> The Copper Family > Songs > Wind Across the Moor
Mary of the Wild Moor / Wind Across the Moor
[
Roud 155
/ Song Subject MAS59
; Laws P21
; G/D 6:1175
; Ballad Index LP21
; Bodleian
Roud 155
; GlosTrad
Roud 155
; Wiltshire
1030
; Folkinfo 259
; DT WLDMOOR1
; Mudcat 24537
;
Just Another Tune;
trad.]
Bob Copper: Early to Rise John Howson: Songs Sung in Suffolk Frank Kidson: Traditional Tunes Folk-Songs of the North-Countrie Frank Purslow: The Constant Lovers Steve Roud, Julia Bishop: The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs
Blue Sky Boys recorded Mary of the Wild Moor on 5 February 1940 in Atlanta, Georgia for their 10" shellac record Montgomery Ward M-8667. This recording was included in 2015 on the Nehi anthology of British songs in the USA, My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean. Steve Roud noted:
This song was very popular with singers in Britain, but not often noted down by the folk song collectors, probably because it was too much like a sentimental Victorian tear-jerker, although we know it has existed since at least about 1820. American collectors, however, had no such qualms, and it is included in nearly all the major folk song collections. It also appeared widely on 19th-century broadsides.
Sarah Porter sang The Wind Across the Wild Moor in a recording made by Brian Matthews at The Three Cups, Punnetts Town, East Sussex in 1965. It was included in 2001 on the Musical Traditions anthology of songs from 1960 country pubs, Just Another Saturday Night. The album’s booklet noted:
Despite there being 155 entries for this song in Roud, it appears to have been recorded from only six singers—although the Delia Murphy and Louvin Brothers’ versions are missing from the list. In Sussex, only the Copper family have been noted as knowing the song, but as Sarah had travelled “all over the country” she could have learned it almost anywhere.
From the evidence, it appears to be a 19th century English broadside hit which then travelled to America and became far more popular there than in its native land—Edden Hammons played the tune as Mary the Wild Mere in West Virginia in the ’30s, (now available on WVU Press SA-2). Besides Sarah and the Coppers, only Frank Hinchliffe (Yorkshire) and Charlie Hancy (Suffolk) are indicated in Roud as having knows it in England since 1910.
Bob and John Copper sang Wind Across the Moor in 1971 on the Copper Family’s Leader Records box set A Song for Every Season, and John Copper and Jon Dudley sang it on their 1998 CD Coppersongs 3: The Legacy Continues.
Bill Clifton sang Mary of the Wild Moor in 1974 on his and Hedy West’s album on the German labels Folk Variety / Bear Family, Getting Folk Out of the Country. Hedy West noted:
Mary of the Wild Moor was credited in 1845 to a Briton, Joseph W. Turner. Whether he was author or reviser is unclear. The song has shown up all the way from Yorkshire through central and southern England, and from Nova Scotia down the entire east coast of the US, throughout the Mid-West and in parts of the Far West. Its widespread acceptance by traditional singers, and its lack of variation, may be explained by the frequency with which it was printed in British and American broadsides and songsters.
Its theme (disastrous results of unloyal love) and its chronological narrative are standard in folk balladry, but its sentimental attitude is characteristic of 19th century broadside style. The tune is of stage or parlour origin.
Bill no longer remembers where he learned it but he heard it early on from Doc Williams and the Border Riders, and later from the Blue Sky Boys.
Frank Hinchliffe sang Mary Across the Wild Moor on his 1977 Topic album of traditional songs from South Yorkshire, In Sheffield Park. Ruairidh and Alvina Greig noted:
Perhaps because of its open sentimentality, this song has rarely been published in collections in this country. It was printed by many broadside printers, including Ford of Chesterfield, Barr of Leeds and Bebbington of Manchester, and it is listed in Catnach’s 1832 catalogue. It is known in Australia, is not uncommon in America, and has been collected in this country by Frank Kidson in Yorkshire, George Gardiner in Hampshire, Alfred Williams in Gloucestershire and both W.A. Barrett and Mike Yates in Sussex. Sentimental songs like this appear to have always enjoyed considerable popularity with country singers and it seems strange and regrettable that so few of them have been noted down.
Charlie Hancy from Bungay, Suffolk sang The Wind Across the Moor on the 1989 Veteran Tapes cassette of sentimental songs, Songs Sung in Suffolk Vol. 4. John Howson’s book Songs Sung in Suffolk gives another version sung by Ted Quantrill from Lowestoft.
Helen Bonchek Schneyer sang Mary on the Wild Moor in 1992 on her Straight Arrow album Somber, Sacred and Silly.
Dolly Parton sang Mary on the Wild Moor live at Dollywood Celebrity Theater, Tennessee on 23 April 1994. The concert’s recording was released in the same year on her album Heartsongs.
Will Duke and Dan Quinn sang Mary on the Wild Moor on their 1996 album Wild Boys. They noted:
This version of the well-known tear-jerker is from Delia Murphy, a lovely singer and once Irish ambassador to the Argentine.
Andy Turner learned The Wind Across the Wild Moor from the Copper Family’s album and sang it as the 4 February 2012 entry of his project A Folk Song a Week.
Nick Dow sang Mary on the Well Moor on his 2013 album Old England’s Ground. He noted:
Collected by Sharp from the redoubtable Emma Overd of Langport. I met the Overd Family and they gave me quite a verbal picture of their ancestor. Referring to her rather coyly as “a bit of a Swinger”! It’s worth reading Sharps description of her, it’s quite an eye opener. Mary on the Wild Moor is a typical Victorian weepie, but with Emma Overd’s tune it works like a dream. There is a copy of the original broadsheet for the song in this booklet. Emma had some belting tunes and words including the version of Bruton Town sung by Martin Carthy. Thanks to The Full English website we can now call up her entire repertoire at the click of a mouse.
Thomas McCarthy sang Mary of the Wild Moor on his 2020 album Last Man Standing. He noted:
“Doomed to roam without friend or home.” A tragic ballad with a strong social comment, with possible English roots. The lament suggests Mary had a child out wedlock.
Mary has regrets at leaving, when she returns across the wild moor one dark bitter winter night in hope of returning home, her father due to his deafness couldn’t hear her impassioned cries for help. The following morning he found his daughter dead on the doorstep. The child was still alive but the old man in his grief pined away and the child soon followed. The cottage was left in ruin as a monument to the tragedy.
Lyrics
Sarah Porter sings The Wind Across the Wild Moor
“O why did I leave my home
To go out in this wide world to roam?
If I had have stayed at home
Sure my baby would never been born.”
O the old man come down in the morn,
Found poor Mary dead at his door
With the child still alive at her breast
That was clasped in his dead mother’s arms.
“O father come down let me in,
Come down and you open my door.
My child at my bosom will die
For the winds do blow ’cross the wild moor.”
Sure the old man with silvery hair,
Not a voice nor a sound touched his ear.
And the old clock did chime in the night
And winds do blow ’cross the wild moor.
For the old man come down in the morn,
Found poor Mary dead at his door
With the child still alive at her breast
It was clapped in his dead mother’s arms.
Bob and John Copper sing Wind Across the Moor
’Twas a cold winter’s night and the wind
Blew bitter across the wild moor.
’Twas then that poor Mary returned with her child
Wandering home to her own father’s door.
Crying, “Father, I pray, let me in!
O come down and open the door!
Or the child that I hold at my bosom will die
As the wind blows across the wild moor.”
“O why did I leave that fair spot
Where I was happy and free,
Forever to roam without friend or a home?
Pray father, take pity on me!”
Her father was deaf to the cry
When the sound reached him over the door.
And the watchdog he barked at the wind as it blew
Coldly across the wild moor.
You can’t think what a father he felt
When he came to the door in the morn.
Poor Mary his daughter lay dead with the child,
Clasped alive in the dead mother’s arms.
With vengeance he tore his grey hair,
On his Mary he gazed from the door.
’Twas on that cold night that she perished and died
As the wind blows across the wild moor.
The father in grief pined away
And the child to its mother went soon.
There’s no-one alive there to this very day
And the cottage to ruins has gone.
The villager points out the cote
Where the wild rose droops over the door.
’Twas there Mary died by the house of her bride
As the wind blows across the wild moor.
Acknowledgements
I copied the lyrics from the then Copper Family’s website; by now they seem to have been removed there.