The Ancient Ballads

The Unquiet Grave

The American Folk Experience

The Unquiet Grave

by John Fitzsimmons | The American Folk Experience

Child Ballad #78

Cold blows the wind to my true love,
And gently falls the rain.
I’ve never had but one true love,
And in green-wood he lies slain.

I’ll do as much for my true love,
As any young girl may,
I’ll sit and mourn all on his grave,
For twelve months and a day.

And when twelve months and a day was passed,
The ghost did rise and speak,
“why sittest thou all on my grave
And will no let me sleep?”

“Go fetch me water from the desert,
And blood from out the stone,
Go fetch me milk from a fair maid’s breast
That young man never has known.”

“My breast is cold as the clay,
My breath is earthly strong,
And if you kiss my cold clay lips,
Your days they won’t be long.”

“How oft on yonder grave, sweetheart,
Where we were want to walk,
The fairest flower that e’er I saw
Has withered to a stalk.”

“when will we meet again, sweetheart,
When will we meet again?”
“when the autumn leaves that fall from the trees
Are green and spring up again.”

If you have any more information to share about this song or helpful links, please post as a comment.

Thanks for stopping by the site!

~John Fitz

1 Comment

  1. J.Heath
    J.Heath on March 3, 2026 at 9:05 PM

    this means a lot to me, if another living person is to read this, please experience the feeling, know that somewhere in this world i live and you will never know anything of me, and i will know nothing of you, but what you will now know of me, is that this ballad means something to me

    Reply

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

I share their research on my site with humility, thanks, and gratitude. Please cite their work accordingly with your own research. If you have any research or sites you would like to share on this site, please post in the comment box.  Thanks!

Source: Wikipedia

Edit links
For other uses, see Unquiet Grave (disambiguation).

"The Unquiet Grave" is an Irish / English folk song in which a young man's grief over the death of his true love is so deep that it disturbs her eternal sleep. It was collected in 1868 by Francis James Child as Child Ballad number 78.[1] One of the more common tunes used for the ballad is the same as that used for the English ballad "Dives and Lazarus" and the Irish pub favorite "Star of the County Down".

Synopsis

A man mourns his true love for "a twelve month and a day". At the end of that time, the dead woman complains that his weeping is keeping her from peaceful rest. He begs a kiss. She tells him it would kill him. When he persists, wanting to join her in death, she explains that once they are both dead their hearts will simply decay, so he should enjoy life while he has it.

Variants

The version noted by Cecil Sharp[2] ends with "When will we meet again? / When the autumn leaves that fall from the trees / Are green and spring up again."

Many verses in this ballad have parallels in other ballads: Bonny Bee Hom, Sweet William's Ghost and some variants of The Twa Brothers.[3]

Return of the dead

The motif that excessive grief can disturb the dead is found also in German and Scandinavian ballads, as well as Greek and Roman traditions.[4]

In 1941 the "Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society" Vol 4 no 2 included a long essay by Ruth Harvey. She compares motifs from "The Unquiet Grave" with other European ballads, including "Es ging ein Knab spazieren (Der tote Freier)" from Germany, and "Faestemanden I Graven" from Denmark.[5] She writes: "It is only inevitable that a song which certainly goes back to pre-Christian traditions should have suffered modification during the centuries."[6]

The Danish ballad "Faestemanden I Graven" was made into a short film, "Aage og Else" (1983).[7] Though not recorded till the nineteenth century, “The Unquiet Grave,” as a folk work, may date to the same period as those two seventeenth-century ballads. On the Fresno State University website, Robert B Waltz compares "The Unquiet Grave" with an older carol, "There blows a cold wind today," in the Bodleian Library MS 7683 (dated ca. 1500), but adds: "I must say that I find this a stretch; the similarities are slight indeed."[8]

Recordings

  • The composer Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote several arrangements for "How Cold the Wind doth Blow (or The Unquiet Grave)". The best known, from 1912, is for piano, violin and voice. It was recorded in 1976 by Sir Philip Ledger, Hugh Bean and Robert Tear. Catalogue It also appears on the 1989 recording Songs of Britten and Vaughan Williams by Canadian baritone Kevin McMillan.
  • Kate Rusby, Rebsie Fairholm, Carol Noonan, Joan Baez, the Dubliners, Solas, Barbara Dickson, Shirley Collins, Circulus, David Pajo, Fire + Ice and Sarah Calderwood have recorded versions of this song.
  • A single-movement viola concerto by Australian composer Andrew Ford used the melody of the ballad as its foundation. Written in 1997, the concerto is pieced together from melodic fragments of the ballad and it is only in the final few minutes that the full theme emerges.
  • Being a well-documented song and publicised by English Folk Dance and Song Society,[9] The Broadside Ballads Project,[10] and Mainly Norfolk,[11] the song was recorded by Jon Boden and Oli Steadman for inclusion in their respective lists of daily folk songs "A Folk Song A Day"[12] and "365 Days Of Folk".[13]
  • The Pennsylvania-based alternative rock band Ween recorded a version of the song (retitled "Cold Blows the Wind") on their 1997 album, The Mollusk. The liner notes jokingly describe the song as a traditional Chinese spiritual.
  • The gothic/darkwave band Faith and the Muse recorded a version on their debut Elyria in 1994.
  • It was recorded and released as a duet between Ian Read and Ysanne Spevack in 2000, distributed by Tesco in Germany, and pressed up on blue vinyl with a letterpress gatefold cover under the band name Fire + Ice.[14]
  • Papa M recorded a version for his 2001 album "Whatever, Mortal"
  • The folk-rock group Steeleye Span recorded a version on their 2009 album Cogs, Wheels and Lovers.
  • Electro noir artist Alien Skin, formerly with Real Life (of '80s "Send Me An Angel" fame), recorded a version on his 2010 album The Unquiet Grave.
  • Orcadian singer Kris Drever recorded a version of this song to music of his own on Lau's album Lightweights and Gentlemen in 2009.
  • The eleven-piece folk band Bellowhead recorded a cover of Ween's version ("Cold Blows the Wind") for their 2010 album Hedonism.
  • An electronic arrangement by Vladislav Korolev was sung by Lori Joachim Fredrics and premiered on April 13, 2013.
  • The German electronica/darkwave band Helium Vola included a rendition on their 2013 album, Wohin?.
  • British folk singer/songwriter Elliott Morris included an arrangement of "Unquiet Grave" on his 2013 EP, Shadows and Whispers.
  • British medieval folk-rock band Gryphon recorded their interpretation of the ballad using the Dives and Lazarus melody on their 1973 debut album, Gryphon.
  • English progressive rock musician Steven Wilson recorded an arrangement of the song. It was the B-Side to "Cover version IV", one of a series of six singles, each consisting of a cover of a song written by another artist as the A-side, with the B-sides consisting of original songs (with the exception of "The Unquiet Grave"). The six cover versions and corresponding B-sides were released together on a compilation album, Cover Version, in 2014.
  • Part of the song was performed by Helen McCrory in the Penny Dreadful episode "Fresh Hell", and again by Sarah Greene in "And They Were Enemies".
  • The Ghosts of Johnson City recorded a version of the song for their 2015 album Am I Born To Die?
  • Daoirí Farrell recorded a version of the song on his 2016 album "True Born Irishman"
  • Joan Baez sings it on three albums:
  • House and Land interpret the song as their final track on their self-titled 2017 album.
  • The English folk duo The Askew Sisters recorded the ballad on their 2014 album In the Air or the Earth.
  • The Spanish dark pagan folk band Trobar de Morte recorded a version of the song on their eighth studio album The Book of Shadows in 2020.
  • Irish singers Pauline Scanlon and Damien Dempsey performed a six and a half minute duet on Scanlon's 2022 album, The Unquiet.
  • American Pine Barrens folk band Jackson Pines recorded their interpretation for their album Pine Barrens Vol. 1 in 2023. The ballad was connected to a lost town called Colliers Mills in their hometown of Jackson, NJ by song-catcher Herbert Halpert in 1936. Allen Clevenger of Wrightstown sang it to him and said his mother-in-law Mrs. Grover nee Cotter sang it in Colliers Mills as a girl.
  • Canadian Celtic/Polka Punk Band The Dreadnoughts released a version of the song on March 14, 2023.

References

  1. ^ Francis James Child, Scottish and English Popular Ballads, "The Unquiet Grave"
  2. ^ Cecil J. Sharp (Ed) (1975) One Hundred English Folksongs (For Medium Voice), Dover, ISBN 0-486-23192-5
  3. ^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 2, p 234, Dover Publications, New York 1965
  4. ^ Francis James Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, v 2, p 234-6, Dover Publications, New York 1965
  5. ^ Zachcial, Michael (13 February 1856). "Herr". Deutsche Volkslieder. Müller-Lüdenscheidt-Verlag. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  6. ^ Matteson, Richard. "Mr". Bluegrassmessengers. Blugreass Messengers. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  7. ^ Thomsen, Knud Leif. "Aage og Else". IMDB. ImdbPro. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  8. ^ Waltz, Robert. "Unquiet Grave, The [Child 78]". Traditional Ballad Index. Fresno State University. Retrieved 31 October 2022.
  9. ^ "Captain Ward, a Pirate Song". 3 September 2014. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  10. ^ "Captain Ward". Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  11. ^ "Captain Ward and the Rainbow". Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  12. ^ "Captain Ward". 6 January 2015. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  13. ^ "Captain Ward And The Royal Rainbow". Retrieved 9 January 2024.
  14. ^ "Death in June / Fire + Ice - We Said Destroy". Discogs. 2000.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Unquiet_Grave

Source: Mainly Norfolk

The Unquiet Grave / Cold Blows the Wind

[ Roud 51 ; Child 78 ; Ballad Index C078 ; Bodleian Roud 51 ; Wiltshire Roud 51 ; 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 19thcentury. 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 onVoices.

Louis Killen learnt The Unquiet Grave from Brian Ballinger and sang in on his 1993 CD A Bonny Bunch.

Steeleye Span sang One True Love in 1998 on their CD Horkstow Grange, and they recorded The Unquiet Grave in 2009 for their CD Cogs Wheels and Lovers. Tim Harries commented in the former album’s notes:

The sources for [One True Love] are The Unquiet Grave, (spooky old English song), Lovely Joan, and a small fragment of Lowlands of Holland. The inspiration came largely from Borrowed Time by Paul Monette, a book you may be familiar with.

Kate Rusby couldn’t let the dead sleep on her 1999 CD Sleepless.

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.

Rachel Newton sang The Unquiet Grave on The Furrow Collective’s 2015 EP Blow Out the Moon. She commented in the album’s notes:

I took the words for the well known ballad The Unquiet Grave from Child no. 78a; and the melody I use is based on a version I learned from the singing of Shirley Collins.

Siobhan Miller sang The Unquiet Grave on her 2017 album Strata.

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.”
Shirley Collins sings The Unquiet Grave Nancy Kerr sings The Unquiet Grave
“Cold blows the wind tonight, true love,
Cold are the drops of rain,
I only had but one true love
And in Greenwood he lies slain.		 “The wind doth blow today, my love,
And a few small drops of rain;
I never had but one true love
And in Greenwood he is lain.
“I’ll do as much for my true love
As any young girl may,
I’ll sit and mourn all by his grave
For a twelve-month and a day.”		 “I’ll do as much for my true love
As any young girl may,
I’ll sit and mourn all on his grave
For twelve months and a day.”
Now the twelve-month and a day being gone,
The ghost began to greet:
“Your salten tears they trickle down
They wet my winding sheet.”		 The twelve months and a day being done,
The dead began to speak:
“Oh, who sits weeping on my grave
And will not let me sleep?”
“It’s I, my love, sits by your grave
And will not let you sleep.
For I crave one kiss from your clay-cold lips
And that is all I seek.”		 “’Tis I, your love sits on your grave
And will not let you sleep.
For I crave one kiss of your clay-cold lips
And that is all I seek.”
“But lily, lily are my lips,
My breath comes earthy strong.
If you have one kiss from my clay-cold lips,
Your time will not be long.”		 “Your breath is as the roses sweet,
Mine as the sulphur strong.
And if you get one kiss from my lips,
Your time will not be long.“
“’Twas down in yonder garden green,
Love, where we used to walk.
And the fairest flower that e’er was seen
Has withered to the stalk.”		 “’Tis down in yonder garden green,
Love, where we used to walk.
The finest flower that e’er was seen
Is withered to a stalk.”
“The stalk is withered dry, true love,
So must our hearts decay.
Then rest yourself content, my dear,
Till God calls you away,
Till God calls you away.”		 “The stalk is withered and dry, sweetheart,
And the flower will never return.
And since I lost my own true love
What can I do but mourn?”“Mourn not for me, my own true love,
Mourn not for me I pray.
For I must leave you and all the world
And go into my grave.”
Bellowhead sings Cold Blows the Wind Steeleye Span sing One True Love
“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.”		 Cold blows the wind o’er my true love,
Cold blows the drops of rain,
I never had but one true love
And never will again.I’ll do as much for my true love
As any lover may,
I’ll sit and weep down by his grave
A twelve-month in one day.One kiss, one kiss from your sweet lips,
One kiss is all I grave.
One kiss, one kiss from your sweet lips,
And sink down in your grave.And your lips, they are not sweet my love
Your kiss is cold as clay,
My time be long, my time be short,
Tomorrow or today.And down beyond the garden wall,
Where we both used to walk,
Are finest flowers that ever grew
All withered to a stalk.(repeat first verse)

Acknowledgements

Transcribed from the singing of Nancy Kerr by Kira White.

Source: Traditional Songfacts

  • “The Unquiet Grave” is both a poem and a song. Intensely sad, and written in the first person singular, the mourner laments the love of his life sitting weeping at her graveside for a year and a day, at which point her ghost rises up and asks who will not allow her to sleep. He identifies himself and asks for “one kiss of your clay-cold lips”. She disavows him of that notion, and tells him to put his grief behind him and enjoy the rest of his life “Till God calls you away”.

  • Like most traditional songs there are many variations, of the title as well as the lyrics in this case. Extensive research on its origin and development can be found in Volume II of The Traditional Tunes Of The Child Ballads With Their Texts, according to the Extant Records of Great Britain and America, by Bertrand Harris Bronson, which was published by Princeton University Press in 1962.
    According to this book, none of the extant texts of the ballad is older than the early 19th Century but it probably dates from about the end of the 15th. A version was recorded by [ie sung to] musicologist Cecil Sharp on January 23, 1907 by Mrs Ware of Eley Over Stowey. The same day, Sharp recorded “Cold Blows The Wind” by James Chedgey of Bincombe Over Stowey.
    Sabine Baring-Gould (who is best known for writing the lyrics to “Onward Christian Soldiers”) collected a version, from J. Woodrich, a blacksmith of Wollacot Moor, Thrushleton, in 1889.
    Probably the earliest recorded version is “Cold Blows The Wind” which was sung by Elizabeth Doidge, a nurse of Brentnor, and collected by Mrs Gibbons, the daughter of W.L.Trelawney, Bart, c1830. This version had the tune usually associated with “Childe The Hunter”.There is also “How Cold The Winds Do Blow”, sung by Mrs Rugman of Dunsfold, Surrey, 1896; “Cold Blows The Wind To-night, Sweetheart”, sung by Mrs Bowker, of Sunderland Point, Lancashire, in September 1909, and further afield, “The Auld Song From Cow Head” sung by the Reverend Mr Gibbs Bull of Newfoundland in 1929.

  • Another musicologist who researched “The Unquiet Grave” in some depth was the aforementioned Cecil Sharp. Volume I of the 1994 Oxford University Press edition of his …Collection Of English Folk Songs, Edited by Maud Karpeles records no less than seventeen different versions, the oldest of which was sung to him by Mrs Ree at Hambridge, Somerset, on April 4, 1904.

  • “The Unquiet Grave” has been recorded by many artists, including Joan Baez and Karen Mall (suitably amended for gender) and by Luke Kelly. >>

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No Dad To Come Home To

by | August 26, 2014 | Dawghouse, Songs | 0 Comments

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

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Ring of Fire: The Power of Simplicity

by | March 28, 2017 | Journal, Songs, Teaching, The American Folk Experience | 0 Comments

In fifth grade my mother finally let me go to the Concord Music store and buy a "45" single.  I bought Johnny Cash’s version of “Ring of Fire” written by his future wife June Carter and Merle Kilgore, a noted country songwriter of his day. There was no doubt in my...
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Reflecting on Literature

by | March 27, 2017 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

I am constantly asking my students (and myself) to reflect on the literature they, and I, read. As I have grown older—and not necessarily wiser—I find myself only reading literature that I am sure will prod me out of my intellectual and emotional torpor, like a lizard...
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The Mystery in the Cradle

by | December 25, 2013 | Journal | 0 Comments

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

by | July 14, 2014 | Poetry, Raccoon | 0 Comments

There is a soldier dressed in ancient English wool guarding the entrance to the inn. He is lucky for this cool night awaiting the pomp of the out of town wedding party. He is paid to be unmoved by the bride's stunning beauty or her train of lesser escorts. He will not...
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Finally…

by | December 10, 2013 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

Just closed the lid, so to speak, on what seems to be weeks of school-related paperwork. I am excited to go to my classes tomorrow with only those classes on my mind--not the letters home to parents, the secondary school recs, the grades and comments to homeroom...
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Presenting…

by | February 3, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

"Anything worth succeeding in, is worth failing in."~by Edison?      A contractor friend showed up at my house a few weeks ago just after I finished making the hearth and installing my new wood/coal stove. He complimented me on how "awesome" it looked. I then lamented...
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A New Beginning

by | November 10, 2013 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

 I guess if there is any constant in my life, it is new beginnings.  This blog--and this website--is another new beginning starting here late on a cold night on my back porch. I've been keeping a blog (in fact several blogs) since the first blogs made their way on to...
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Welcome

by | August 12, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land... ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden I’ve...
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The Late and Lazy Teacher

by | May 1, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

I guess this is a good thing. I showed up five minutes late for class, and my classroom was empty. I walked the hallways of the school and could not find any of them. I sheepishly asked the assistant headmaster if he "happened to see a class of wandering boys?"No, he...
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Denise

by | August 14, 2014 | Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

There is something about coming hometo this empty house, yesterday'sheavy downpours scouringclean the alreadyweathered deckwhere I sitwishing for,wanting,you.
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Paris: 11/13/15

by | November 14, 2015 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

It is a sad day for humanity. Another sad day on top of many others happening every day--many in places we hear about only obliquley and sometimes not at all. Paris is that much closer to home for most of us here and in Europe, but freedom and tolerance has to...
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Out of the Forge: March 30, 2017

by | March 31, 2017 | Journal, Out of the Forge | 0 Comments

Every Thursday Night at The Colonial Inn On the Green, in Concord, Massachusetts This is my first attempt at trying to record a night at the inn, so please forgive my engineering errors as a producer. I simply used the Bose Tonematch into Garageband and called it good...
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Practice Doing

by | April 26, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

Someday, someone might fire you for not doing what you should have done.    There are some days when a teacher might wonder whether it is worth giving the extra effort if the students are not giving the extra effort. I am lucky--and cursed--that I get to live and...
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Concord

by | July 14, 2014 | Poetry, Raccoon | 0 Comments

The people, the music filledness of rush hour traffic skirting puddles work crews packing in laughswearingmudyellowed slickers lighting candle bombs. My sadness the euphoric detachment. I love this town. It breathes me.
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Close Your Eyes and See

by | April 9, 2016 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

      A lot of things in life fall short of the mark, but thoughtfulness has never let me down. For some forty years I have faithfully kept journals of the wanderings of my mind—most of which is lost in some way or another, but the effect hangs on like a sailor...
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Wrenching Day

by | July 13, 2017 | Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

It has certainly been a long time since wisdom ruled the day. I did get up and run in the rain, and now I am preparing to do some “wrenching” on my motorcycle. I am trying to temper my eagerness to ride with my desire to get everything “right” on the bike--without...
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Pruning

by | July 14, 2014 | Poetry, Raccoon | 0 Comments

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

by | January 22, 2015 | Journal | 0 Comments

I am sitting here in class while my students write their "daily ramble."  If I have learned anything from teaching it is that kids need the time in class to practice what is preached.  As teachers we can't assign homework and remotely know what is happening at the...
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Canobie lake

by | June 3, 2014 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

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

by | September 17, 2014 | Journal | 0 Comments

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

by | May 13, 2016 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

Wisdom starts in non-action… The doing and non-doing are the equal balance. Without the luxury of contemplation there would not be a prioritizing of need versus want. Wisdom balances physical reality… Wisdom does not shuffle tasks out of view but finds a way to...
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Life Ain’t Hard; Its Just a Waterfall

by | August 12, 2014 | Fires in the Belly, Songs | 0 Comments

You say, hey,
who are you to say that you’re the one
to go telling me just where I’m coming from.
You can have your cake
but don’t frost me ‘til I’m done.
I can’t be fixed and I can’t afford to stall;
because life ain’t hard it’s just a waterfall.

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Let It Snow, Let It Snow…

by | February 2, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

You can't kill time without wounding eternity. ~Henry David Thoreau       Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...but don't let it totally define your day. Most of us see a snow day as an unexpected vacation day, though really what it is could be called "a day of...
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The Mystery Within

by | August 15, 2014 | Journal, Poetry | 0 Comments

EJ wanted a banana tree for Christmas so that early morning brought a plastic bag, a few meager roots and no directions. I bought some potting soil and a square cedar box EJ placed deliberately by a westward window. He gently splayed the roots, pressed the soil, and...
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There is in an easiness

by | June 8, 2018 | Journal | 0 Comments

When I begin to think of myself. My girded shell squeezing Oysters in a jar; My oily viscera Jammed and joggled Into impossible places. My pancreas Is never where it should be; My esophagus cut cleanly Swirls in a diaspora. My tongue is a trapped In a tangle of...
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China Journal: Part One

by | July 23, 2015 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

I           The dull staccato throb in light rain on a dark night. Unseen barges make their way up the QianTian River—concrete shores marked by the arch of the bridge, the spans of beam stretched on beam, the impeccable symmetry of the street-lights broken by a stream...
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Many Miles To Go

by | August 12, 2014 | Fires in the Belly, Songs | 0 Comments

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

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Your Haiku…

by | March 25, 2026 | Journal | 0 Comments

I have had a go0d read so far reading your haiku. I have a couple of thoughts... I never quite know how to teach how to use specific imagery.  When I say "specific" maybe I "real." I--and every reader--wants to "see" what you are seeing. avoid anything generic that...
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Ghetto of Your Eye

by | November 11, 2015 | Fires in the Belly, Journal, Songs | 0 Comments

A Veteran's Day Remembrance I wrote this song back in the winter of 1989 in the dining car of a steam driven train, somewhere along the Trans-Siberian railway, after meeting a group of Russian soldiers fresh from battle in Afghanistan—that poor country that has been a...
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Last of the Boys

by | August 12, 2014 | Fires in the Belly, Songs | 0 Comments

Come on over here
and I’ll buy the next round:
cold beer and some shooters
for the boys on the town;
Darby ain’t drinkin’
so let’s live it up
‘cause he’ll drive us all home
in his company truck

Jesus Christ, Jimmy,
man you say that you’re well;
I say we drive into Boston
and stir up some hell;
put a cap on the weekend,
a stitch in the night,
watch the Pats play on Sunday
and the welterweight fight.

That’s all she wrote boys,
there ain’t any more;
that’s why we’re standing here;
that’s what it’s for.
That’s why we all go on working all day
busting our ass for short pay:
~Hey…

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Out of the Forge: April 6, 2017

by | April 11, 2017 | Journal, Out of the Forge | 0 Comments

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

by | July 5, 2019 | Journal | 0 Comments

I've been spending a lot of time lately writing sketches of songs—some more complete than others. I have found that it takes time for a song to evolve into its final form, so what I have posted here is more the end of the beginning, not the end. Denise gave me the...
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Dallas: 7/7/2016

by | July 8, 2016 | Journal | 0 Comments

I woke up this morning almost too fearful to read the news. I stayed up late into the night just watching for the breaking stories and updates. Now, I am simplyconfused about how to act. I feel incredibly small and pointless, unsure of where I stand and how to move...
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Crows & Swallows Release

by | October 21, 2017 | Journal | 0 Comments

There is seldom a red-carpet celebration when a book of poetry is released, so I will keep this a quiet and humble affair. My newest book of poetry, “Crows & Swallows” is now on iBooks, so fresh you can almost smell the ink. My business model is unchanged: It is a...
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Fenn Speaks…

by | May 11, 2019 | Essays, Journal, Poetry, Teaching | 0 Comments

I am You, and You are me... Give a damn & figure it out        I feel like one of my students: it’s the night before my big presentation at All-school-meeting, and I still don’t know what I am going to talk about. I just know I am supposed to talk about me......
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The End Is the Beginning

by | September 2, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

For the past twenty years this night has always been a bittersweet moment. I have never been hobbled by boredom or a lack of "things I love to do," so whatever supposed free time I have is rewarding in whatever I choose to do. The flip side is that I am teacher, and I...
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The Philanthropy of Maynard

by | December 13, 2015 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

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

by | January 29, 2014 | Essays, Journal, Teaching | 0 Comments

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

by | July 27, 2016 | Essays, Journal | 0 Comments

  Like birds of a feather, we gather together, 'Cuz they're feeling exactly like you... ~John Prine   I am not afraid of being a white minority. I had lunch today with a Jamaican drummer, a Ugandan farmer, and a Senagalese potter. I don’t say this out of...
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