Recordings & Info 20. The Cruel Mother
[Child P, a broadside titled The Duke's Daughter's Cruelty, is dated c. 1690 by Kittredge and is the oldest known text. According to Cazden and Wiki, Hyder Rollins listed a broadside print dated 1638. Since the title doesn't appear in Rollins' Analytical Index to the Ballad Entries in the Stationers Register, that information seems to be inaccurate.
See English and Other Versions for detailed notes on the early versions.
R. Matteson 2012]
CONTENTS
1) Alternative Titles
2) Traditional Ballad Index
3) Folk Index
4) Child Collection Index
5) Excerpt from The British Traditional Ballad in North America by Tristram Coffin 1950, from the section A Critical Biographical Study of the Traditional Ballads of North America
6) Wiki
7) Mainly Norfolk (lyrics and info)
ATTACHED PAGES: (see left hand column)
1) Roud Number 9: The Cruel Mother (312 Listings)
2) History, Symbol, and Meaning in 'The Cruel Mother'
Alternative Titles
Fine Flowers in the Valley
Three Little Babies
The Lady of York
Greenwood Siding
The Minister of New York's Daughter
Hey My Rose
Doun by the Greenwood Sae Bonnie O
Minister's Dochter o' Newarke
She Laid These Babes Across Her Lap
Down by the Greenwood Side
The Trajedie o Twa Bairns of Newark
There Was a Girl Her Name Was Young
Doun by the greenwood and by the green
Fair Flowers of Helio
Down by the Greenwood Shady
Traditional Ballad Index- Cruel Mother, The [Child 20]
DESCRIPTION: A woman is (preparing to be wed, but is) pregnant (by another man). When her child(ren) is/are born, she kills him/them. As she proceeds to the church to be wed, the child(ren) appear to her to condemn her for her act.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1776 (Herd) [Clearly this is wrong, the date should be c. 1690, The Duke's Daughter's Cruelty]
KEYWORDS: murder pregnancy adultery wedding childbirth burial children accusation supernatural ghost bastard
FOUND IN: Britain(England,Scotland(High,Aber,Bord)) Ireland US(Ap,MA,MW,NE,SE,So) Canada(Mar,Newf)
REFERENCES (43 citations):
Child 20, "The Cruel Mother" (17 texts, 1 tune) {Bronson's #5}
Bronson 20, "The Cruel Mother" (56 versions plus 1 in addenda)
Dixon VI, pp. 46-49, "The Cruel Mother"; VII, pp. 50-52, "The Minister's Dochter o' Newarke" (2 texts)
Williams-Thames, p. 295, "She Laid These Babes Across Her Lap" (1 text) (also Wiltshire-WSRO Gl 129, "Cruel Mother")
GreigDuncan2 193, "The Cruel Mother" (7 texts, 3 tunes) {A=Bronson's #12, B=#3, C=#15}
GreigDuncan8 1910, "Doun by the Greenwood Sae Bonnie O" (1 fragment)
Greig #20, p. 2, ("Doun by the greenwood and by the green") (1 fragment)
Lyle-Crawfurd1 12, "The Cruel Mother" (1 text)
Lyle-Crawfurd2 131, "The Trajedie o Twa Bairns of Newark" (1 text)
BarryEckstormSmyth pp. 80-93, "The Cruel Mother" (6 texts plus a fragment, 1 tune) {Bronson's #6}
Flanders/Olney, pp. 66-67, "The Cruel Mother" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #21}
Flanders-Ancient1, pp. 230-238, "The Cruel Mother" (3 texts (all missing parts of the plot) plus 3 fragments probably of this; 3 tunes) {A=Bronson's #21, B=#34}
Eddy 7, "The Cruel Mother" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #14}
Randolph 8, "Down by the Greenwood Side" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #54}
Davis-Ballads 9, "The Cruel Mother" (4 texts plus a fragment, 4 tunes) Bronson's #35, #48, #43, #44}
Davis-More 12, pp. 81-83, "The Cruel Mother" (1 text, 1 tune)
Scarborough-SongCatcher, pp. 167-169, "(The Cruel Mother)" (1 text, from Randolph; tune on p. 403) {Bronson's #54}
Creighton/Senior, pp. 17-20, "The Cruel Mother" (2 texts plus 2 fragments and1 excerpt, 4 tunes) {Bronson's pp. #18, #45, #13, #20}
Creighton-NovaScotia 2, "Cruel Mother" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #37}
Greenleaf/Mansfield 6, "Fair Flowers of Helio" (2 texts, 1 tune) {Bronson's #28}
Peacock, pp. 804-805, "The Babes in the Greenwood" (1 text, 2 tunes)
Karpeles-Newfoundland 5, "The Cruel Mother" (5 texts, 7 tunes) {Bronson's #26}
Mackenzie 3, "The Greenwood Siding" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #19}
Manny/Wilson 56, "There Was a Girl Her Name Was Young (Down by the Greenwood Side-I-O) (The Cruel Mother)" (1 text, 1 tune)
Leach, pp. 103-106, "The Cruel Mother" (3 texts)
OBB 22, "The Cruel Mother" (1 text)
Friedman, p. 181, "The Cruel Mother" (1 text+1 fragment)
FSCatskills 68, "Down by the Greenwood Shady" (1 text, 1 tune)
PBB 27, "The Cruel Mother" (1 text)
SharpAp 10 "The Cruel Mother" (13 texts, 13 tunes){Bronson's #51, #55, #42, #44, #17, #32, #46, #40, #11, #10, #52, #30, #41}
Sharp-100E 13, "The Cruel Mother" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #31}
Ord, pp. 459-460, "Hey Wi' the Rose and the Lindsay, O" (1 text)
Niles 20, "The Cruel Mother" (2 texts, 2 tunes); also possibly Niles 15, "The Maid and the Palmer" (1 text, which Niles identifies with Child 21, but the fragment is so short that it could equally be part of Child 20)
Sharp/Karpeles-80E 9, "The Cruel Mother" (1 text, 1 tune -- a composite version) {Bronson's #42}
Hammond-Belfast, p. 54, "All Round the Loney-O" (1 text, 1 tune)
Vaughan Williams/Lloyd, p. 28, "The Cruel Mother" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #16}
Hodgart, p. 36, "The Cruel Mother" (1 text)
JHCox 5, "The Cruel Mother" (3 texts, 1 tune) {Bronson's #7}
Silber-FSWB, p. 222, "The Cruel Mother" (1 text)
BBI, ZN2495, "There was a Duke's Daughter Lived in York"
DT 20, CRUELMOT* CRUELMO2* CRUELMO3
ADDITIONAL: Emily Lyle, _Fairies and Folk: Approaches to the Scottish Ballad Tradition_, Wissenschaflicher Verlag Trier, 2007, pp, 156-157, "[The Minister's Daughter of New York]" (1 text, from a letter from Peter Buchan to William Motherwell); pp. 170-172, [no title], (1 text, in a shorthand notation, again from Buchan to Motherwell)
Katherine Briggs, _A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales in the English Language_, Part A: Folk Narratives, 1970 (I use the 1971 Routledge paperback that combines volumes A.1 and A.2), volume A.2, p. 397, "The Cruel Mother" (1 text)
Roud #9
RECORDINGS:
A. L. Lloyd, "The Cruel Mother" (ESFB1, ESFB2)
Lizzie Higgins, "The Cruel Mother" (on Voice03)
Thomas Moran, "The Cruel Mother" (on FSB4)
Duncan Burke, Cecilia Costello, Thomas Moran [composite] "The Cruel Mother" (on FSBBAL1) {cf. Bronson's #19.1 in addenda}
Joshua Osborne, "The Babes in the Greenwood" (on PeacockCDROM) [one verse only]
Lucy Stewart, "Down by the Greenwood Sidie O" (on LStewart1)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Fine Flowers in the Valley
Three Little Babies
The Lady of York
Greenwood Siding
The Minister of New York's Daughter
Hey My Rose
NOTES: Although this has not been linked with any historical incident, there are a number of cases in history which are at least vaguely similar. One which struck me was the case of Will Darrell, reportedly from 1575 (as told in Underwood, pp. 123-124).
Darnell, having gotten one of his sundry mistresses pregnant, brought in a midwife (blindfolding her to conceal the place) to help the mother, then killed the child. The midwife left a deathbed testament, but Darnell was acquitted at trial. Later, when riding a horse, he saw the ghost of the dead baby; his horse bolted and he was killed.
You can believe as much of that as you like; I don't believe much. But it shows that stories like this were circulating.
The motif of a mother pretending to still be a virgin is also well known. Briggs, Volume A1, pp. 452-454, has a story called "The Princess with the White Petticoat" in which just about every girl in a court proves to be a secret mother.
Some versions, including Child's Q and Creighton's from Nova Scotia, have a secondary folklore motif: The unremovable stain (in this case, of blood on the knife). This is most famous for Shakespeare's application to Lady MacBeth (Macbeth V.i, a part of the play which is more Shakespeare than Holinshed), but it is common in folklore: Compare Asbjornson and Moe's "East of the Sun and West of the Moon," I seem to recall also a story of three drops of blood arranging for their own revenge, though I can't recall the source. We also see it in Child's D text of "Babylon, or, The Bonnie Banks o Fordie" [Child 14].
Dixon's version (Child's F, taken from Buchan) ends with the mother's suicide, something rare in other versions. The form appears to have been influenced by "The Twa Sisters." I wonder a little if there has not been some rewriting involved. - RBW
Also collected and sung by David Hammond, "All Round the Loney-O" (on David Hammond, "I Am the Wee Falorie Man: Folk Songs of Ireland," Tradition TCD1052 CD (1997) reissue of Tradition LP TLP 1028 (1959)) The Hammond versions have the common form for this ballad of rhyming couplet interspersed with "All round the Loney-O" and "Down by the greenwood side-O." According to Sean O Boyle's notes to the album the version "has been localized by Belfast singers, who identify the Loney with a street called The Pound Loney. The Castle Pound in old Belfast stood here by a boundary river among the trees of the Falls (Hedge) Road; thus giving all features of the song a local habitation." The version survives stripped of all supernatural references as both the (suicidal?) mother and murdered baby "sleep" in the river.
GreigDuncan8 is so fragmentary and broken(?) that it can go a number of places. There are two distinct parts of the text: "Down by the greenwood and by the green, Down by the greenwood sae bonnie O" [almost from Child 20 and "Lady Anne" as a chorus] and "Four-and-twenty bairnies playing at the ba'" [Child 155A and C, and "Still Growing" GreigDuncan6 1222D]. The notes to GreigDuncan8 refer to Child 20 and "Still Growing." Since I have to pick one, I'll take Child 20 because of its sometime "Down by the green wood sae bonnie" and "She spied twa [not twenty-four] boys playing at the ba" [Child 20D]. Since the GreigDuncan8 fragment has lost the story of the boys it doesn't matter that the twenty-four players don't make sense in the context of Child 20. - BS
Bibliography
Briggs: Katherine Briggs, A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales in the English Language, Part A: Folk Narratives, 1970 (I use the 1971 Routledge paperback that combines volumes A.1 and A.2)
Underwood; Peter Underwood: Gazetteer of British, Scottish & Irish Ghosts, originally published as two volumes, A gazetteer of British Ghosts (1971?) and A gazeteer of Scottish and Irish Ghosts (1973?); although the two volumes still have separate title pages, the 1985 Bell edition I use has continuous pagination and a single index.
Keefer's Folk Index- The Cruel Mother [Ch 20/Sh 10]
Rt - Lady from Leigh; All Around the Loney-O; Down By the Greenwood Side/Side-y-o/Shady; There Was a Lady, Mrs. Green; Fine Flowers in the Valley
Friedman, Albert B. (ed.) / Viking Book of Folk Ballads of the English-S, Viking, sof (1963/1957), p181 [1827ca]
Wells, Evelyn Kendrick (ed.) / The Ballad Tree, Ronald, Bk (1950), p150
Leach, MacEdward / The Ballad Book, Harper & Row, Bk (1955), p104A [1800ca]
Leach, MacEdward / The Ballad Book, Harper & Row, Bk (1955), p104B
Leach, MacEdward / The Ballad Book, Harper & Row, Bk (1955), p105 [1939]
Leach, MacEdward / The Heritage Book of Ballads, Heritage, Bk (1967), p 44
Armstrong, Frankie. Lovely on the Water, Topic 12TS 216, LP (1972), trk# A.04
Boone, Julie. Sharp & Karpeles / English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, I, Oxford, Bk (1932/1917), p 62/# 10L [1918/09/25]
Bowring, Mrs.. Williams, R. Vaughan; & A. L. Lloyd (eds.) / Penguin Book of English Fol, Penguin, Sof (1959), p 28 [1907]
Chisholm, James H.. Sharp & Karpeles / English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, I, Oxford, Bk (1932/1917), p 61/# 10I [1918/05/21]
Chisholm, N. B.. Sharp & Karpeles / English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, I, Oxford, Bk (1932/1917), p 57/# 10D [1916/09/21]
Clayton, Paul. Bloody Ballads, Riverside RLP 12-615, LP (1956), trk# B.05
Cole, Peter. Korson, George (ed.) / Pennsylvania Songs and Legends, Univ. of Penna., Bk (1949), p 38 [1929] (There Was a Lady Lived in York)
Collins, Judy. Judy Collins Concert, Elektra EKS-7 280, LP (1964), trk# B.04
Collins, Judy. Okun, Milt (ed.) / Something to Sing About, MacMillan, Bk (1968), p175
Collins, Shirley. False True Lovers, Folkways FG 3564, LP (1959), trk# B.07
Cunningham, George W.. Cox, John Harrington (ed.) / Folk-Songs of the South, Dover, Sof (1967/1925), p 30,522/# 5C [1915/07] (Greenwood Siding)
Dobson, Bonnie. Dear Companion, Prestige Folklore FL 14007, LP (1961), trk# B.06
Gibson, Mary. Sharp & Karpeles / English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, I, Oxford, Bk (1932/1917), p 60/# 10H [1918/09/03]
Griffin, Mrs. G. A.. Morris, Alton C. / Folksongs of Florida, Univ. Florida, Bk (1950), p250/#150A [1937]
Hammond, David. Singers House, Greenhays GR 702, LP (1980), trk# 4
Henneberry, Ben. Creighton, Helen / Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia, Dover, sof (1996/1933), p 3/# 2 [1927-32]
Hensley, Rosie. Sharp & Karpeles / English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, I, Oxford, Bk (1932/1917), p 56/# 10A [1916/08/10]
Heywood, Heather. Some Kind of Love, Greentrax 010, CD (1994/1987), trk# 8
Huff, Ollie. Sharp & Karpeles / English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, I, Oxford, Bk (1932/1917), p 61/# 10K [1917/05/31]
Kilburn, Maud. Sharp & Karpeles / English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, I, Oxford, Bk (1932/1917), p 58/# 10F [1917/05/31]
Langstaff, John. Water Is Wide. American and British Ballads and Folksongs, Revels 2202, CD (2002), trk# 4 [1959]
MacColl, Ewan. MacColl, Ewan / Folk Songs and Ballads of Scotland, Oak, Sof (1965), p26
McCullough, Eliza Ann. Moore, Ethel & Chauncey (ed.) / Ballads and Folk Songs of the Southwest, Univ. of Okla, Bk (1964), p 32/# 11A [1940s] (Two Little Babes)
McDowell, Nancy. Alive and Well and Fiddling, Living Folk LFR 104, LP (197?), trk# 14
McMorland, Alison. Belt wi' Colours Three. Scots Songs and Ballads, Tangent TGS 125, LP (1977), trk# B.03
Moore, Mrs.. Sharp & Karpeles / English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, I, Oxford, Bk (1932/1917), p 56/# 10B [1909/05/01]
Moran, Thomas. Folk Songs of Britain, Vol 4. The Child Ballads, I, Caedmon TC 1145, LP (1961), trk# A.08 [1950s]
Newcomb, Daisy. Moore, Ethel & Chauncey (ed.) / Ballads and Folk Songs of the Southwest, Univ. of Okla, Bk (1964), p 33/# 11B [1940s]
Phelps, Doris. Morris, Alton C. / Folksongs of Florida, Univ. Florida, Bk (1950), p252/#150B [1934-39] (Down By the Greenwood Society)
Pratt, Mrs. Doc.. Sharp & Karpeles / English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, I, Oxford, Bk (1932/1917), p 59/# 10G [1917/09/22]
Roberts, Mrs. Willie. Sharp & Karpeles / English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, I, Oxford, Bk (1932/1917), p 61/# 10J [1918/05/22]
Schneyer, Helen Bonchek. Somber, Sacred and Silly, Straight Arrow SAR 9104, Cas (1992), trk# B.07
Seeger, Peggy. Sing Out Reprints, Sing Out, Sof, 10, p51 (1968)
Shelton, Riley. Sharp & Karpeles / English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, I, Oxford, Bk (1932/1917), p 58/# 10E [1916/08/29]
Shute, Bill; and Lisa Null. American Primitive, Green Linnet SIF 1025, LP (1980), trk# 9
Smith, Hannah (Granny Hannah). Niles, John Jacob / Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles, Bramhall House, Bk (1961), p 83/N 14A [1936/07] (Three Little Babies)
Snipes, Emily (T.). Sharp & Karpeles / English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, I, Oxford, Bk (1932/1917), p 62/# 10M [1918/09/05]
Steeleye Span. Tempted and Tried, Shanachie 64020, Cas (1989), trk# B.04
Stockton, T. Jeff. Sharp, Cecil & Maude Karpeles (eds.) / Eighty English Folk Songs from th, MIT Press, Sof (1968), p 29 [1917ca]
Stockton, T. Jeff. Sharp & Karpeles / English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, I, Oxford, Bk (1932/1917), p 57/# 10C [1916/09/04]
Tabor, June. Echo of Hooves, Topic TSCD 543, CD (2003), trk# 10
West, Hedy. Ballads, Topic 12T 163, LP (1967), trk# B.03
--------------
The Lady from Leigh
Rt - Cruel Mother
Critics Group. Female Frolic, Argo ZDA 082, LP (1968), trk# B.02e
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All Around the Loney-O [Ch 20]
Rt - Loney-O ; Cruel Mother
Clancy, Peg and Bobby. Traditional Songs of Ireland, Olympic 6172, LP (196?), trk# B.06
Hammond, David. I Am the Wee Falorie Man. Folk Songs of Ireland, Tradition TLP 1028, LP (1959), trk# A.02 (All Round the Loney-O)
Hammond, David. Belfast Street Songs, Request RLP 8059, LP (196?), trk# A.05 (All Round the Loney-O)
Hammond, David. Hammond, David (ed.) / Songs of Belfast, Mercier, poc (1986/1978), p54 (All Round the Loney-O)
--------------
Down By the Greenwood Side/Side-y-o/Shady [Ch 20]
Rt - Cruel Mother
Seeger, Ruth Crawford (eds.) / American Folk Songs for Children, Doubleday/Zephyr Books, Sof (1948), p 87
Berkeley, Roy. Roy Berkeley with Tim Woodbridge, Green Linnet SIF 1007, LP (1977), trk# B.04 (Greenwood Side/Sidey-O)
Devlin, Jennie Hess. Newman, Katharine D. / Never Without a Song, U. Illinois, Sof (1995), p121 [1937ca] (Lady of York)
Dusenberry, Emma L.. Scarborough, Dorothy(ed.) / A Song Catcher in the Southern Mountains, AMS, Bk (1966/1937), p171,403 [1930]
Dusenberry, Emma L.. Randolph, Vance / Ozark Folksongs. Volume I, British Ballads and Songs, Univ. of Missouri, Bk (1980/1946), p 73/# 8 [1930/06/01]
Fogg, Rachel. Cox, John Harrington (ed.) / Folk-Songs of the South, Dover, Sof (1967/1925), p 29/# 5A [1916/03/15]
Gibson, Bob. Offbeat Folksongs, Riverside RLP 12-802, LP (1956), trk# A.04 (Greenwood Side/Sidey-O)
Hunter, Max. Ozark Mountain Folksongs, Folk Legacy FSA 011, Cas (1963), trk# B.05
Ian and Sylvia. Four Strong Winds, Vanguard VSD 2149, LP (1963), trk# B.05 (Greenwood Side/Sidey-O)
Mac Kinnon, Raun. American Folk Songs, Parkway SP 7024, LP (1962), trk# B.07 (Greenwood Side/Sidey-O)
McKeown, Susan. Lowlands, Green Linnet GLCD 1205, CD (2000), trk# 10 (Bonny Greenwoodside)
Netherly, Didie (Aunt Didie). Niles, John Jacob / Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles, Bramhall House, Bk (1961), p 85/N 14B [1934/06] (Lady of York)
Paugh, Mrs. S. R.. Cox, John Harrington (ed.) / Folk-Songs of the South, Dover, Sof (1967/1925), p 29/# 5B [1916/01/10]
Ramsay, Mrs. Frances. Thompson, Harold W.(ed.) / Body, Boots & Britches, Dover, Bk (1962/1939), p447 [1930s]
Seeger, Peggy and Mike. American Folk Songs for Children, Rounder 8001/8002/8003, CD( (1977), trk# 1-25
Stewart, Lucy. Traditional Singer from Aberdeen. Vol. 1 - Child Ballads, Greentrax CTrax 031, Cas (Gre5), trk# B.01 (Doon by the Greenwood Sidie O)
Womenfolk. Never Underestimate the Power of the Womenfolk, RCA (Victor) LPM 2919, LP (1964), trk# B.02 (Two Fair Maids)
Yale, Marvin. Cazden, Norman (ed.) / Merry Ditties, Bonanza Books, Bk (1958), p104 [1940s]
Yale, Marvin. Cazden, Norman, et.al. / Folk Songs of the Catskills, SUNY Press, sof (1982), p254/# 68 [1940s]
-----------
There Was a Lady, Mrs. Green
Rt - Cruel Mother
Turner, Dora. English Folk Music Anthology, Folkways FE 38553, LP (1981), trk# 1.05 [1974-1980]
-------------
Fine Flowers in the Valley [Ch 20]
Rt - Cruel Mother
Johnson, James & Robert Burns (eds) / Scots Musical Museum, Amadeus, Bk (1991/1853), #320 [1792]
Corrie Folk Trio with Paddie Bell. Corrie Folk Trio with Paddie Bell, Elektra EKS-7 291, LP (1965), trk# 13
Dyer-Bennet, Richard. Richard Dyer-Bennet 1, Dyer-Bennet 1, LP (1955), trk# A.07
Fisher, Archie. Ballad Folk - from the BBC Scotland Television Series, BBC 22293, LP (1977), trk# A.07 [1970s]
Loomes, Jon. Fearful Symmetry, Fellside FECD 186, CD (2005), trk# 13
Redpath, Jean. Love Is Teasin', PHC 1111, LP (1984), trk# A.01
Shantalla. Shantalla, Wild Boar WBM 21004, CD (1998), trk# 2
Child Collection Index: No. 20
A. L. Lloyd The Cruel Mother English & Scottish Folk Ballads [1964] 1964; No
A. L. Lloyd The Cruel Mother English & Scottish Folk Ballads [1996] 1996 6:41 Yes
Addie Graham The Greenwood Sidey Been a Long Time Traveling 1978; No
Aisleng The Cruel Mother Spielmanns Tränen 2005; No
Aisleng The Cruel Mother Down at Dunbar 2007; No
Alasdair Roberts The Cruel Mother No Earthly Man 2005 6:48 Yes
Alex Robb The Cruel Mother The James Madison Carpenter Collection 1927-1955 No
Alex Troup The Cruel Mother The James Madison Carpenter Collection 1927-1955 No
Alexander Clark The Cruel Mother The James Madison Carpenter Collection 1927-1955 No
020 Alfred Deller The Cruel Mother The Cruel Mother & Other English Ballads and Folk Songs 1998 6:22 Yes
020 Alison McMorland The Cruel Mother Belt Wi' Colours Three - Scots Songs and Ballads 1977
No
020 All in the Merry Month of May The Cruel Mother At Home 2009
No
020 Amps for Christ The Bonnie Greenwoodside Amps for Christ & Jalopaz Collaboration 1999 3:48 Yes
020 Andrew Stewart & Sons Down By the Greenwood Silo The Edith Fowke Collection No
020 Appalachian Celtic Consort Cruel Mother + Farewell to Milltown + Butcher's March Drop O' the Pure 2002 No
020 Archie Fisher Fine Flowers in the Valley Ballad Folk 1977 2:35 Yes
020 Asonance Krutá Matka (The Cruel Mother) Duse Mé Lásky - Scottish and Irish Folk Songs and Ballads 1994 6:52 Yes
020 Asonance Krutá Matka (The Cruel Mother) Asonance 1 & 2 - Dva Havrani + Duse Mé Lásky 1995 6:52 Yes
020 Aunt Molly Jackson The Cruel Mother The Mary Elizabeth Barnicle-Tillman Cadle Collection No
020 Barbara Dickson Fine Flowers in the Valley From the Beggar's Mantle .. Fringed with Gold 1971 3:00 Yes
020 Barbara Dickson Fine Flowers in the Valley Do Right Woman + From the Beggar's Mantle 2006 Yes
020 Barbara Dickson Fine Flowers in the Valley Parcel of Rogues 1994 4:36 Yes
020 Barbara Dickson Fine Flowers in the Valley Scotland Sings 2004 No
020 Barbara Dickson Fine Flowers in the Valley In Concert [Barbara Dickson] 2009 No
020 Barbara Dickson Fine Flowers in the Valley The Best of Barbara Dickson 2009 No
020 Barbara Dickson Flowers in the Valley The Golden Bird 1969 No
020 Beggars' Circus Fine Floors in the Valley Moor for the Asking 2004 5:00 Yes
020 Bell Duncan The Cruel Mother The James Madison Carpenter Collection 1927-1955 No
020 Bella Hardy Cruel Mother In the Shadow of Mountains 2009 3:18 Yes
020 Ben Baxter The Cruel Mother BBC Recordings No
020 Ben Baxter The Cruel Mother As I Walked Out - Songs from Norfolk 1976 No
020 Ben Henneberry Cruel Mother (1) The Helen Creighton Collection No
020 Ben Henneberry Cruel Mother (2) The Helen Creighton Collection No
020 Bert Deivert The Cruel Mother When I Look at You 1983 No
020 Bill Shute & Lisa Null The Cruel Mother American Primitive 1980 No
020 Birgitte Grimstad Fine Flowers Ord Over Grind, 51 Beste 1966-1994 1994 No
020 Blind Summat The Cruel Mother Live at the Ingleton Folk Festival, 2009 2009 4:55 Yes
020 Bob Bassett The Cruel Mother First Tears at Forty 1988 No
020 Bob Gibson Greenwood Side Offbeat Folksongs 1956 2:11 Yes
020 Bobbie Clancy All Around and Aloney O BBC Recordings No
020 Bonnie Dobson The Cruel Mother Dear Companion 1960 4:35 Yes
020 Brian Peters All Alone and Lonely Songs of Trial and Triumph 2008 6:08 Yes
020 Bumerry Cruel Mother <website> 2009 3:31 Yes
020 Calluna Fine Floo'ers Dance Tunes, Airs & Songs from Scotland 2000 2:59 Yes
020 Capt. John Eyres Old Mother Lee The Gwilym Davies Collection No
020 Carl Peterson The Cruel Mother Drifting with Michener 2006 No
020 Cecilia Costello Down By the Greenwood Side-I-O Jacky-Boy Master 1975 No
020 Cecilia Costello The Cruel Mother Cecilia Costello 1975 No
020 Cecilia Costello The Cruel Mother The Song Carriers - Part 1 1965 2:27 Yes
020 Celtish Cruel Mother Up for It!! 2001 3:37 Yes
020 Chad Willis & The Beachstones Down By the Greenwood Siding Windjammer! Folk Songs of the Sea 1961 No
020 Charlotte Greig The Cruel Mother Down in the Valley 2000 No
020 Chris Foster The Cruel Mother Outsiders 2008 No
020 Christine Kydd Greenwoodside Dark Pearls 1999 4:51 Yes
020 Cindy Mangsen Cruel Mother Fast Folk Musical Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 10 1984 6:07 Yes
020 Cindy Mangsen The Cruel Mother Songs of Experience 1998 5:44 Yes
020 Cindy Mangsen The Cruel Mother Settle Down 1988 No
020 Colleen Cleveland Greenwood Sidie The Gwilym Davies Collection No
020 Dan Dutton The Cruel Mother Pull, Pick, Pluck 2004 5:04 Yes
020 Dave & Toni Arthur The Cruel Mother Hearken to the Witches' Rune 1970 6:22 Yes
020 Dave Burland Cruel Mother Songs & Buttered Haycocks 1975 5:05 Yes
020 Dave Burland The Cruel Mother Dave Burland 1972 4:55 Yes
020 David Hammond All Round the Loney-O I Am the Wee Falorie Man, Folk Songs of Ireland 1997 2:02 Yes
020 David Hammond The Cruel Mother The Singer's House 1980 No
020 David Newey & Christi Andropolis The Cruel Mother Live at the Maltings Festival, Farnham, Surrey, UK 2007 4:15 Yes
020 Dee Strickland Johnson Fine Flowers of the Valley The Unquiet Grave and Other British Ballads 1976
No
020 Dee Strickland Johnson The Greenwood Sidie O The Unquiet Grave and Other British Ballads 1976
No
020 Dora Turner There Was a Lady Mrs. Green An English Folk Music Anthology 1981 No
020 Duncan Burke + Cecelia Costello + Thomas Moran The Cruel Mother Classic Ballads of Britain & Ireland - Folk Songs of England, Ireland, Scotland & Wales, Vol 1 2000 5:20 Yes
020 Duncan Burke + Cecilia Costello + Thomas Moran The Cruel Mother The Elfin Knight - The Classic Ballads 1 1976 No
020 Ed McCurdy Down By the Greenwood Siding Ed McCurdy Sings Folksongs of the Sea 195? 3:15 Yes
020 Ed Rennie The Cruel Mother Narrative 2005 No
020 Edmund Henneberry Cruel Mother The Helen Creighton Collection No
020 Edward Deal Cruel Mother The Helen Creighton Collection No
020 Elfdaughter The Cruel Mother <website> 2005 2:05 Yes
020 Elizabeth Stewart The Cruel Mother For Friendship and for Harmony - Fife Traditional Singing Weekend 2005 2006 No
020 Elizabeth Stewart The Cruel Mother Binnorie: Songs, Ballads and Tunes 2005 No
020 Ellie D. Sibert The Cruel Mother (1) The Library of Congress No
020 Ellie D. Sibert The Cruel Mother (2) The Library of Congress No
020 Elspeth Cowie Cruel Mither Naked Voice 2000 2:06 Yes
020 Emily Smith The Cruel Mother A Day Like Today 2002 5:44 Yes
020 Emily Smith The Cruel Mother Bar Edinburgh - Classic & New Scottish Flavours 2008 No
020 Emily Weygang & Ben Harker Cruel Mother Emily Weygang and Ben Harker 2003 No
020 Ewan MacColl The Cruel Mother The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (The Child Ballads) - Vol. 8 [Reissue] 196? 6:33 Yes
020 Ewan MacColl The Cruel Mother The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (The Child Ballads) - Vol. 4 1956
No
020 Ewan MacColl The Cruel Mother [English] The Long Harvest, Vol. 1 - Some Traditional Ballads in Their English, Scots and North American Variants 1966 5:16 Yes
020 Ewan MacColl The Cruel Mother Ballads - Murder Intrigue Love Discord 2009 6:42 Yes
020 Ewan MacColl The Lady from Lee [English] The Long Harvest, Vol. 1 - Some Traditional Ballads in Their English, Scots and North American Variants 1966 1:24 Yes
020 Frankie Armstrong The Cruel Mother Lovely on the Water - Traditional Songs and Ballads 2000 4:30 Yes
020 Garibelon Fine Flowers in the Valley <website> 2007 2:43 Yes
020 Geoff Grainger The Cruel Mother Ditty Box 1998 2:49 Yes
020 Gordeanna McCulloch The Cruel Mother Songs from the Folk Music Revival in Scotland - Ailie Munro 1984 5:22 Yes
020 Gyron V The Cruel Mother Winter Solstice EP 2010 No
020 Hank Cruel Mother <website> 2009 4:01 Yes
020 Heather Heywood The Cruel Mother Some Kind of Love 1987 9:01 Yes
020 Hedy West The Cruel Mother Ballads 1967 2:03 Yes
020 Hedy West The Cruel Mother Ballads & Songs from the Appalachians 2011 No
020 Helen Bonchek Schneyer The Cruel Mother Somber, Sacred and Silly 1992 No
020 Helen Woodall & The Old Pull and Push Band The Cruel Mother Folk Songs from Hampshire and Dorset 2005 No
020 Huldy Roberts The Cruel Mother The Library of Congress No
020 Ian & Sylvia Greenwoord Sidie-O <website> 1965 2:27 Yes
020 Ian & Sylvia The Greenwood Sidie (The Cruel Mother) Four Strong Winds 1963 2:30 Yes
020 Ian & Sylvia The Greenwood Sidie (The Cruel Mother) The Complete Vanguard Studio Recordings 2001 2:30 Yes
020 Ian & Sylvia The Greenwood Side American Folk Singers and Balladeers - The Classics Record Library 1964 2:32 Yes
020 Ian & Sylvia The Greenwood Sidie (The Cruel Mother) Live at Newport 1994 2:29 Yes
020 Ian Campbell The Cruel Mither Singing Campbells - Traditions of an Aberdeen Family 1965 No
020 Ian Campbell The Cruel Mither Scottish Voices - Great Performances from the Scottish Singing Tradition 1996 2:41 Yes
020 Ian Campbell Cruel Mither Celtic Reflections 1998 No
020 Irene Watt Cruel Mither Tide of Change 2008 No
020 Isabel Sutherland Down By the Greenwood Side-I-O (The Cruel Mother) The Licht Bob's Lassie 1975 No
020 Jacqui McShee's Pentangle The Bonny Greenwood Side At the Little Theatre 2000 3:40 Yes
020 Janette Geri Fine Flowers in the Valley Secret of the West Wind 2009 No
020 Janice Clark The Cruel Mother Reg Hall Archive 1953-1977 5:40 Yes
020 Jean Redpath Cruel Mother Maiden Voyage 2002 No
020 Jean Redpath Fine Flowers in the Valley Love Is Teasin' 1984 2:46 Yes
020 Jeanie Fitchen The Cruel Mother The Florida Folklife Collection 1954-2004 5:24 Yes
020 Jeanie Fitchen The Cruel Mother More Music from the Florida Folklife Collection 2006 5:24 Yes
020 Jim Eldon The Lady of York I Wish There Was No Prisons 1984 No
020 Jim Eldon The Lady of York The Yorkshire Garland Group - Yorkshire Folk Songs 1972-1983 2:31 Yes
020 Joan Baez The Greenwood Side Joan 1967 7:44 Yes
020 Jock Duncan The Cruel Mother Ye Shine Whar Ye Stan! 1996 No
020 John Langstaff The Cruel Mother John Langstaff Sings - Archival Folk Collection 1949-1961 2004 4:20 No
020 John Langstaff The Cruel Mother The Water Is Wide: American and British Ballads and Folksongs 2002 4:20 Yes
020 John Renbourn Group The Cruel Mother Live in America 1982 2:54 Yes
020 John Ross The Cruel Mother (1) The James Madison Carpenter Collection 1927-1955 No
020 John Ross The Cruel Mother (2) The James Madison Carpenter Collection 1927-1955 No
020 Jon Boden Cruel Mother A Folk Song a Day - July 2010 5:54 Yes
020 Jon Loomes Fine Flowers in the Valley Fearful Symmetry 2005 2:52 Yes
020 Joyce Sullivan The Cruel Mother Canadian Folk Songs - Chansons Folkloriques du Canada [Canadian Folk Songs: a Centennial Collection] 1967 No
020 Joyce Sullivan & Charles Jordan The Cruel Mother Folk Songs of Canada 1955 2:43 Yes
020 Judy Collins Cruel Mother The Judy Collins Concert 1964 5:55 Yes
020 June Tabor The Cruel Mother An Echo of Hooves 2003 6:09 Yes
020 Kaleidoscope Greenwood Sidee A Beacon from Mars 1968 4:13 Yes
020 Kaleidoscope Greenwood Side Infinite Colours Infinite Patterns - The Best of Kaleidoscope 2001 No
020 Kaleidoscope Greenwood Side Blues from Bagdad - The Very Best of Kaleidoscope 1993 4:13 Yes
020 Kaleidoscope Greenwood Sidee Pulsating Dream - The Epic Recordings 2004 4:17 Yes
020 Karen & Helene Barnemordersken Solen 2004 5:45 Yes
020 Kate Burke & Ruth Hazelton The Cruel Mother The Bee-Loud Glade 1999 2:21 Yes
020 Kate MacLeod and the Pancakes The Greenwood Side Breakfast 2005 5:47 Yes
020 Katherine Campbell Rose O Malindie The Songs of Amelia and Jane Harris - Scots Songs and Ballads from Perthshire Tradition 2004 4:23 Yes
020 Keltic Fusion Greenwood Side Gaudete 2002 No
020 Kerfuffle Down By the Greenwood Side To the Ground 2008 5:06 Yes
020 Kitty Connors Old Woman in the Wood Jim Carroll & Pat Mackenzie Collection No
020 Lily Delorme Greenwood Sidey The Helen Hartness Flanders Collection No
020 Linda Adams The Sun Shines Fair (Cruel Mother) Ballads 1997 3:46 Yes
020 Linda Rice-Johnston Cruel Mother A Bird in the Wood 2005 5:50 Yes
020 Lizzie Higgins Cruel Mother Up and Awa' with the Laverock 1975 No
020 Lizzie Higgins The Cruel Mither In Memory of Lizzie Higgins - 1929-1993 2006 No
020 Lizzie Higgins The Cruel Mother The Voice of the People, Vol. 3: O'Er His Grave the Grass Grew Green - Tragic Ballads 1998 2:28 Yes
020 Lizzie Higgins The Cruel Mother Reg Hall Archive 1953-1977 3:33 Yes
020 Lothlórien The Cruel Mother Greenwood Side 2001 3:59 Yes
020 Louise Jordan The Cruel Mother Born to Wander 2010 No
020 Lucy Stewart Doon By the Greenwood Sidie O (The Cruel Mother) Lucy Stewart: Traditional Singer from Aberdeenshire, Scotland, Vol. 1 - Child Ballads 1961 5:11 Yes
020 Lux Interna Fine Flowers in the Valley Truth and Beauty and All Their Severity 2001 No
020 Lynn & Martin Craig Greenwood Side Greenwood Side - Traditional Songs from the British Isles 2007 5:35 Yes
020 M.J. Harris & Martyn Bates The Cruel Mother Murder Ballads (The Complete Collection) 1998 11:24 Yes
020 M.J. Harris & Martyn Bates The Cruel Mother Your Jewled Footsteps 2006 No
020 MacAlias Fine Floors in the Valley/Bonnie at Morn Highwired 2000 4:12 Yes
020 Maddy Prior Cruel Mother Flesh and Blood 1997 3:44 Yes
020 Marcoacca The Greenwood Side <website> 2008- 4:09 Yes
020 Margaret Nelson Cruel Mother Shine Where You Stand 1993 No
020 Martin Carthy Cruel Mother Landfall 1971 6:10 Yes
020 Maureen Jelks The Cruel Mother Eence Upon a Time - Scots Songs & Ballads 2000 6:11 Yes
020 Max Hunter Down By the Greenwood Side Max Hunter of Springfield, Missouri - Ozark Songs and Ballads 1963 No
020 Maz O' Connor The Cruel Mother BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2009 2009 No
020 Mick West Fine Flowers in the Valley Fine Flowers and Foolish Glances 1995 4:26 Yes
020 Mike & Peggy Seeger Down By the Greenwood Sidey-O American Folk Songs for Children 1997 1:39 Yes
020 Mirk The Cruel Mother Moddan's Bower 1979 3:32 Yes
020 Moira Craig The Cruel Mother On Ae Bonny Day 2001 6:02 Yes
020 Morgan McKay The Cruel Mother Winters Turn 2007 3:10 Yes
020 Mrs. Cecilia Costello The Cruel Mother (1) BBC Recordings No
020 Mrs. Cecilia Costello The Cruel Mother (2) BBC Recordings No
020 Mrs. Nina Bartley Finn Cruel Mother The Helen Creighton Collection No
020 Mrs. Pearl Brewer Down By the Greenwood Side (1) The Max Hunter Folk Song Collection 2:13 Yes
020 Mrs. Pearl Brewer Down By the Greenwood Side (2) The Max Hunter Folk Song Collection 2:41 Yes
020 Mrs. R.W. Duncan Cruel Mother (1) The Helen Creighton Collection No
020 Mrs. R.W. Duncan Cruel Mother (2) The Helen Creighton Collection No
020 Mrs. W.H. Smith Cruel Mother (1) The Helen Hartness Flanders Collection No
020 Mrs. W.H. Smith Cruel Mother (2) The Helen Hartness Flanders Collection No
020 Mrs William Duncan The Cruel Mother The James Madison Carpenter Collection 1927-1955 No
020 Nana Mouskouri Down By the Greenwood Side Roses & Sunshine 1979 6:29 Yes
020 Nana Mouskouri Down By the Greenwood Side Complete English Works 2005 No
020 Naomi Bedford The Cruel Mother Live at Shepherd's Bush Empire, London, 2008 2008 5:20 Yes
020 Nathan Hall Cruel Mother The Helen Creighton Collection No
020 Nonesuch Bonnie Greenwood Side Rye Dill Caraway 2008 No
020 Norman Kennedy The Cruel Mother Mariposa Folk Festival 1976 at Toronto Islands 1976 No
020 Norman Kennedy The Cruel Mother 'Live' in Scotland 2002 No
020 Old Blind Dogs The Rose and the Lindsey O' Legacy 1997 4:28 Yes
020 Pale Roses The Cruel Mother Unveiled 2011 No
020 Paul & Linda Adams The Sun Shines Fair on Carlisle Wall Far Over the Fell - Songs and Ballads of Cumbria 1975 3:35 Yes
020 Paul & Liz Davenport Under the Leaves Under the Leaves 2006 No
020 Paul Clayton Cruel Mother Bloody Ballads - Classic British and American Murder Ballads 1956 4:19 Yes
020 Paul Hillier & Andrew Lawrence-King Fine Flowers in the Valley Bitter Ballads - Ancient and Modern Poetry Sung to Medieval and Traditional Melodies 1998 No
020 Paul Winter Greenwood Side Jazz Meets the Bossa Nova + Jazz Meets the Folk Song 2001 No
020 Peg & Bobby Clancy All Around the Loney-O Traditional Songs of Ireland 196? No
020 Peggy Seeger Down By the Greenwood Sidey-O [American] The Long Harvest, Vol. 1 - Some Traditional Ballads in Their English, Scots and North American Variants 1966 1:31 Yes
020 Peggy Seeger The Cruel Mother The Best of Peggy Seeger 1962 2:49 Yes
020 Peggy Seeger The Cruel Mother (1) [American] The Long Harvest, Vol. 1 - Some Traditional Ballads in Their English, Scots and North American Variants 1966 2:19 Yes
020 Peggy Seeger The Cruel Mother (2) [American] The Long Harvest, Vol. 1 - Some Traditional Ballads in Their English, Scots and North American Variants 1966 1:02 Yes
020 Pete & Chris Coe The Cruel Mother Game of All Fours 1979 4:08 Yes
020 Pete Castle Cruel Mother + A Lupului False Waters 1995 7:49 Yes
020 Pete Coe Cruel Mother Backbone 2010 No
020 Peter Christie The Cruel Mother The James Madison Carpenter Collection 1927-1955 No
020 Phil Cooper Cruel Mother Written in Our Eyes - Ballads & Sketches, Vol. I 2005 4:20 Yes
020 Phil Cooper, Margaret Nelson & Kate Early Cruel Mother Return No More 2002 2:58 Yes
020 Pinkie Maclure & John Wills Fine Flowers in the Valley Cat's Cradle 2005 No
020 Polly Bolton, Steve Dunachie & John Shepherd The Cruel Mother Songs from a Cold Open Field 2001 2:19 Yes
020 Rallion Fine Flowers For No One and Everyone 2006 No
020 Raun MacKinnon Greenwood Side American Folk Songs 1962 2:25 Yes
020 Raymond Crooke The Cruel Mother <website> 2007- 7:11 Yes
020 Real Time Fine Flowers in the Valley Hell & High Water 2004 No
020 Rebecca Pidgeon The Cruel Mither Four Marys 1998 5:23 Yes
020 Richard Dyer-Bennet Fine Flowers in the Valley Richard Dyer-Bennet Vol. 1 1997 3:13 Yes
020 Richard Thompson Bonnie St. Johnstone 1000 Years of Popular Music [DVD] 2006 5:13 Yes
020 Rita & Mary Rankin Greenwood Side Lantern Burn 2003 No
020 Robin Hall The Cruel Mother Last Leaves of Traditional Ballads 1960 No
020 Roger Helfrick Down By the Greenwood Side The Call 1994 No
020 Roots Quartet Fine Flowers Prehistory 2002 5:00 Yes
020 Roy Berkeley & Tim Woodbridge Greenwood Sidey Roy Berkeley & Tim Woodbridge 1977 3:10 Yes
020 Rubus Greenwood Sidey Nine Witch Knots 2008 5:03 Yes
020 Ruth Price & Sadie Greenwood Greenwood Sideo (Cruel Mother) Between Debt and Fortune 2003 2:44 Yes
020 Saffron Summerfield The Cruel Mother Whose Land Is It Anyway? 1994 No
020 Sandra Kerr, Nancy Kerr & James Fagan The Cruel Mother Scalene 1999 1:41 Yes
020 Seannachie Fine Flowers in the Valley Take Note! 1988 3:21 Yes
020 Shanna Beth McGee & David Johnson Cruel Mother Love Is Teasing - Scottish and English Early Ballads 1980 4:47 Yes
020 Shantalla Fine Flowers in the Valley Shantalla 1998 4:21 Yes
020 Shep Ginandes The Cruel Mother A Folk Music Sampler - Outstanding Folk & Ethnic Recordings 1954 No
020 Shep Ginandes The Cruel Mother British Traditional Ballads in America Vol 1 1953 No
020 Sherry Minnick The Cruel Mother Look Ma, No Hands 2006 No
020 Shirley Collins The Cruel Mother False True Lovers 2001 7:04 Yes
020 Shirley Collins The Cruel Mother Fountain of Snow 1992 5:54 Yes
020 Shirley Collins The Cruel Mother The Sweet Primeroses 1995 5:54 Yes
020 Simply English The Cruel Mother Jolly Rogues Together 1999 7:02 Yes
020 Stanley Robertson She's Leaned Her Back Rum Scum Scoosh! - Songs and Stories of an Aberdeen Childhood 2005
No
020 Steeleye Span The Cruel Mother Tempted and Tried 1989 5:36 Yes
020 Steeleye Span The Cruel Mother Another Parcel of Steeleye Span - Their Second Five Chrysalis Albums 1976-1989 2010
No
020 Steve Turner Down By the Greenwood Side Jigging One Now 1982 4:26 Yes
020 Stuart Estell The Cruel Mother (Cecilia Costello version) <website> 2007 4:47 Yes
020 Stuart Estell The Cruel Mother (Elizabeth Wharton version) <website> 2007 3:46 Yes
020 Sue Brown & Lorraine Irwing Fine Flowers in the Valley Call & Cry 1997 2:23 Yes
020 Susan McKeown Bonny Greenwoodside Lowlands 2000 2:42 Yes
020 Sylvia Herold & Euphonia The Cruel Mother Lovely Nancy 2005 No
020 Tammerlin [Tory Voodoo] Cruel Mother Roll Down Thy Window 1996 3:59 Yes
020 Tammerlin [Tory Voodoo] Cruel Mother Live at M's - Almost 1997 No
020 The Chipperfields Cruel Mother Live at at Herford Unplugged 2008 2008 4:10 Yes
020 The Corrie Folk Trio & Paddie Bell Fine Flowers More Folk Songs for the Burds 1963 2:25 Yes
020 The Corrie Folk Trio & Paddie Bell Fine Flowers in the Valley The Corrie Folk Trio with Paddie Bell 1965 No
020 The Critics Group The Lady from Leigh The Female Frolic 1968 3:36 Yes
020 The Owl Service Cruel Mother Field Music - Collected Live Recordings 2008 4:03 Yes
020 The Owl Service Cruel Mother The View from a Hill 2010 5:42 Yes
020 The Tannahill Weavers Greenwood Side + Highland Laddie + Pattie The Mermaid's Song 1992 3:17 Yes
020 The Tannahill Weavers Greenwood Side + Highland Laddie + Pattie Live at the Nubilaria Celtic Festival 2008 2008 3:16 Yes
020 Thomas Moran All Alone and A-Lonely O BBC Recordings No
020 Thomas Moran The Cruel Mother The Folk Songs of Britain, Vol 4: The Child Ballads 1 1961 1:45 Yes
020 Tim Eriksen Two Babes Soul of the January Hills 2010 No
020 Tom Draughon The Greenwoodside Second Wind 1987 No
020 Tom Gilfellon The Cruel Mother Loving Mad Tom and Other Unlikely Stories 1972 6:43 Yes
020 Triakel Barnamörderskan (The Cruel Mother) Sånger Från 63 N (Songs from 63° N) 2004 3:12 Yes
020 Trio Nocturna Cruel Mother Songs of the Celtic Night 1996 3:59 Yes
020 Twelve Thousand Days The Cruel Mother From the Walled Garden 2006 No
020 Two Female Singers The Cruel Mother The James Madison Carpenter Collection 1927-1955 No
020 Unknown Female Singer The Cruel Mother The James Madison Carpenter Collection 1927-1955 No
020 Vickie Whelan There Was a Lady Dressed in Green Up in the North and Down in the South - Songs and Music from the Mike Yates Collection 1964-2000 2001 No
020 William Duncan The Cruel Mother The James Madison Carpenter Collection 1927-1955 No
020 Wendy Arrowsmith Cruel Mother Seed of Fools 2009 No
020 Wendy Weatherby Cruel Mother + Around Dawn Two Loves 2003 3:24 Yes
020 Willy & Brian Claflin The Rose and the Lindsy-O In Yonder's Wood 2009 No
Excerpt from The British Traditional Ballad in North America by Tristram Coffin- 1950
20. THE CRUEL MOTHER
Texts: Barry, Brit Bids Me, So / Boletin Latino Americano de Musica, V, 279 / BFSSNE, VIII, 7 / Creighton, Sgs Bids N Sc, 3 / Cox, F-S South, 29 / Cox, W Va School Journal and Educator, XLVI, 64 / Davis, ?rd Bid Va, 133 / Eddy, Bids Sgs Ohio, 24 / Greenleaf and Mansfield, Bids Sea Sgs Newfdld, 15 / Henry, F-S So Hghlds, 47 / Jones, F-L Mich, 5 / JAFL, XXV 183 ; XXXII, 503 / JFSS, II, 109 / Kennedy, Cultural Effects, 320 / MacKenzie, Bids Sea Sgs NSc, 12 / MacKenzie, Quest Bid, 104 / McGill, .F-S Ky Mts, 83 / Morris, F-S Fla, 384 / NTFLO, IV, #i, 36/Niles, Bids Crls Tgc Lgds, 18 / Randolph, Oz F-S, I, 73 / Randolph, The
Ozarks, 185 / Scarborough, Sgctchr So Mts, 169 / SharpC, Eng F-S SoAplchns, / SharpK, EngF-S So Aplchns, I, 57 / Shearin and Combs, Ky Syllabus, 7 / SFLQ, VIII, 139 / Smith and Rufty, Am Anth Old Wrld Bids, 6 / Thompson, Bdy Bts Brtchs, 447 / Va FLS Bull, #s 3 5. Korson, Pa Sgs Lgds, 38.
Local Titles: Down by the Greenwood Side (Shady), Fair Flowers of Helio, Greenwood Side, Greenwood Society, The Cruel Mother, The Greenwood Siding, The Green Woods of Siboney-O, The Lady of York, The Three Little Babes, There Was a Lady Lived in York.
Story Types: A: "Leaning her back against a thorn", a woman bears her father's clerk two (or more) illegitimate children. These babies she murders with a pen-knife, buries, and deserts. Later, she sees some children playing ball. She tells them that if they were hers she would treat them in fine style. However, they inform her that they are the children she bore and murdered and usually tell her she is fated to dwell in Hell.
Examples: Barry (A); Cox, F-S South (A); Davis (A).
B : Sometimes an additional group of stanzas is found on a Type A version in which the mother is told the penance she must do for her crime. She must spend twenty-one years ringing a bell and existing in various bestial forms. In some texts the mother expresses a preference for such a fate over that of going to Hell.
Examples: Creighton; MacKenzie, Bids Sea Sgs N Sc; Thompson.
Discussion: The full story of this song frequently appears in American texts, although there are many that omit the antecedent action which reveals who the girl's lover is and the details of the birth and crime. Those that are wholly dialogue are clear enough if the original story is known. Type A stories are similar to the Child A H texts, while Type B versions follow Child I-L.
There is a great deal of folk superstition included in the various American texts of the ballad. The binding of the children's feet to keep the ghosts from walking is discussed in L. C. Wimberly's Folk-Lore in the English and Scottish Ballads, 254. (See Child H; Cox, F-S South, B; SharpK, F; and SFLQ, XIII, 139 for examples). Many versions contain a c *MacBethian" attempt to wash the blood from the knife after the crime, and there is an attempt to throw the knife away which results in its coming nearer and
nearer in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. (See Creighton and MacKenzie, Bids Sea Sgs N Sc.) The idea that the mother can gain redemption by being a fish, a beast, and a belltoller, etc. for seven years has come into this song from The Maid and the f aimer (Child 21). See Child, I, 218 and my Type B.
Zielonko, Some American Variants of Child Ballads, goff. discusses the minor variations and distribution (check particularly in this connection the "garter" discussion by Barry in Brit Bids Me, 91 ff .) in American versions, while Davis, Trd Bid Fa, and Cox, F-S South, carefully relate their texts to those in Child. SharpK, Eng F-S So Aplchns, B seems to take its initial stanza from The Wife of Usher's Well (79) and, with his L and BFSSNE, VIII, 7 contains the names Peter and Paul. The Thompson, Bdy Bts Brtchs text implies that poverty is one of the reasons for the killing of the children.
Zielonko, op. cit., 63, in her discussion of 20, notes that the American methods of telling the story are three in number, as is the case with the Child texts: direct narrative (Child A C, F I and Barry A, C, F); indirect narrative (Child K L and Davis A B); and a combination of the two methods (Child D, E, J, N and Barry B). See also Barry's discussion in BFSSNE, VIII, 7 concerning the number of children and the saints, traits which may reveal influence from Dives and Lazarus (56).
The Cruel Mother: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The Cruel Mother" (a.k.a. "The Greenwood Side") (Child 20, Roud 9) is a murder ballad.[1]
Synopsis
A woman gives birth to one or two illegitimate children (usually sons) in the woods, kills them, and buries them. On her return trip home, she sees a child, or children, playing, and says that if they were hers, she would dress them in various fine garments and otherwise take care of them. The children tell her that when they were hers, she did not dress them so but murdered them. Frequently they say she will be damned for it.
Some variants open with the account that she has fallen in love with her father's clerk.
Variants
This ballad exists in a number of variants; one contains a number of verses that appear to stem from "The Maid and the Palmer".[2] A closely related German ballad exists in many variants: a child comes to a woman's wedding to announce himself her child and that she had murdered three children, the woman says the Devil can carry her off if it is true, and the Devil appears to do so.[3] Variants include "Carlisle Hall", "The Rose o Malinde", "Fine Flowers in the Valley", "The Minister's Daughter of New York", and "The Lady From Lee", among others. "Fine Flowers of the Valley" is a Scottish variant.
Ballad scholar Hyder Rollins listed a broadside print dated 1638, and a fairly complete version was published in London in broadside ballad format as "The Duke's Daughter's Cruelty: Or the Wonderful Apparition of two Infants whom she Murther'd and Buried in a Forrest, for to hide her Shame" sometime between 1684-1695.[4]
This ballad was one of 25 traditional works included in Ballads Weird and Wonderful (1912) and illustrated by Vernon Hill (sculptor).
Recordings
The Cruel Mother on the album- False True Lovers; Shirley Collins 1959
The Cruel Mother; The Judy Collins Concert; Judy Collins 1964
The Cruel Mother The Long Harvest, Vol. 1; Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger; 1967; Album contains three versions of The Cruel Mother, one variant called "Down By the Greenwood Sidey-O", and another called "The Lady From Lee".
The Greenwood Side Joan; Joan Baez 1967
The Greenwood Side; A Beacon from Mars; Kaleidoscope 1968
The Cruel Mother; Landfall; Martin Carthy; 1972
The Cruel Mother; Flesh and Blood; Maddy Prior 1997
The Greenwood Side; Live at Newport; Ian & Sylvia 1996 Recorded live at the Newport Folk Festival, 1963.
The Cruel Mother Songs Of Experience Cindy Mangsen 1998
The Cruel Mother; No Earthly Man; Alasdair Roberts 2005
The Cruel Mother; Wolverley Summer of Love 2007 Stuart Estell
Down By The Greenwood Side; To The Ground; Kerfuffle 2006
Cruel Mother; In The Shadow of Mountians Bella Hardy 2009; Miss Hardy omits 'The' from the title but it is nonetheless a variant of the folk song.
Lady Diamond; Bryony Griffith & Will Hampson 2011
The Lady of York; From the singing of Jim Eldon.
References
1.^ Francis James Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads, "The Cruel Mother"
2.^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 1, p 218, Dover Publications, New York 1965
3.^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 1, p 219, Dover Publications, New York 1965
4.^ Cazden, Norman, Herbert Haufrechtt, and Norman Studer. Folksongs of the Catskills. Albany: SUNY Press, 1982. 251-252.
External links
The Cruel Mother
The Cruel Mother with historical commentary
Fine Flowers in the Valley variant
An MP3 recording of The Cruel Mother by Kentucky ballad singer Daniel Dutton
Mainly Norfolk: English Folk and Other Good Music
The Cruel Mother / Greenwood Sidey / The Lady of York
[Roud 9 ; Child 20; Ballad Index C020 ; trad.]
This ballad can both be found as #20 in F.J. Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads and in Vaughan William's and A.L. Lloyd's Penguin Book of English Folk Songs. It was sung by A.L. Lloyd accompanied by Alf Edwards playing concertina on his and Ewan MacColl's album English and Scottish Folk Ballads (1964). He commented in quite a long essay:
The ballad seems to be old, for it is full of primitive folklore notions such as the knife from which blood can never be washed (the instance of Lady Macbeth comes to mind). Also primitive is the idea that the dead who have not undergone the ceremony that initiates them fully into the world of the living (in this case, christening) can never be properly received and incorporated into the world of the dead, but must return to plague the living. Some scholars think The Cruel Mother may have been brought to England by invading Norsemen, since practically the same story occurs in Danish balladry (...). Verse by verse, the Danish sets of the ballad so closely resemble the English that it seems unlikely that the importation took place so long ago. More probably, it is a case of an ancient folk tale being turned into a lyrical ballad, perhaps within the last four hundred years, and spreading in various parts of Europe, possibly with the help of printed versions all deriving from a single original (whether that original was English or Danish or in some other language, our present researchers do not tell us).
The terrible story has had a particular fascination for children and the ballad became a game-song. A folklorist saw the game being played in a Lancashire orphanage in 1915. The children called it The Lady Drest in Green.
There was a lady drest in green,
Fair a lair a lido,
There was a lady drest in green,
Down by the greenwood side, o
The song describes how the lady kills her baby with a pen-knife, tries to wash off the blood, goes home to lie down, is aroused by three “bobbies” at the door, who extract a confession from her and rush her off to prison, and “That was the end of Mrs. Green”. It is a ring game. Two children in the middle impersonate Mrs. Green and the baby, following the action of the song. The children in the ring dance round, singing the refrains, until the “bobbies” rush in and seize the mother, when the ring breaks up. In his London Street Games (1931 ed.), Norman Douglas prints a corrupt version current in East and South-East London during the First World War. The ballad has remained a great favourite and is still to be heard from country singers all over the British Isles and in America (where sometimes the event is given a railway setting, “down by the old Greenwood Siding”). The Dorian (Re mode) tune we use was obtained by H.E.D. Hammond from Mrs. Bowring of Cerne Abbas, Dorset.
Shirley Collins recorded The Cruel Mother twice, first for her 1960 album False True Lovers and the second time in 1967 for The Sweet Primeroses (reissued on Fountain of Snow). She commented in the latter album's sleeve notes:
This cautionary ballad has everything, including one of the greatest of tunes. Ewan MacColl taught it to me when I was twenty. A flat, documentary opening, reporting a private act by conscience-torn young girl. Then the confrontation of the young mother by the ghosts of her murdered twin babies, and her damnation. The refrain has the quality of an incantation, raising one wretched human being to an archetype of remorse.
Martin Carthy sang Cruel Mother on his 1971 album Landfall. He commented in the record's sleeve notes:
The Cruel Mother comes from the singing of Lucy Stewart as collected by the American folklorist Kenneth Goldstein. Apparently many people quite close to her had no idea that she was a singer until he came along, but with him to coax her, she gradually unbent, and came out with many many songs, a lot of them really fine versions of the ballads.
Pete and Chris Coe recorded The Cruel Mother in 1979 for their album Game of All Fours. According to their album sleeve notes, it “is based on the version sung by Mrs Cecilia Costello who lived in Aston, Birmingham.”
Steeleye Span recorded another version of this song “...before birth control, before the Social Services, before tranquillisers...” (from the album's sleeve notes) for their album Tempted and Tried; and Maddy Prior for her album Flesh and Blood.
And June Tabor sang The Cruel Mother in 2003 on her album An Echo of Hooves. According to the album's sleeve notes, the tune was collected by Cecil Sharp and Maud Karpeles from James Chisholm of Nellysford, Virginia in 1918, and the words were collated from other Appalachian versions also collected by the two.
Kerfuffle learned this ballad from the singing of Chris Coe and recorded it in 2008 as Down by the Greenwood Side for their fourth CD, To the Ground.
Rubus sang this as Greenwood Sidey in 2008 on their CD Nine Witch Knots. Emily Portman commented in their liner notes:
A revenant ballad of the darkest kind in which a mother is visited by the ghosts of her children. My source for this version of The Cruel Mother is Birmingham singer Cecilia Costello, who recounted how her father would sit her on his knee and say “now don’t you do what this cruel mother did”. It seems this song has long acted as a moral tale, first emerging in print in the seventeenth century, at the same time as the crime of infanticide became registered as an offence separate from homicide. Disturbingly, Vic Gammon tells us that “more people (overwhelmingly women) were executed for infanticide than for witchcraft in this period” (see Vic’s book Desire, Drink and Death in English Folk and Vernacular Song, 1600-1900). At a time when female worth and virginity were so intertwined and postnatal depression was unheard of, is it surprising that infanticide was running rife when this song emerged? Rather than damning the protagonist as a cruel mother I think of her as a desperate woman caught in the trappings of a time when illegitimate pregnancy could result in being outcast from family and society. The final descriptive verses of the lady’s transformations appear to describe the penance she must serve via metamorphosis.
Jon Boden sang The Cruel Mother as the July 6, 2010 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day.
Bryony Griffith sang this song as The Lady of York on her and Will Hampson's 2011 CD Lady Diamond. They learned it from the singing of Jim Eldon on the Yorkshire Garland website.
Lyrics
A.L. Lloyd sings The Cruel Mother Shirley Collins sings The Cruel Mother
A minister's daughter in the north
- Hey the rose and the lindsay-o,
She's fallen in love with her father's clerk,
- Down by the greenwood side-i-o.
He courted her for a year and a day,
Till her the young man did betray.
She leaned her back up against a tree
And there the tear did blind her eye.
She leaned herself against a thorn
- All alone and so lonely,
And there she had two pretty babies born,
- And it's down by the greenwood side-o.
And she took off her ribbon belt,
And there she bound them hand and leg.
“Smile not so sweet, by bonny babes,
If you smile so sweet, you'll smile me dead.”
She leaned her back up against a thorn
And that her bonny boys she has born.
She had a pen-knife long and sharp,
And she pressed it through their tender heart.
She's taken out her little pen-knife
And she has twined them of their life.
She digged a grave beyond the sun,
And there she's buried the sweet babes in.
She stuck her pen-knife on the green,
And the more she rubbed, more blood was seen.
She threw the pen-knife far away,
And the further the threw the nearer it came.
As she was going by the church,
She seen two pretty babies in the porch.
She laid them beneath some marble stone
Thinking to go a maiden home.
As she came to her father's hall,
She seen two pretty babes playing at ball.
As she looked over her father's wall
She saw her two bonny boys playing ball.
“Oh babes, oh babes, if you were mine,
I'd dress you up in the scarlet fine.”
“Oh bonny boys, if you were mine
I would dress you in silk so fine.”
“Oh mother, oh mother, we once were thine,
You didn't dress us in scarlet fine.”
“You took a pen-knife long and sharp,
And pressed it through our tender heart.”
“You dug a grave beyond the sun,
And buried us under a marble stone.”
“Oh cruel mother, when we were thine
We didn't see aught of your silk so fine.”
“Oh babes, oh babes, what have I to do,
For the cruel thing that I did to you?”
“Oh bonny boys, come tell to me
What sort of death I'll have to die?”
“Seven long years a bird in the wood,
And seven long years a fish in the flood.”
“Seven years as a fish in the flood,
And seven years a bird in the wood.”
“Seven long years a warning bell,
And seven long years in the deeps of hell.”
“Seven years a tongue in the warning bell,
And seven years in the flames of hell.”
“Welcome, welcome, fish in the flood,
And welcome, welcome, bird in the wood.”
“Welcome, tongue to the warning bell,
But God keep me from the flames of hell.”
Martin Carthy sings Cruel Mother June Tabor sings The Cruel Mother
There was a lady near the town,
- Low so low and so lonely,
She walked all night and all around,
- Down in the greenwoods of ivy.
She's laid down all below a thorn
𝄆 And two bonnie babies she has born, 𝄇
- Down by the greenwood side-e-o
She's leaned her back against a thorn;
Two little babies she has borne.
She took a rope so long and neat,
She tied them down both hand and feet.
And she's pulled the ribbons from off her hair
𝄆 And she's choked them though they cried for air. 𝄇
She took a knife so keen and sharp,
She pierced it through each tender heart.
And she's dug a hole all beneath the tree
𝄆 And she's buried them where none might see. 𝄇
O right wanly as she'd gone home
𝄆 That none might meddle wi' her fair fame. 𝄇
For weeks and months she was wan and pale
And what ailed her there was no man could tell,
But what ailed her there's no man could tell.
She buried them under the marble stone,
Then she turned and went on home.
Now as she looked o'er yon castle wall
𝄆 She spied two bonny babies playing at the ball. 𝄇
As she walked out one moonlit night,
She saw two babes all dressed in white.
“Oh bonny babies if you were mine
𝄆 I would feed you on the white cow's milk and wine” 𝄇
“Oh babes, oh babes, if you were mine,
I'd dress you up in silks so fine.”
“Oh cruel mother when we were thine,
𝄆 Oh, we got none of your white cow's milk and wine.” 𝄇
“Oh mother, oh mother, when we were yours,
You dressed us in our own hearts' blood.”
“But you pulled the ribbons from off your hair
𝄆 And you choked us though we cried for air.” 𝄇
“You wiped your pen-knife on your shoe,
The more you wiped the bloodier it grew.”
“You buried us under the marble stone,
You turned and went a maiden home.”
“Babes, oh babes, come tell me true,
What death must I die for you?”
“And we now two in heaven do dwell
𝄆 Whilst ye must drag out the fierce fires of hell.” 𝄇
“For seven years you shall ring the bell,
For seven years you shall wait in hell.”
Steeleye Span's The Cruel Mother Bryony Griffith sings The Lady of York
There was a lady lived in York,
She stabbed her baby to the heart.
She drew a scarf from off her head,
She bound the baby's hands and legs.
There was a lady, a lady of York,
- Ri-fol-i-diddle-i-gee-o.
And she fell a-courting in her father’s park,
- Down by the greenwood side-o.
She has leaned her back up against a thorn,
And there she has had two pretty babies born.
But she had nothing for to lap them in,
But she had a penknife sharp and keen.
She drew a knife long and sharp,
She stabbed the baby to the heart.
She wiped the knife upon the grass,
The more she wiped, the blood ran fast.
And she didn’t care how much it hurt,
There she had stabbed them right through the heart.
She has wiped her penknife o'er in the sludge,
But the more she has wiped the more blood has flowed.
As she was going to her father's hall,
She saw three children playing at ball.
One in silk, the other in satin,
The other was naked as ever was born.
Now as she was a-walking in her own father’s park,
She espied two pretty babies playing at a ball.
“Oh, dear child, if you were mine,
I'd dress you in silk and satins so fine.”
“Mother dear, I once was thine,
You never would dress me, coarse or fine.”
“Pretty bairns, pretty bairns, if’n you were mine,
I’d wrap you up in silks so fine.”
“Dear mother, dear mother, when we were thine,
You didn’t have the time to wrap us up fine.
“Mother, mother, for your sins
Heaven you shall not enter.
There is fire beyond Hell's gate
And there you'll burn forever.”
But now we’re away to the heavens so high,
And you, you will go to the bad when you die.”
Acknowledgements
Transcribed from Martin Carthy's singing by Garry Gillard. Thanks to Patrick Montague for correcting the Steeleye Span lyrics.