Recordings & Info 69. Clerk Saunders
CONTENTS:
1) Alternative Titles
2) Traditional Ballad Index
3) Child Collection Index
4) Excerpt from: The Ballad Editor as Antiquary: Scott and the Minstrelsy
5) Mainly Norfolk (lyrics and info)
ATTACHED PAGES: (see left hand column)
1) Roud Number 3855 (23 Listings)
Alternative Titles
Clark Sanders
The Ensign and the Lady Gay
Clerk Sandy
Traditional Ballad Index: Clerk Saunders [Child 69]
DESCRIPTION: (Clerk Sanders) and his lady are determined to be wed despite the opposition of her seven brothers. Despite great pains to conceal their acts, they are found abed together. The brothers stab him to death and leave him in bed for his lady to find
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1802 (Scott)
KEYWORDS: courting death murder family
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (9 citations):
Child 69, "Clerk Saunders" (7 texts)
Bronson 69, "Clerk Saunders" (3 versions)
Lyle-Crawfurd1 44, "The Ensign and the Lady Gay" (1 text)
Leach, pp. 234-236, "Clerk Saunders" (1 text)
OBB 27, "Clerk Saunders" (1 text)
Friedman, p. 94, "Clerk Saunders" (1 text)
PBB 30, "Clark Sanders" (1 text)
Hodgart, p. 56, "Clerk Saunders" (1 text)
DT 69, CLERKSAN
Roud #3855
Child Collection Index
Child Ballad 069: Clerk Sanders
Child #---Artist--- Title---- Album---- Year---- Length---- Have Recording
069 Alison McMorland, Geordie McIntyre & Kirsty Potts Clerk Saunders Ballad Tree 2003 6:45 Yes
069 Cindy Mangsen Clerk Saunders Songs of Experience 1998 6:30 Yes
069 Crackerhash Clerk Saunders Napoleon Crossing the Rhine 1978 4:30 Yes
069 Eliza Carthy Clark Sanders Heat, Light and Sound 1996 5:49 Yes
069 Ellen Gozion Clerk Saunders and May Margaret Across the Blue Mountains 2008 No
069 Frederick Worlock & C.R.M. Brookes Clerk Saunders Poetry of Robert Burns & Scottish Border Ballads 1959 No
069 Hermes Nye Clerk Saunders Ballads Reliques - Early English Ballads from the Percy and Child Collections 1957 3:02 Yes
069 Janet Russell & Christine Kydd Clerk Saunders Dancin' Chantin' 1994 5:00 Yes
069 Jean Redpath Clerk Saunders First Flight 1992 7:46 Yes
069 Jean Redpath Clerk Saunders Jean Redpath's Scottish Ballad Book 1962 No
069 Jean Redpath & Abby Newton Clerk Saunders Lowlands 1980 7:08 Yes
069 Jock Tamson's Bairns Clarke Saunders A' Jock Tamson's Bairns [Jock Tamson's Bairns + the Lasses Fashion] 1996 4:26 Yes
069 June Tabor Clerk Saunders Ashes and Diamonds 1977 6:16 Yes
069 Malinky Clerk Saunders The Unseen Hours 2005 7:28 Yes
069 Martin Simpson Clerk Saunders Kind Letters 2005 9:32 Yes
069 Martin Simpson Clerk Saunders The Definitive Collection 2004 9:32 Yes
069 Phil Cooper Clerk Saunders Written in Our Eyes - Ballads & Sketches, Vol. I 2005 6:16 Yes
069 Polly Bolton, Steve Dunachie & John Shepherd Clerk Saunders Songs from a Cold Open Field 2001 6:42 Yes
069 Rory & Alex McEwen Clerk Saunders Great Scottish Ballads 1956 6:14 Yes
069 Roy Bailey Clark Saunders Roy Bailey 1971 3:34 Yes
069 Terry Yarnell Clerk Saunders A Bonny Bunch - Traditional Songs & Ballads 2003 No
069 Tony Rose Clerk Saunders Poor Fellows 1982 6:32 Yes
Excerpt from: The Ballad Editor as Antiquary: Scott and the Minstrelsy
by Charles G. Zug III
Journal of the Folklore Institute, Vol. 13, No. 1 (1976), pp. 57-73
Within the less significant category of textual variation, Scott invariably improved meter and rhyme, freely altered spellings, and changed words that seemed anachronistic or unintelligible. A typical example of Scott's handiwork is apparent in his reconstruction of the fifth verse of "Clerk Saunders" from two texts provided by Herd:
"And take a napkin in your hand,
And tie up baith your bonny een;
And you may swear, and safe your aith,
Ye saw me na since late yestreen." (Scott 5)
"Yele take a napken in your hand,
And ye'l ty up baith your een,
And ye may say, your oth to save,
That ye saw na Sandy sen late yestreen. (Herd A 5)
"You'll take a napkain in your hand,
And then you will tie up your een;
Then you may swear, and safe your aith
You saw na Sandy sin yestreen. (Herd B 4)
The stanzas reveal that Scott primarily used the A text for the first two lines, the B text for the third, and a loose combination of both in the fourth. This is a rather conjectural approach, to say the least, and it is by no means easy to explain all of Scott's alterations. One of his aims was to restore the meter.
This is most apparent in the second and fourth lines, where Scott has altered the syntax of Herd's texts as well as added and deleted words such as "bonny" and "Sandy." The result is a quatrain in flawless iambic tetrameter. Although it was not necessary for this particular stanza, Scott also frequently made minor changes to ensure that his second and fourth lines would rhyme.
He, for example, once wrote William Laidlaw, who had sent him a copy of "Graeme and Bewick," that "I have used your copy ... with one or two literal alterations to restore rhyme." [21] The key word here, of course, is "restore." Scott's professed intent was to rejuvenate a stanza's form by recovering what he felt was the original meter and rhyme.
It is not so easy to justify the numerous minor changes and variations in spelling which are apparent in the "Clerk Saunders" stanza. In the fourth line, Scott retains the melodic form "na" yet replaces the equally colloquial term "sin" with "since." In addition, he freely mixes "you" and "ye." The same lack of consistency is found in other stanzas of the ballad, where Scott arbitrarilyc hanges" body" to "bodye" yet modernizes" towne" to "town." In the introduction to the Minstrelsy he asserted that "it would have been easy for the editor to have given these songs an appearance of more indisputable antiquity, by adopting the rude orthography of the period," but this "seemed too arbitrary an exertion."[22] Despite this declaration, Scott was not consistent in his spelling and frequently could not resist a dab of antique varnish in order to restore the patina of antiquity.
Footnotes:
21 Letters, I: 169.
22 Minstrelsy (1802), I: cvi-cvii.
Mainly Norfolk: Clerk Saunders
[Roud 3855; Child 69; Ballad Index C069; trad.]
Roy Bailey sang this grisly ballad of jealousy in 1971 on his first, eponymous album, Roy Bailey.
Both June Tabor and Tony Rose sang Clerk Saunders unaccompanied on their albums Ashes and Diamonds and Poor Fellows. Tony Rose commented in his record's sleeve notes:
One of the classic “big” ballads based of family honour or jealousy. I've collated the text from several sources. Of all songs, the ballads are the most challenging, and therefore the most rewarding to sing.
Eliza Carthy recorded the ballad as Clark Saunders for her record Heat Light & Sound. She commented in her sleeve notes:
This beautiful song tells its own story, and also contains some good advice on how to talk yourself out of a hole; the only problem arising if you don't get a chance to because both you and the evidence are fast asleep. The Child Collection has all of the different versions.
Lyrics
June Tabor sings Clerk Saunders
Oh it was a sad and a rainy night
And the rain did rain from town to town;
Clerk Saunders and his lady gay
Were a-walking through the fields so brown.
“Oh a bed, a bed,” Clerk Saunders cried,
“A bed, a bed for you and me.”
“Oh never a bed,” says the gay lady,
“Until it we'd to married be.
For it's I have seven brothers bold
And unto you they bear no good will,
And if they catch you in my bower
Oh they'd value not your blood to spill.”
“Oh, I'll take the sword out from my scabbard
And slowly, slowly lift up the pin,
That you might swear and save your oath
That you never let Clerk Sandy in.
Then take me up all in your arms
And carry me unto your bed,
That you might swear and save your oath:
Clerk Sandy never i' your bower did tread.”
So he's taken the sword out from his scabbard
And slowly, slowly lifted the pin,
That she might swear and save her oath
That she never let Clerk Sandy in.
Then she's taken him up in her two arms
And carried him unto her bed,
That she might swear and save her oath
Clerk Sandy never i' her bower did tread.
And then it's in and came her brothers bold
And all their torches burning bright,
Says they, “We have but the one sister
And see, she's lying with a knight.”
And then it's up and spoke the first o' them,
“I know they have been lovers dear.”
And up and spoke the next o' them,
“Oh they've been in love for many's the year.”
And then it's up and spoke the third o' them,
“'T would be a shame these two to twain.”
And up and spoke the fourth o' them,
“Oh it's a sin to kill a sleeping man.”
And then it's up and spoke the fifth o' them,
“I swear they'll never be harmed by me.”
And up and spoke the sixth o' them,
“Oh we'll take our leave and we'll go our way.”
And then it's up and spoke the seventh brother,
Saying, “Though there be no man but me,
I bear the brand all in my hand,
Shall surely make Clerk Sandy die!”
And then he's taken out his nut brown sword
And drawn it three times through the straw,
And through and through Clerk Saunders' body,
Oh he's got that rusty rapier go!
And they have lain all night in each other's arms
Until the day began to dawn,
And kindly to him she did say,
“Oh it's time, my love, that you were away.
Oh you are the sleepiest young man
That ever my two eyes did see,
For you've lain all night all in my arms
And I'm sure it is a shame to be.”
And then she's drawn the blankets to the foot
And turned the sheets unto the wall,
And there she's seen his bloody wounds
And his two grey eyes all pale and cold.
And it's, “Cursed be my bloody brothers!
Aye an an ill death may he die!
For you dared not fight him in the field
But you slew him as he lay with me.
And it's I will do for my love's sake
What many a lady will not do,
Seven long years shall come and go
Before I wear stocking or I wear shoe.
And there's never a shirt goes on my back
And never a comb goes in my hair,
Never a fire nor a candle light
Shine in my bower anymore.”
Tony Rose sings Clerk Saunders
So sad and rainy was the night
As e'er did rain from town to town;
Clerk Saunders and his gay lady
Were walking in the fields so brown.
“Oh a bed, a bed,” Clerk Saunders cried,
“A bed, a bed for you and me.”
“There's never a one,” said the gay lady,
“Until it we'both to married be.
For I have seven brothers bold
Unto you they bear no good will,
And if they catch you in my bower
They would value not your blood to spill.”
“Love, then take the napkin in your hand,
Hold it up before your eye,
That you might swear and save your oath
That you saw not Sandy here this night.
And you'll take me up in your two arms,
Carry me unto your bed,
That you might swear and save your oath:
That your bower Sandy ne'er did tread.”
So she's taken the napkin in her hand,
Just held it up before her eye,
That she might swear and save her oath
That she saw not Sandy there that night.
And she's taken him up in her two arms,
She's carried him unto her bed,
That she might swear and save her oath
That her bower Sandy ne'er did tread.
Then in and came those brothers bold
And all their torches burning bright,
Said they, “We have but one sister
And do see, she's lying with some knight.”
Then up and spoke the foremost man,
“I know they have been lovers dear.”
And up and spoke the second man,
“They've been in love for many's the year.”
And up and spoke the third of them,
“It is great sin these two to twain.”
And up and spoke the fourth of them,
“It is a sin to kill a sleeping man.”
And up and spoke the fifth of them,
“I vow they'll ne'er be twained by me.”
And up and spoke the sixth of them,
“We'll take our leave and go our way.”
But up and spoke the seventh man,
“I vow an ill death he may die!
For I wear the sharp sword at my side
That soon shall make Clerk Sandy die.”
And he's drawn out that nut brown sword,
He's drawn it three times through the straw
And in Clerk Saundy's body fair:
That tempered steel went through and through.
They've lain there in each other's arms
Until the dawning of the day;
Then kindly to him she did say,
“Oh it's time, my love, you were away.
Oh you are the sleepiest young man,” she said,
“That ever my two eyes did see.
You've lain this night within my arms,
I am sure it is a shame to be.”
Then she's turned the blanket to the foot
And there she's seen his bloody wounds.
“Oh cursed be my brothers bold!
I vow an ill death they may die.”
And it's in and came her father dear,
Said, “Daughter, let your mourning be.
We'll take Clerk Saunders to his grave,
Then come back and comfort thee.”
“Oh comfort well your seven sons,
Or no man e'er shall comfort me.
For since you've slain my own true love
Oh wedded I shall never be.
And I will do for my love's sake
What many a lady would not do,
For seven long years shall come and go
Ere I wear stocking or I wear shoe.
There'll ne'er a shirt go on my back
And ne'er a comb go in my hair,
And never a coal nor a candle light
Shall shine into my bower no more.”
Eliza Carthy sings Clark Saunders
Clark Saunders and May Margaret
Were walking in yon gravelled green,
And sad and heavy was the love
I felt it pass this two between.
“A bed, a bed,” Clark Saunders said,
“A bed, a bed for you and I.”
“Oh no, oh no,” the lady said,
“Until the day that we married be.”
“For in would come my five brothers
And all their torches burning bright,
They'd say we have but one sister
And see her lying with you this night.”
“But you take a kerchief in your hands
And tie up both your eyes, you may,
So you may say your oath to save
You ne'er saw me since yesterday.”
“And take the sword from out my scabbard,
You can use it to lift the pin.
So you may say your oath to save
You never let your Sandy in.”
“And take me up all in your arms,
You can carry me to the bed.
So you may say your oath to save
On your bower floor I never tread.”
But in an' come her five brothers
And all their torches in their hands.
They said, “We have but one sister
And see her lying with a man.”
Out 'n spoke the first o' them,
“I know they have been lovers dear.”
And out'n spoke the next o' them,
“They've been in love this many's a year.”
And out 'n spoke the third o' them,
“It would be great sin this two to twain.”
And out 'n spoke the fourth o' them,
“It's a sin to kill a sleeping man.”
But up 'n spoke the fifth of them,
“Although there were not one but me,
Before I leave this room this night
I'll bear the brand and I'll make him die!”
And so out he's taken a bright long sword,
He has striked it through the straw
And through and through Clark Saunders' body,
You know he has made cold iron go!
And they lay still and she slept sound
Until the day began to dawn,
And kindly to him she did say,
“It's time, true love, that you were gone.”
“This night”, she said, “the sleepiest man
That ever my two eyes did see,
Has lain by me and sweat the sheets,
And you know that's a shame to see.”
For she thought it had been a loathsome sweat
That had come to this two between,
She's turned the blankets back a ways
And then she saw the bloody wound.
“Last night I dreamed a dream,” she said,
“And such dreams cannot be good,
I dreamed my bower was full of swine
And my true love's clothes all dipped in blood.”
“And I have dreamed another dream,
And such dreams are never good,
That I was combing my yellow hair
And trailing it in wells of blood.”
“Well hold your tongue, my daughter dear,
Hold and let all your mourning be,
For I'll carry the dead corpse to the clay
And I'll come back and comfort thee.”
“But you comfort well your five sons,
For comforted I never will be.
They might have slain him all in the field
And not where he has lain with me.”
Acknowledgements
Transcribed from the singing of Eliza Carthy by Kira White.