Border Ballad The Dowie Dens o’ Yarrow was in the repertoire of many traditional and revival singers:

    Jimmy McBeath sang The Dowie Dens o’ Yarrow on November 14, 1953 in a recording by Alan Lomax that was released in 2002 on his Rounder Records anthology Tramps and Hawkers.

    Ewan MacColl sang The Dowie Dens o’ Yarrow in 1956 on his and A.L. Lloyd’s Riverside anthology The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (The Child Ballads) Volume III. This and 28 other ballads from this series were reissued in 2009 on MacColl’s Topic CD Ballads: Murder·Intrigue·Love·Discord. Kenneth S. Goldstein commented in the album’s booklet:

    Child printed nineteen texts of this beautiful Scottish tragic ballad, the oldest dating from the 18th century. Sir Walter Scott, who first published it in his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1803), believed that the ballad referred to a duel fought at the beginning of the 17th century between John Scott of Tushielaw and Walter Scott of Thirlestane in which the latter was slain. Child pointed out inaccuracies in this theory but tended to give credence to the possibility that the ballad did refer to an actual occurrence in Scott family history that was not too far removed from that of the ballad tale.

    In a recent article, Norman Cazden discussed various social and historical implications of this ballad (and its relationship to Child 215, Rare Willie Drowned in Yarrow), as well as deriding Scott’s theories as to its origin.

    The ballad still exists in tradition in Scotland. It has been reported rarely in America, a fine text having been collected in New York State.

    Davie Stewart sang The Dowie Dens of Yarrow in a recording by Hamish Henderson in 1954/55 or 1962 that was released in 1978 on his eponymous Topic LPDavie Stewart. Another recording by Alan Lomax in London in 1957 was included in 2002 on Stewart’s Rounder Records CD Go On, Sing Another Song. One of these two versions was also included on the anthology The Child Ballads 2 (The Folk Songs of Britain Volume 5; Caedmon 1961; Topic 1968).

    Belle Stewart sang The Dowie Dens o’ Yarrow on the 1965 Topic record The Stewarts of Blair. This track was included in 1966 on the Topic Sampler No 5, A Prospect of Scotland.

    Gordeanna McCulloch sang The Dowie Dens o’ Yarrow in 1965 on the Topic album New Voices from Scotland. This track was included in 1997 on the Fellside CD reissue of her Topic album Sheath and Knife. and in 2009 on Topic 70th anniversary anthology Three Score and Ten.

    Isla Cameron sang Yarrow in 1966 on her eponymous Transatlantic album Isla Cameron.

    Willie Scott sang The Dowie Dens o’ Yarrow on November 3, 1967 in a recording by Bill Leader that was released on his 1968 Topic record The Shepherd’s Song. This track was included in 1998 on the Topic anthology It Fell on a Day, a Bonny Summer Day (The Voice of the People Series Volume 17).

    Shelagh McDonald sang Dowie Dens of Yarrow in 1971 on her second and last album, Stargazer.

    John MacDonald sang The Dewie Dens o’ Yarrow in November 1974 in a recording by Tony Engle and Tony Russell that was released on his 1975 Topic recordThe Singing Molecatcher of Morayshire. This track was included in 1998 on the Topic anthology O’er His Grave the Grass Grew Green (The Voice of the People Series Volume 3).

    Bob Davenport and The Rakes sang The Dowie Dens o’ Yarrow in 1977 on their Topic LP 1977. He learned this song from the singing of Davie Stewart.

    Paul and Linda Adams sang The Dowie Dens of Yarrow in 1978 on their Fellside album Among the Old Familiar Mountains.

    Jane Turriff of Mintlaw, Aberdeenshire, sang Dowie Dens o’ Yarrow in a 1979 recording made by Peter Cooke on her 1996 Springthyme album Singing Is Ma Life. This track was also included in 2000 on the EFDSS anthology Root & Branch 2: Everybody Swings. The original album’s notes commented:

    The Yarrow valley runs from the Border hills south of Edinburgh to join the river Tweed near Selkirk. Although this is a genuine Border Ballad, James Duncan calls it “unquestionably the most widely known of our old ballads in the North East.” Greig-Duncan has eleven texts, none with Jane’s distinctive opening verse. There is much similarity, however, when it comes to the combat verses. It is not clear in Jane’s version who the murderer is, but she has her own ideas: Jane: He wis goin for them aa, bit een o them came at him fae the back. It must have been his brither-in-law.

    On one occasion, Jane sang this song to a different melody, unusual for a traditional singer and she sometimes begins with two extra verses which do help clarify the motive. These lines also appear as verses two and three in Agnes Lyle of Kilbarchan’s version, noted by William Motherwell in 1825 (Child C). Tennies Bank probably refers the Tinnis Burn near Newcastleton in the Scottish borders.

    Alison McMorland and Peta Webb sang The Dowie Dens o’ Yarrow in 1980 on their Topic LP Alison McMorland & Peta Webb.

    Gary and Vera Aspey sang The Dowie Dens of Yarrow, “a Scottish traditional song which happens to be a great favourite of ours”, in 1979 on their Topic albumSeeing Double.

    Iain MacGillivray sang The Dowie Dens o’ Yarrow in 1986 on his Fellside album Rolling Home.

    Heather Heywood sang The Dowie Dens of Yarrow in 1993 on her Greentrax CD By Yon Castle Wa’.

    Steve Tilston sang The Dowie Dens of Yarrow on his 1995 album And So It Goes….

    Elspeth Cowie sang Dowie Dens of Yarrow in 1998 on Chantan’s Culburnie CD Primary Colours.

    Janet Russell sang Dowie Dens of Yarrow in 1998 on the Fellside CD Fyre and Sworde: Songs of the Border Reivers. The album’s sleeve notes commented:

    Arguably one of the finest of the Border Ballads. In simple terms the theme is Romeo and Juliet. This fits conveniently with the reiving theme of two families is dispute. It also deals with the theme of the girl courting beneath her station in life. Whatever, the young man is clearly regarded as unsuitable by the girl’s family. As with many of the songs with no clear historical connection attempts have been made to give the song a real-life background. A version of the song collected from one William Walsh, a Peebleshire cottar and poet has as its opening line, “At Dryhope lived a lady fair”. This has led to the theory that the lady was the daughter of Scott of Dryhope, a notorious Reiver. Whether or not it has an historical basis becomes less significant against the overwhelming tragedy of the song. Janet’s text, given to her by Sandra Kerr, has a place name “Thurrow” which we have not been able to locate. The text was collected in the Borders and so it has probably been altered by the oral process from Yarrow. The text has several ritual, magical and folklore allusions: the dream, the long yellow hair being wrapped three times around the body, etc. Janet’s stunning delivery of the song serves to illustrate why these songs are often called the “Big Ballads”.

    Willie Beattie of Caulside, Dumfriesshire, sang The Dowie Dens o’ Yarrow to Mike Yates in 2000. This recording was included in 2001 on the Musical Traditions anthology of song and music from the Mike Yates Collection, Up in the North and Down in the South, and in 2003 on his Kyloe anthology of ballads, songs and tune from the Scottish Borders, Borderers. Yates commented in the former album’s booklet:

    One of the best-known of the ‘Border ballads’, although very few sets have been collected outside of Scotland itself. While the ballad is set in a known location, the Yarrow Valley—a few miles to the west of Selkirk, it is not known if it is based on an actual historic event. Sir Walter Scott believed that it referred to a duel fought between John Scott of Tushielaw and his brother-in-law Walter Scott of Thirlestane, where the latter was slain; but others have doubted this, citing the ballad’s similarity to the Scandinavian Herr Helmer. In this ballad Helmer has married a lady whose family are at feud with him for the unatoned slaughter of her uncle; he meets her seven brothers, who will hear of no satisfaction; there is a fight; Helmer kills six, but spares the seventh, who treacherously kills him.

    The ballad has been sung for a long time in Liddesdale and Eskdale, and Frank Kidson noted a set from a Mrs Calvert of Gilnockie—he same Gilnockie that is close to Willie Beattie’s home and which is mentioned in the ballad of Johnny Armstrong. Mrs Calvert was the granddaughter of Tibbie Shiel, who had previously given songs to Sir Walter Scott and James Hogg, the ‘Etterick Shepherd’. Willie learnt his version of the ballad from his one-time neighbour, the well-known shepherd and singer Willie Scott, who can be heard singing it on [It Fell on a Day, a Bonny Summer Day (The Voice of the People Series Volume 17)]. Davie Stewart’s version is on [The Child Ballads 2 (The Folk Songs of Britain Volume 5; Caedmon 1961; Topic 1968)], and an Irish set, sung by Brigid Murphy, of Forkhill, Co Armagh, is included on the European Ethnic cassette Early Ballads in Ireland (no issue number), edited by Hugh Shields and Tom Munnelly.

    Dick Gaughan sang The Dowie Dens o’ Yarrow on his 2001 Greentrax CD Outlaws and Dreamers; this recording was also included in 2006 on his anthology The Definitive Collection.

    Wiliam Williamson of Ladybank, Fife (the son of Duncan Williamson) sang The Dowie Dens of Yarrow to Mike Yates on September 3, 2001. This recording was included in the following year on Yates’ Kyloe anthology of songs, stories and ballads from Scottish Travellers, Travellers’ Tales Volume 1.

    Sara Grey sang Derry Dens of Arrow in 2005 on her Fellside CD A Long Way from Home.

    Tom Spiers sang The Dowie Dens o Yarrow on Shepheard, Spiers & Watson’s Springthyme 2005 CD They Smiled As We Cam In. He commented in the album’s booklet:

    This was one of the first ballads I learnt back in the 1960s and the text is pretty close to the version in Norman Buchan’s 101 Scottish Songs which was the most accessible source of traditional song in those days. The haunting tune is from the singing of Jessie MacDonald and was collected by Peter Hall on one of his field recording expeditions.

    Karine Polwart sang Dowie Dens of Yarrow in 2007 on her CD Fairest Floo’er (and the album title is a phrase from this song). This track was also included in 2013 on her Borealis anthology Threshold. A live recording from Cambridge Folk Festival 2008 was included on her festival EP A Wee Bit Extra.

    Drew Wright sang The Dowie Dens o’ Yarrow in 2011 on the B-Side of the Drag City single with Alastair Roberts and Karine Polwart, Captain Wedderburn’s Courtship.

    Andy Turner heard Dowie Dens of Yarrow for the first time in 1977 on Bob Davenports album mentioned above. He sang it as the January 28, 2017 entry of his project A Folk Song a Week.

    Lyrics

    Willie Scott sings The Dowie Dens o’ Yarrow Janet Russell sings The Dowie Dens of Yarrow
    There lived a lady in the north,
    You could scarely find her marrow,
    She was courted by nine noblemen
    And her ploughman boy o’ Yarrow.
    In Thurrow town there lived a maid,
    Ye scarce could find her marrow,
    And she’s forsook nine noblemen
    For a ploughboy lad frae Yarrow.
    Her faither he got word o’ that
    And he’s bred a’ her sorrow;
    He sent him forth to fight wi’ nine
    On the dowie dens o’ Yarrow.
    She’s washed his face and she’s kaimed his hair
    As she’s aft done before-O,
    And she’s made him look a knight sae fine
    To fecht for her on Yarrow.
    “Stay here, stay here, my bonnie lad
    And bide wi’ me the morrow,
    For my cruel brothers will ye betray
    On the dowie dens o’ Yarrow.”
    As he came ower yon high, high hills
    And doon yon path sae narrow,
    There he spied nine noblemen
    For to fight with him on Yarrow.
    As he gaed up by Tennies Hill
    And doon the braes o’ Yarrow,
    ‘T was there in a den were nine armed men
    Come to fecht wi’ him on Yarrow.
    “Did ye come here tae drink the wine?
    Did ye come here tae borrow?
    Or did ye come tae wield yer brand
    On the dowie dens o’ Yarrow?”
    “I am not come tae drink the wine
    Nor yet to beg or borrow.
    But I am come tae wield my brand
    On the dowie dens o’ Yarrow!”
    “If I see you all, you are nine men,
    That’s an unfair marrow.
    But I will fecht while last my breath
    On the dowie dens o’ Yarrow.”
    There was three he slew and three withdrew,
    And three lay deadly wounded,
    Till her brother John stepped in behind+
    And pierced his body through.”
    And three he slew and three they flew
    And three he’s wounded sairly,
    Till her brither John stood up behind
    And ran his body thorough.
    “Go home, go home, you false young man,
    And tell your sister sorrow,
    That her true-love John lies dead and gone
    In the dowie dens o’ Yarrow.”
    As he gaed ower yon high, high hills
    And doon yon path sae narrow,
    There he spied his sister dear
    She was coming fast for Yarrow.”
    “ Oh, brother dear, I’ve dreamt a dream
    And I hope it will not prove sorrow.
    I dreamt that your were spilling blood
    In the dowie dens o’ Yarrow.”
    “O mither, I hae dream’d a dream,
    A dream o’ dule and sorrow.
    I dream’d that I pu’d heather bells
    On the dowie dens o’ Yarrow.”
    “Oh, sister dear, I’ll read your dream
    And I’m sure it will prove sorrow.
    Your true-love John lies dead and gone
    And a bloody corpse on Yarrow.”
    “O dochter I hae read your dream,
    I doubt it will prove sorrow.
    For your ain true love is pale and wan
    On the dowie dens o’ Yarrow.”
    As she gaed up yon high high hill
    And doon the houms o’ Yarrow,
    ‘T was there she saw her ain true love
    Lying pale and wan on Yarrow.
    She’s washed him in a clear well-strand,
    She’s dried him wi’ the hollan.
    And aye she sighed, alas she cried,
    “For my love I had him chosen.”
    Now this fair maid’s hair was three-quarters long
    And the colour of it was yellow.
    She tied it roond his middle small,
    As she’s carried him hame tae Yarrow.
    Her hair it being three quarters lang,
    The colour it being yellow.
    She’s tied it roond his middle sae small
    And she’s bore him doon tae Yarrow.
    “Oh, daughter dear, dry up your tear
    And dwell no more in sorrow,
    For I’ll wed you to far higher degree
    Than your ploughman boy o’ Yarrow.”
    “O hold your tongue, my daughter dear
    And talk no more of sorrow,
    I’ll wed you soon on a better match
    Than the ploughboy lad frae Yarrow.”
    “Oh, father dear, you have seven sons,
    You can wed them all tomorrow.
    But a fairer floo’er there never bloomed
    Than my ploughman boy o’ Yarrow.”
    “O faither, ye hae siven sons,
    Ye may wed them a’ tomorrow.
    Ye may wed your sons, but ye’ll ne’er wed
    The bonny lass of Thurrow.”

    Jane Turriff sings The Dowie Dens o Yarrow

    “You took my sister to be your wife
    And you thought not her marrow;
    You rook her frae her father’s side,
    When she was a rose on Yarrow.”

    “I took your sister to be my wife
    And I made her my marrow;
    I took her frae her father’s side
    And she’s still the rose o Yarrow.”

    He’s gaen tae his lady gan,
    As he had done before o,
    Sayin, “Madam I maun keep a tryst
    On the dowie dens o Yarrow.”

    “O bide at hame ma lord,” she said,
    “O bide at hame my marrow,
    For my three brothers, they will slay thee,
    In the dowie dens o Yarrow.”

    “Hold yer tongue, ma lady dear
    What’s aa this strife and sorrow? [grief and
    For I’ll come back to thee again,
    In the dowie dens o Yarrow.”

    She kissed his cheeks, she kissed his hair,
    As she had done before o
    And gied him a brand doon by his side
    An he’s awa tae Yarrow.

    So he’s gan up yon Tennies Bank
    A wite he gaed wi sorrow [i.e. I know he gaed
    An there he met nine armed men [spied nine
    In the dowie dens o Yarrow.

    “O come ye here tae howk or hound, [i.e. hawk
    Or drink the wine sae clear o,
    Or come ye here tae pairt yer land
    On the dowie dens o Yarrow?”

    “I come not here tae howk or hound,
    Or drink the wine sae clear o,
    Nor come I here tae pairt ma land,
    But I’ll fight wi you in Yarrow.”

    So four he’s hurt an five he’s slain
    In the bloody dens o Yarrow,
    Till a cowardly man cam him behind
    An he’s pierced his body through o.

    “Oh gae hame, gae hame, ma brither John,
    Whit’s aa this grief and sorrow? [dule and
    Gae hame an tell ma lady dear
    That I sleep sound in Yarrow.”

    So he’s gane up yon high, high hill
    As he had done before o
    An there he met his sister dear,
    She wis comin fast tae Yarrow.

    “Oh I dreamt a dreary dream yestreen,
    God keep us aa fae sorrow!
    I dreamt I pulled the birk sae green,
    (or: I dreamt that I wis pu’in heather bells)
    On the dowie dens o Yarrow.”

    “O sister I will read yer dream
    And oh it has come sorrow:
    Your true love he lies dead an gone,
    He was killed, was killed in Yarrow.”

    Acknowledgements

    Janet Russell’s verses were transcribed by Roberto in the the Mudcat Café thread Lyr Add: Dowie Dens of Yarrow (from Janet Russell).

    Performances, Workshops, Resources & Recordings

    The American Folk Experience is dedicated to collecting and curating the most enduring songs from our musical heritage.  Every performance and workshop is a celebration and exploration of the timeless songs and stories that have shaped and formed the musical history of America. John Fitzsimmons has been singing and performing these gems of the past for the past forty years, and he brings a folksy warmth, humor and massive repertoire of songs to any occasion. 

    Festivals & Celebrations Coffeehouses School Assemblies Library Presentations Songwriting Workshops Artist in Residence House Concerts Pub Singing Irish & Celtic Performances Poetry Readings Campfires Music Lessons Senior Centers Voiceovers & Recording

    “Beneath the friendly charisma is the heart of a purist gently leading us from the songs of our lives to the timeless traditional songs he knows so well…”

     

    Globe Magazine

    Join Fitz at The Colonial Inn

    “The Nobel Laureate of New England Pub Music…”

    Scott Alaric

    Adventures in the Modern Folk Underground

    On the Green, in Concord, MA Every Thursday Night for over thirty years…

    “A Song Singing, Word Slinging, Story Swapping, Ballad Mongering, Folksinger, Teacher, & Poet…”

    Theo Rogue

    Songcatcher Rag

    Fitz’s Recordings

    & Writings

    Songs, poems, essays, reflections and ramblings of a folksinger, traveler, teacher, poet and thinker…

    Download for free from the iTunes Bookstore

    “A Master of Folk…”

    The Boston Globe

    Fitz’s now classic recording of original songs and poetry…

    Download from the iTunes Music Store

    “A Masterful weaver of song whose deep, resonant voice rivals the best of his genre…”

    Spirit of Change Magazine

    “2003: Best Children’s Music Recording of the Year…”

    Boston Parent's Paper

    Fitz & The Salty Dawgs Amazing music, good times and good friends…

    Listen here

    TheCraftedWord.org

    Writing help

    when you need it…

    “When the eyes rest on the soul…that’s Fitzy…”

    Lenny Megliola

    WEEI Radio

    The Silver Apples of the Moon.

    Stories are a communal currency of humanity. ― Tahir Shah, In Arabian Nights The most powerful and enduring connection we share as a human race is our desire and need to share stories. We engage in the art of storytelling more than most of us ever realize; whether we...

    Redefining Literacy

     My life is the poem I could have writ, But I could not both live and utter it ~Henry David Thoreau    The common man goes to an orchard to taste the fruit. The rich man man learns how to plant his own orchard. The poet, however,  grows an even better fruit and gives...

    Yesterday did not become a poem

    Nothing became something else; No thoughts filled my head With wonder or wisdom. Listless sky. Jumbled frames. Fleeting images: Chattering squirrels, Distant rumbling Of rush hour traffic. Today I am more determined, But all that is left Is the promise Of...

    A New Hearth

    It has been a long time since I wrote a simple old "this is what I am going to do today" post. So this is what I am going to do today: [and trust me, it will have nothing--absolutely nothing--to do with school work:)] Before the true winter settles in, I am going to...

    A Priori

    How do I know what I know? The sharp angles of this simple cottage perfected  in every board sawn, shingle split and beam hewn into place goes together placed, splined, slid together, bound more by intuition than knowing.

    Eighteen Years

    At midnight I hear the cuckoo clock chiming from it’s perch in a cluttered kitchen locked in cadence with the tower bell gonging this old mill town at midnight to a deeper sleep, like a call to prayer reminding me that this new day, starting in the dark of a hallowed...

    The Snow

    has dropped a seamlessness before the plows and children can patch it back to a jagged and arbitrary quilting putting borders to design and impulse. I imagine myself falling everywhere softly, whispering, I am here, and I am here.

    The Queer Folk

    True to my words of earlier this week, I finished this song last night, and at the time, I liked it--but in the clear light of day, too much of it seems forced, especially the rhymes. But that is part of the process. I think I am almost there. Let me get my saw and...

    Make Something out of Something

    It's hard to make chicken salad out of chicken manure      Dirty hands are a good sign, so hopefully, you got some mental mud on your hands and created some content to work with today.  To a starving man, any food is good food--unless it...

    In Reply To Einstein

    *God casts the die, not the dice. ~Alfred Einstein I am cold down the neck, turtling my head to showers of ice that fall dancing and skidding on skins of crusted snow. I hold my breath when I step, inflating hopes of a weightlessness, and so be undetected
to the play...

    No Dad To Come Home To

    Rain’s falling outside of Boston—
    Thank God I’m not working tonight.
    I’ve got six of my own,
    And a stepdaughter at home,
    And a momma keeping things right.
    I wonder if they’re at the table
    With their puzzles, their papers and pens?
    When I get off the highway
    And pull in that driveway,
    Will they run to the window again?

    Why Trump Is Not Flipping Me Out

    I wonder why Trump is not flipping me out? I wonder if there is some bigoted, ignorant and right-wing element that lurks inside this folk-singing, poem writing, neo-socialist shell of mine. Maybe it is not that hard for me to make the empathetic reach to feel at least...

    Goathouse

    Goat house In reaching for the scythe I’m reminded of the whetstone and the few quick strokes by which it was tested-- the hardness of hot August; the burning of ticks off dog backs. It’s winter now in this garage made barn, and the animals seem only curious that I’d...

    Kampuchea

    I stutter for normality across the river from black men fishing for kibbers and horned pout. Barefoot children rounded bellies curled navels stalk the turtle sunning on a log. lonely in the field grass lonely on the curbstones I stutter for normality. Not a mother...

    Pruning

    These trees have driven so many friends batty, wedged in unstable crotches, embracing hollow, heart-rotted limbs, reaching tentatively, maddened with indecision. From a distance your gestures are very lobsterlike— waving a last embattled claw, as if dueling some...

    Many Miles To Go

    I see it in your eyes
    and in the ways you try to smile;
    in the ways you whisper—I don’t know—
    and put it all off for a while;
    then you keep on keeping on
    in the only way you know:
    you’re scared of where you’re going
    and who’ll catch you down below.

    Dealing with Ether

    Trying to only see what is in front of me my eyes are continually drawn away from this page and the work left to be done— my labored words etched and scratched away like fleeting mosaics in dry sand. I need a windowless cell to work the alchemy that shapes the...

    Guns, Me, and Rural America

         Sometimes I start writing without knowing where I stand—unsure of even where I stand. I have to trust some innate wisdom or audacity will cull through the bullshit we are all heir to in what Hamlet laments is “this earthly coil” we are forced to face when we wake...

    The Street I Never Go Down

    As is often the case, I sit here with good intent to write my end-of-term comments--a dry litany of repeated phrases dulled by. obligation--and find myself instead writing poetry, the stuff I would rather share with my students who already know that I care dearly...

    Busy…

    The start of the school year, and I have literally spent every free moment working on what is ostensibly pretty cool stuff, methinks...but it is work in every sense of the word, so I do miss those long summer mornings when  could literally write to my heart and heads...

    The Philanthropy of Maynard

     I woke up today with chores on my mind. My buddy Josh LoPresti lent me his woodsplitter, and I had dreams of a mindless day splitting wood and heaving it into a pile for my kids to stack along the fence. But the dryer was broken, and it needed to be fixed. Margret's...

    Practicing What I Preach

    It is not where you go. It is how you go. ~Fitz Is there any value in coming to the page this late at night after three hours of singing in a pub, just because I said I would? I expect you to go to the empty page and pry tired and stubborn thoughts and lay them on the...

    What’s in a Song

    Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet. ~Plato         Writing a song is not just an exercise in seeking some kind of future fame. It is...

    Another Wednesday

            It is a good night for meatballs. The same meal we have cooked every Wednesday night for thirteen years and counting. Tonight is a beautiful and warm night of vacation week, so more than likely we will have a big crowd joining us—but we never know who. The...

    Quit Your Whining

    Anything worth succeeding in is worth failing in~Ben Franklin     "Quit your whining and complaining" is probably a clause that can easily be translated into every language in every culture on earth, for, from what I know and have seen in the world, bitching about...

    What Are We Afraid Of?

    Good intentions are easily hobbled by inaction. There has always been a murky and muddied No Mans Land in every war where the evil and the righteous trade the moral high ground. This is not the case in Ukraine. Putin’s actions are evil--pure, unmitigated, unprovoked...

    Creating a Digital Workflow in the Classroom

    One Teacher’s Solution To Everything  Years of teaching woodshop at my school has reinforced in me the utility of developing a workflow that works best for the project at hand using the tools and equipment already in the shop. The same can be said of my other life as...

    Evolution

    The coyotes and fisher cats seem intent on striking some new deal with each other to toy with our fears in this gentleman's wilderness— patches of dense woods dotted with overgrown fields, riven and intersected by highways, powerlines and quiet, suburban...

    Mum…

    Very jealous today of all the folks I see spending time with their respective moms--and sad for those who can't and for those whose wives were taken from their families too early in life... This is my remmebrance of my "mum" who died several years ago.       I ran...

    Out of the Forge: April 6, 2017

    Some nights I feel like I am singing in a mall. Tonight--in a fun way--it felt a bit like I walked into the Natick mall at Christmas time and pulled out my guitar in front of the Apple store and started to play, but like every night down at the inn it evolved into a...

    The Enigma

    Black Pond is not as deepas it is dark, dammedsome century agobetween ledges of granite and an outcropping of leaning fir, huckleberry, and white pine. For years I have paddled and trolled;swam, fished, sailed and sometimessimply tread water in the night trying to...

    Thanksgiving

    I am surprised sometimesby the suddenness of November:beauty abruptly shedto a common nakedness--grasses deadenedby hoarfrost,persistent memoriesof people I’ve lost.It is left to those of us dressed in the hard barky skin of experienceto insist on a decorumthat rises...

    Canobie lake

    Going to Canobie Lake is always the turning point of the year for me. It is like some primal signal that It is time to turn away from the school year and towards the future.  Obviously, it is my hope that you learned some useful skills this year, but, more...

    Winter in Caribou

    I know your name. It’s written there.
    I wonder if you care.
    A six-pack of Narragansett beer,
    Some Camels and the brownie over there.
    Every day I stop by like I
    Got some place I’ve got to go;
    I’m buying things I don’t really need:
    I don’t read the Boston Globe.

    But I, I think that I
    Caught the corner of your eye.
    But why, why can’t I try
    To say the things I’ve got inside
    To you ….

    The Teacher’s Couch

    It’s not just a couch; it’s a sofa, too ~Fitz           I remember my first year teaching at Fenn—and it was really my first stint as a true worker with responsibilities outside of what I already had in my wheelhouse—and on this day, some twenty something years ago, I...

    The Fisher

    To cast far is to cast well. I’ve always believed that the biggest fish are just beyond my range and lie in dark water I could never swim to. But experience is the wisdom that has me now casting closer to shore, nearest the reeds and overgrowth — a subtleness geared...

    Zenmo Yang Ni

    I lost the time I hardly knew you,
    half-assed calling:
    “How you doing?
    Laughing at my hanging hay field;
    I never knew the time
    that tomorrow’d bring,
    until it brung to me.

    Yuan lai jui shuo: “Zenmoyang ni?”
    Xianzai chang shu: “Dou hai keyi”;
    Xiexie nimen, dou hen shang ni.
    Xiwang wo men dou hen leyi
    Dou hen leyi

    The Inn

    Every Thursday, for some thirty years, I have been spending this same time each week wrapping up the loose ends of the day before heading down to the inn to play to whomever and whatever shows up. Tonight looks like a fun night: Maroghini will be with me for his last...

    The Mystery in the Cradle

    This picture is from Christmas eleven years ago when Tommy was only two weeks old, and now all of them—and Gio and Pipo--are playing charades or some such game in the dining room, shouting and laughing at each other's miscues and fortifying another enduring memory...

    Shane

    It’s been too long feeling sorry for myself.
    It’s been too long with my life up on the shelf.
    Sometimes wish that I was Shane—
    shoot Jack Palance, and disappear again;
    don’t have no one
    don’t want no one
    don’t miss no one:
    living lonely with a saddle and a gun.

    Contact John Fitzsimmons...and thanks!