Dewy Dens of Yarrow
There were five sons and two were twins
There were five sons of Yarrow
They all did fightn for their own true loven
In the dewy dens of Yarrow
Oh mother dear I hadn a dream
A dream of grief and sorrow
I dreamed I was gathering heather blooms
In the dewy dens of Yarrow
Oh daughter dear I readn your dream
Your dream of grief and sorrow
Your love, your love is lying slain
In the dewy dens of Yarrow
She sought him up and she sought him down
She sought him all through Yarrow
And then she found him lying slain
In the dewy dens of Yarrow
She washed his face and she combed his hair
She combed it neat and narrow
And then she washed that bloody bloody wound
That he got in the Yarrow
Her hair it was three quarters long
The color it was yello
She wound it round his waist so small
And took him home from Yarrow
Oh Mother dear go maken my bedn
Go make it neat and narrow
My love my love he diedn for me
I'll die for him to-morrow
Oh daughter dear don't be so grieved
So grieved with grief and sorrow
I'll wedn you to a better one
Than you lost in the Yarrow
She dressed herself in clean white clothes
And away to the waters of Yarrow
And there she laid her own self down
And died on the banks of the Yarrow
The wine that runs through the water deepn
Comes from the sons of Yarrow
They all did fightn for their own true loven
In the dewy dens of Yarrow
Child #214
Max Hunter, Folksongs from the Ozarks, 1963, Folk-Legacy Records.
Max Hunter's version of 'The Dewy Dens of Yarrow" was learned from
Herbert Philbrick, an old man who lived in Crocker, Missouri, in the
summer of 1957. The text actually combines elements of two of the Child
ballads: #214 ("The Braes o' Yarrow) and #215 ("Rare Willie Drowned in
Yarrow"). Mary Celestia Parler, who wrote the notes that accompany
Max's record, notes its textual similarity to the version Herbert Halpert
collected from George Edwards in the Catskills, although the tune is quite
different. I would urge you to read the extensive introductory note to #214
in Child's The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, which you can
probably find in your library. If not, urge your librarian to order it through
inter-library loan. Better still, look at the numerous versions with tunes that
were gathered by Bertrand Bronson (42 versions of #214 and 9 of #215)
and published in Volume 3 of The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads.
Child and Bronson demonstrate the historical and geographical range of the
ballad(s) much more completely than we can offer here, but both seem to
have originated in Scotland, with the earliest text of #215 showing up in
Orpheus Caledonius (1733). Bronson also includes a fine version that
Mary Parler overlooked (or had no access to) when she wrote the notes for
my recording of Max Hunter, namely the fine versio
on one of our "custom" cassettes, and comes with the accompanying booklet of no
tes
and lyrics.
SP
oct99
Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!