Recordings & Info 78. The Unquiet Grave
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 No. 51: The Unquiet Grave (206 Listings)
2) The Unquiet Grave- Harvey 1941
3) Wit Combats with Ballad Revenants: "Proud Lady Margaret" and "The Unquiet Grave"- Atkinson 1991
Alternative Titles
The Auld Song From Cow Head
Cold Blows the Wind
The Wind Blew Up, the Wind Blew Down
The Resurrected Sweetheart
The Green Grave
The Restless Dead
The Restless Grave
Charles Graeme
Cold Falling Drops of Dew
Cold Blows the Winter's Winds
Traditional Ballad Index: Unquiet Grave, The [Child 78]
DESCRIPTION: After a young man dies/is killed, his lover mourns by his grave for a year and a day and beyond. This prevents the dead man from resting. He comes to his sweetheart begging for release
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1832 (broadside, Bodleian 2806 c.17(460))
KEYWORDS: ghost mourning freedom
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MA,NE,SE) Britain(England(All),Scotland) Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (28 citations):
Child 78, "The Unquiet Grave" (7 texts)
Bronson 78, "The Unquiet Grave" (43 versions+9, mostly tunes only, in addenda)
Leather, pp. 202-203, "Cold Blows the Wind; or, The Unquiet Grave" (1 text, 1 tune, from different informants) {Bronson's #12}
Williams-Thames, p. 76, "Cold Blows the Winter's Wind" (1 text) (also Wiltshire-WSRO Wt 370)
Flanders/Olney, pp. 232-233, "Cold Blows the Wind" (1 text, 1 tune)
Flanders-Ancient2, pp. 184-186, ""The Unquiet Grave (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's }
Davis-More 22, pp. 157-160, "The Unquiet Grave" (1 text)
BrownII 24, "The Unquiet Grave" (1 text)
Ritchie-Southern, p. 58, "The Unquiet Grave" (1 text, 1 tune)
Greenleaf/Mansfield 10, "The Unquiet Grave" (2 texts, 2 tunes) {Bronson's #36, #31}
Peacock, pp. 410-412, "The Unquiet Grave" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Karpeles-Newfoundland 10, "The Unquiet Grave" (1 text, 1 tune)
Blondahl, p. 111, "The Auld Song From Cow Head" (1 text, 1 tune)
Leach, pp. 262-263, "The Unquiet Grave" (1 text)
OBB 34, "The Unquiet Grave" (1 text)
Friedman, p. 32, "The Unquiet Grave" (1 text, 1 tune)
PBB 31, "The Unquiet Grave" (1 text)
Sharp-100E 24, "The Unquiet Grave (or Cold Blows the Wind)" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #35}
Broadwood/Maitland, pp. 34-35, "Cold Blows the Wind" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hodgart, p. 146, "The Unquiet Grave" (1 text)
TBB 30, "The Unquiet Grave" (1 text)
Niles 32, "The Unquiet Grave" (3 texts, 3 tunes)
Abrahams/Foss, pp. 40-41, "The Unquiet Grave" (1 text, 1 tune) {Bronson's #36}
Silber-FSWB, p. 218, "The Unquiet Grave" (1 text)
Darling-NAS, pp. 31-32, "The Unquiet Grave" (1 text)
DT 78, UNQUIGR1* UNQUIGR2*
ADDITIONAL: Charlotte Sophia Burne, editor, Shropshire Folk-Lore (London, 1883 ("Digitized by Google")), pp. 542-543,651, "Cold Blows the Wind" (1 text, 1 tune)
Walter de la Mare, _Come Hither_, revised edition, 1928; #371, "The Unquiet Grave" (1 text)
Roud #51
RECORDINGS:
Omar Blondahl, "The Auld Ballad from Cow Head" (on NFOBlondahl04) [fragment]
Jim Keeping, "The Unquiet Grave" (on PeacockCDROM)
New Lost City Ramblers, "The Unquiet Grave" (on NLCR16)
Jean Ritchie, "The Unquiet Grave" (on JRitchie02)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, 2806 c.17(460), "The Weeping Lover," W. Wright (Birmingham), 1820-1831; also 2806 c.17(461), "The Weeping Lover"; Firth c.18(123), Harding B 11(634), "Cold Blows the Wind"
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Twa Brothers" [Child 49] (lyrics)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Wind Blew Up, the Wind Blew Down
The Resurrected Sweetheart
The Green Grave
The Restless Dead
The Restless Grave
Charles Graeme
Cold Falling Drops of Dew
Cold Blows the Winter's Winds
NOTES: Bronson speculates that a version of this inspired the carol "There blows a colde wynd todaye, todaye" (c. 1500; in MS Bodl. 7683=Ashmole 1379; Brown/Robbins Index #3525; for texts see Stevick-MEL 93; Luria & Hoffman, Middle English Lyrics #166, though the two offer noticeably different texts of the same unique original). I must say that I find this a stretch; the similarities are slight indeed.
The notion that excessive mourning (usually meaning mourning for more than a year and a day) results in the ghost being unable to rest is at least hinted at in several other songs, the most noteworthy being "The Wife of Usher's Well" [Child 79]. - RBW
Folk Index: The Unquiet Grave [Ch 78]
At - Restless Grave ; Broken Hearted Lover ; Restless Dead ; Cold Blows the Wind [Today Sweetheart]
Rm - Star of the County Down
Shekerjian, Haig and Regina (eds.) / Book of Ballads, Songs and Snatches, Harper, sof (1966), p 48
Friedman, Albert B. (ed.) / Viking Book of Folk Ballads of the English-S, Viking, sof (1963/1957), p 32 [1910s]
Wells, Evelyn Kendrick (ed.) / The Ballad Tree, Ronald, Bk (1950), p154
Leach, MacEdward / The Ballad Book, Harper & Row, Bk (1955), p262
Leach, MacEdward / The Heritage Book of Ballads, Heritage, Bk (1967), p 51
Armstrong, Frankie. Lovely on the Water, Topic 12TS 216, LP (1972), trk# B.04
Baez, Joan. Joan Baez 5, Vanguard VSD7 9160, LP (1964), trk# B.06
Baez, Joan. Siegmeister, Elie (arr.) / Joan Baez Song Book, Ryerson Music, Sof (1971/1964), p 60
Banish Misfortune. Freest Fancy, Shoestring, LP (1980), trk# B.03
Baxter, Robert. Baxter's Finger-Picking Record, Baxter BSP/LP 1001, LP (196?), trk# B.05
Blue Sky Boys. Presenting The Blue Sky Boys, JEMF 104, LP (1976/1965), trk# 9
Bradley, May. Hamer, Fred (ed.) / Garners Gay. English Folk Songs Collected by ..., EFDS, Sof (1967), p56 [1950s?] (Cold Blows the Wind [Today Sweetheart])
Brown, Wilfred. Folk Songs, L'Oiseau-Lyre SOL 60034, LP (1961), trk# B.02
Cameron, Isla. Best of Isla Cameron, Prestige International INT 13042, LP (1950s), trk# B.08
Clevenger, Allen. Emrich, Duncan / Folklore on the American Land, Little, Brown, sof (1972), p577 [1937]
Collins, Shirley. False True Lovers, Folkways FG 3564, LP (1959), trk# A.09
Cottrell, Granny; and Cisslie Graves. Niles, John Jacob / Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles, Bramhall House, Bk (1961), p175/N 32B [1930s] (Resurrected Sweetheart)
Dickson, Barbara. Dickson, Barbara / Full Circle, R and M RAMCD 012, CD (2004), trk# 4
Gitter, Dean. Ghost Ballads, Riverside RLP 12-636, LP (1957), trk# A.04
Hawker, Ginny; and Kay Justice. Come All You Tenderhearted, June Appal JA 069C, Cas (1993), trk# 5
Jones Family. Unquiet, Shambling Gate SGR 1616, CD (2002), trk# 4
Luxon, Benjamin; and Bill Crofut. Dance to Your Daddy, ProArte CDD 364, CD (1985), trk# 2 (Cold Blows the Wind [Today Sweetheart])
McCurdy, Ed. Ballad Record, Riverside RLP 12-601, LP (1955), trk# A.06
Netter, Corrie. Niles, John Jacob / Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles, Bramhall House, Bk (1961), p173/N 32A [1934/03] (Wind Blew Up, the Wind Blew Down)
Nolan, William Isaac and Belinda. Niles, John Jacob / Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles, Bramhall House, Bk (1961), p179/N 32C [1913/05] (Green Grave)
Paton, Caroline and Sandy. Sandy and Carolyn Paton, Folk Legacy EGO 030, LP (1966), trk# B.03
Ritchie, Jean. British Traditional Ballads in the Southern Mountains (Vol. 2), Folkways FA 2302, LP (1961), trk# A.01
Ritchie, Jean. Singing Family of the Cumberlands, Riverside RLP 12-653, LP (1957), trk# A.01b
Smith, Ralph Lee. Dulcimer. Old Time and Traditional Music, Skyline DD 102, LP (1975), trk# 18
Summers, Andrew Rowan. Unquiet Grave, Folkways FA 2364/FP 64, LP (1951), trk# A.01
West, Hedy. Ballads, Topic 12T 163, LP (1967), trk# A.03
White, Rosie. Abrahams, Roger; & George Foss / Anglo-American Folksong Style, Prentice-Hall, Sof (1968), 3-1 [1929]
Woodrich, M. J.. Clayre, Alasdair (ed.) / 100 Folk Songs and New Songs, Wolfe, Sof (1968), p 34
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
78. THE UNQUIET GRAVE
Texts: Brown Coll / Davis, FS Va / Greenleaf and Mansfield, Bids Sea Sgs Newfoundl, 23 / JAFL, LII, 53 / Niles, More Songs Hill-Flk, #9.
Local Titles: The Auld Song from the Cow Head, The Unquiet Grave.
Story Types: A: A girl loses her lover who is slain. She mourns on his grave. After a year and a day the lad's ghost rises and asks her why she refuses to let him be. She requests one kiss. However, he reminds her that a kiss would be fatal and tells her not to mourn for him, that he must leave her and all the world for the grave.
Examples: Greenleaf and Mansfield; JAFL, LII, 53.
Discussion: The song is very rare in America. The stories in the New World follow Child B and C in the sex of the mourner, but the American ending is not in those British texts, although similar lines complete Child A and D.
Mainly Norfolk: The Unquiet Grave / Cold Blows the Wind
[Roud 51; Child 78; Ballad Index C078; trad.]
A.L. Lloyd sang The Unquiet Grave in 1956 on his and Ewan MacColl's Riverside album of Child ballads, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads Volume I. Editor Kenneth G. Goldstein wrote in the album's booklet:
Aside from its exquisite poety and music, this ballad is notable for its exhibition of the universal popular belief that excessive grief on the part of mourners disturbes the peace of the dead.
It is possible that this is only a fragment of a once popular longer ballad. In the form we have it today, no text has been reported earlier than the 19th century. The ballad is little known in Scotland and is quite rare in America. It is still current in England, however.
The text and tune sung by A.L. Lloyd were collected by Cecil Sharp from William Spearing of Ile Bruers, Somerset, excepting the last two stanzas, which were from Mrs. William Ree of Hambridge, Somerset.
See Child (78), Volume II, p. 78ff; Coffin, p.82; Dean-Smith, p.113.
Shirley Collins recorded this ballad in 1959 for her second LP, False True Lovers, a second time for her Collector EP English Songs Vol. 1, and a third time in 1967 for her album The Power of the True Love Knot. She commented in the first album's notes:
From Cecil Sharp's English Folk Songs. This is one of the classic pieces of English folk song literature. From one point of view it is a feminine fantasy or a wish, perhaps for the death of a lover, perhaps for a way of arranging a night visit by the lover, perhaps for a way of showing how strong her love is, perhaps of a feeling of guilt. Certainly, it is a ghost story designed to delight the imagination of young women. Finally, it shows the survival of ancient and widely distributed primitive beliefs about the treatment of the dead.
The rowdy Irish wake is the only one example of the common folk custom of a gathering in which ceremonial banqueting and games were indulged in to show honour to the dead person. The shade was given a great send-off to the other world. Sometimes guns were fired to send him skittering away in fear. Sometimes a special door was cut in the side of the wall so that the coffin could be taken out by that route; and then this hole was walled up so that the ghost could not find his way back into the house again.
In Scotland and Ireland it was believed that excessive grief prevented the dead from resting; that the tears shed by the mourners pierced holes in the corpse. In Persia they held that the tears shed by humanity for their dead flowed into a river in which the souls floated and drowned. Similar beliefs were held by the Greeks and Romans, and from mediaeval times throughout Germany and Scandinavia.
Sharp says that in England a belief was current that if a girl was betrothed to a man, she was pledged to him if he died, and was bound to follow him to the spirit world unless she solved certain riddles, or performed certain tasks, such as fetching water from a desert, blood from a stone, milk from the breast of a virgin…
and in the The Power of the True Love Knot album notes:
This song is a tender and magical expression of an ancient community belief: a very proper belief that when the mourning of a lover's death started to drain life from the living, love was being misused. Tears flowed into the Styx, and the river swelled and became impassable, so the dead come back and warn the quick. On this track and elsewhere I play an instrument made for me by John Bailey, which is a dulcimer with a five-string banjo neck.
The Ian Campbell Folk Group with Dave Swarbrick sang The Unquiet Grave in 1963 on their album This Is the Ian Campbell Folk Group. This track was included in 2005 on their anthology The Times They Are A-Changin'.
Alex Campbell sang The Unquiet Grave in 1966 on his album Yours Aye, Alex; this track was included in 1966 on his compilation CD Been on the Road So Long.
Hedy West sang an American version The Unquiet Grave in 1967 on her Topic album Ballads. Her (or A.L. Lloyd's) sleeve notes commented:
There's widespread and ancient belief that excessive grieving over the dead disturbs their rest. The Greeks and Romans thought so, and the idea is as common in the Far East as in Western Europe. In Ireland as in Rumania it was thought that inordinate tears would burn a hole in the corpse, and in several ballads the dead complain that they cannot sleep because the tears of the living have wet their winding sheet. This ballad, of a restless ghost who confronts and reproaches the mourner, is probably a fragment broken off some longer, more complicated narrative. Though it's been relatively common in England till recent times, it seems very rare in America, and has turned up only in a scattered handful of versions from Newfoundland, Virginia and North Carolina (which is where the present version comes from, collected by the indefatigable Frank C. Brown).
Jon Raven sang The Unquiet Grave in 1968 on the Broadside album The Halliard : Jon Raven.
Dave & Toni Arthur sang this ballad as Cold Blows the Winter's Wind in 1969 on their Topic album The Lark in the Morning. The sleeve notes commented:
The ballad, usually called The Unquiet Grave, concerns a person who feels bound to sit and mourn by his (sometimes, her) lover's grave for a period of time. In nearly all versions, the corpse complains of being disturbed, illustrating the ancient belief that excessive grief interferes with the peace of the dead. In archaic folklore, a constant concern, when faced with a death, is to try to ensure that the corpse makes a pleasant and reassured transit from the land of the living to the world of the dead. Otherwise the dead may return, uneasy and vengeful, to plague the living. Hence for instance the jollification at Irish wakes, intended to cheer and embolden the dead. Singers have ended our ballad in various ways, sometimes heartbroken and disconsolate, sometimes more or less lightheartedly as: “But since I have lost my own true love, I must get another in time.” Our tune is from Fred Hamer's collection Garners Gay. The words are from Alfred Williams's Folk Songs of the Upper Thames..
Frankie Armstrong sang The Unquiet Grave in 1971 on her Topic album Lovely on the Water. A.L. Lloyd commented in the sleeve notes:
A woman laments long over the grave of her sweetheart, till he speaks from the grave and reproaches her for disturbing his rest. Usually in the ballads the setting and the characters are named, but here we know neither the who nor the where, and the supernatural climate is further charged with mystery on that account. The tale is old, like the belief that too much grief disturbs the dead, though to this day, in Eastern Europe, some peasants believe that mourner's tears make an unhealing burn if they chance to light on a corpse. In some versions the dead person threatens to tear the living one to pieces (the favourite revenge of ghosts!) unless absolute fidelity can be sworn to. But Frankie's version is milder, more consolatory, as fits her gentle character. By and large, the tune she uses is one recorded by Vaughan Williams at Dilwyn, Herefordshire.
John Kirkpatrick and Sue Harris sang this ballad as Cold Blows the Wind in 1976 on their Topic LP Among the Many Attractions at the Show Will Be a Really High Class Band and John Kirkpatrick did it again in 2007 on his Fledg'ling CD Make No Bones. He commented in the latter album's sleeve notes:
When I moved to Shropshire in 1973 and started looking at the local folk music, the singing of May Bradley was a glorious revelation. I never saw her in the flesh, but Fred Hamer's recordings of her in Ludlow during the 1960s proved to be a real treasure chest of wonderful songs wonderfully sung. She was the daughter of Ester Smith, a gypsy singer that Vaughan Williams had collected from in Herefordshire at the beginning of the century, and had some of her mother's songs as well as plenty of others. This is her tune for what is sometimes known as The Unquiet Grave—Child Ballad no. 78. I've sung this before in a past life, but in revisiting the song I have added a few lines from other versions to fill out the sense of the words.
Two books of the songs Fred Hamer collected were published by EFDS Publications Ltd., and you can see this in the first one from 1967, Garners Gay. Or a much better option is to hear [May Bradley] singing it herself on the EFDSS LP Garners Gay issued in 1971, EFDSS LP 1006.
May Bradley's version can also be found on her Musical Traditions anthology Sweet Swansea (2010).
Jo Freya sang The Unquiet Grave in 1992 on her CD Traditional Songs of England.
Sandra Kerr sang The Unquiet Grave in 1970 on the Argo Voices anthology series, Second Book, Record One (Argo DA96). Her daughter Nancy sang it in 1993 on the CD Eliza Carthy & Nancy Kerr. She referred in her sleeve notes to Evelin Wells' The Ballad Tree, and to her mother singing this version on Voices.
Louis Killen learnt The Unquiet Grave from Brian Ballinger and sang in on his 1993 CD A Bonny Bunch.
Kate Rusby couldn't let the dead sleep on her 1999 CD Sleepless.
Steeleye Span sang The Unquiet Grave in 2009 on their CD Cogs Wheels and Lovers.
Like John Kirkpatrick, Jon Boden learned Cold Blows the Wind from the singing of May Bradley. He sang it with Bellowhead in 2010 on their CD Hedonism, and he sang it unaccompanied as the December 29, 2010 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day.
Lyrics
A.L. Lloyd sings The Unquiet Grave
“Cold blows the wind to my true love,
And gentle drops the rain,
I never had but one true love
And in Greenwood she is lain.
“I'll do as much for my true love
As any young man may,
I'll sit and weep all on her grave
For a twelve month and a day.”
When the twelve month and one day was o'er,
Her ghost begun for to speak,
“Why sit you here all on my grave
And will not let me sleep?”
“There's one thing more I want, sweetheart,
And one thing more I crave,
And that's a kiss from your lily-white lips
And then I'll go from your grave.”
“My lips are cold as clay, sweetheart,
My breath smells heavy and strong,
And if you kiss my lily-white lips,
Your time would not be long.”
Bellowhead sings Cold Blows the Wind
“Cold blows the wind over my true love,
Cold blows the drops of rain,
I never had but one true love
And in Greenwood he lies slain.
“I'll do as much for my true love
As any young girl may,
I'll sit and weep down by his grave
For twelve months and a day.”
But when twelve months they were up and gone
This young man he arose:
“What makes you sit by my grave and weep?
I can't take my repose!”
“One kiss, one kiss from you lily-white lips,
One kiss is all I crave.
One kiss, one kiss from you lily-white lips,
Then return back to your grave.”
“These lips they are as cold as clay,
My breath is heavy and strong.
if you were to kiss these lily-white lips
Your life would not be long.
“Oh, don't you remember the garden grove,
Where once we used to walk?
Go pick the finest flower of them all,
It will wither to a stalk.
“Go fetch me a flower from the dungeon deep,
Bring water from a stone.
Bring white milk from a virgin's breast
That baby never bore none.”
“Go dig me a grave both wide and deep,
Dig it as quick as you may.
That I may lay down and take a long sleep
For twelve months and a day.”