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The Fatal Snowstorm / (It Was in) The Month of January / Cruel Was My Father

[ Roud 175 / Song Subject MAS1502 ; Master title: The Fatal Snowstorm ; Laws P20 ; G/D 6:1176 ; Ballad Index LP20 ; Folkinfo 873 ; DT FATALSN2 ; Mudcat 45014 ; trad.]

Peter Kennedy: Folk Songs of Britain and Ireland Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger: Travellers’ Songs From England and Scotland Frank Purslow: The Constant Lovers

Sarah Makem sang It Was in the Month of January to Diane Hamilton in 1955. This recording was included in 1956 on the Tradition anthology of folk songs and dances from the Irish countryside, The Lark in the Morning, and in 2011 on Sarah Makem’s Musical Traditions anthology As I Roved Out. Rod Stradling noted in the accompanying booklet:

This is considered by many to be Sarah Makem’s greatest contribution to the annals of folksong. In a way, it’s surprising that it should be so revered, since it’s only really two verses followed by two floaters. But Sarah’s emotional yet controlled singing of a truly glorious tune ensures that it will be long remembered.

It treats one of the oldest themes in traditional song—the story of a young girl betrayed and abandoned by her lover and cast by cruel parents into the snow. Herbert Hughes prints a fragmentary version of this song, called The Fanaid Grove, in Irish Country Songs Volume I. For an augmented text see Kennedy, Folksongs of Britain and Ireland.

It’s not a particularly well-known song, with only 33 Roud entries; it goes by many titles, but none is more prevalent than the others. It has been sung all over these islands, and North America, but is most common in Ireland, with singers Geordie Hanna, Paddy Tunney, Tom Lenihan, and Dan MacGinty being named as well as Sarah. Although 15 sound recordings are listed, only those by Geordie Hanna (The Fisher’s Cot CD) and Paddy Tunney (TSCD656) are still available on CD.

Sarah Makem also sang It Was in the Month of January at home in Keady, Co. Armagh, in 1967 in a recording made by Bill Leader. This recording was published a year later on her Topic LP Ulster Ballad Singer. Sean O’Boyle noted:

This is Sarah Makem’s greatest contribution to the annals of folksong. Here she treats with great sincerity of feeling one of the oldest themes in traditional song—the story of a young girl betrayed and abandoned by her wealthy lover and cast by cruel parents into the snow. It concludes with the usual warning: (See Joyce, Old Irish Folk Music and Songs [1909], p. 210):

Come all you pretty fair maids, a warning take by me
And never try to build your nest on top of a high tree;
For the leaves they will all wither and the branches all decay
And the beauties of a false young man will all soon fade away.

Herbert Hughes prints a fragmentary version of this song, called The Fanaid Grove, in Irish Country Songs, Vol. I [1909]. I know of no other folk song composed to the same melody—a beautiful example of a modified Soh Mode.

Another 1967 recording, made by Peter Kennedy and Sean Boyle was included in 2012 on Sarah Makem’s Topic anthology The Heart Is True (The Voice of the People Series Volume 24).

Caroline Hughes sang It Was on a Cold and Winter’s Night to Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger in 1963 or 1966. This recording was included in 2014 on her Musical Traditions anthology Sheep-Crook and Black Dog. Rod Stradling’s notes are similar to those on Sarah Makem’s album.

Paddie Bell sang It Was in the Month of January accompanied by Martin Carthy on guitar, in 1965 on her EMI/Waverley album Paddie - Herself. W. Gordon Smith noted:

We have to thank the mother of Tommy Makem, the odd-man-out in the Clancy group, for this beautiful ballad. Mrs Makem collected the song and, in the unselfish way of the true folk enthusiast, handed it on.

Paddy Tunney sang The Month of January on his 1966 Topic album recorded by Bill Leader, The Irish Edge. This track was also included in 1998 on the Topic anthology Tonight I’ll Make You My Bride (The Voice of the People Series Volume 6). Sean O’Boyle noted on the original album:

Here is one of the eternal folk-themes, the lamentations of the young girl expelled from her father’s home because of her love for a ‘false young man’. Herbert Hughes, in his Irish Country Songs gives a few verses of it to a different air under the title of The Fanaid Grove. Paddy learned his version from the singing to a different air of the famous Sarah Makem of Keady, Co. Armagh. The very interesting melody is in the Sol mode. I know of no other song sung to this air.

Frankie Armstrong sang The Month of January on her 1976 Topic LP Songs and Ballads. A.L. Lloyd noted:

Frankie finds this “one of the most beautiful of many songs of this kind, where the woman is left literally holding the baby while the errant father has gone off in search of fortune elsewhere.” Her version reproduces that of Sarah Makem, the fine Ulster Ballad Singer. There’s a nice Donegal version called The Fanaid Grove, in Herbert Hughes’s Irish Country Songs, Vol. 1, and in Joyce’s Old Irish Folk Music and Songs is a fragmentary set sung by a reaper in a harvest field, containing the aromatic line: “My love is as sweet as the cinnamon tree.”

Sinéad Caher sang The Month of January in 1978 on her Mulligan album Flower of Magherally. Cathal O Boyle noted:

This song really fits into that category disparagingly referred to as “Come-all-ye”. It fits only because it has a verse which begins with those words. It is a magnificent song and like “Come all ye Faithful” belies any disparagement intended by the title “Come-all-ye”. This song Sinéad got from Sarah Makem of Keady.

Tom Lenihan sang this song as A Wintry Evening on his 1978 Topic album of songs traditional in West Clare, Paddy’s Panacea. Tom Munnelly noted:

The Fatal Snowstorm, a “sentimental and flowery piece” by John Embleton, is probably the source of this ballad (see G.Malcolm Laws, American Balladry From British Broadsides (Philadelphia, 1957), 258) and Kenneth Peacock refers to his Newfoundland version as “a tear-jerker”. Very well, so the theme of a girl with her fatherless baby being turned into the freezing night can be the very epitome of Victorian mawkishness, but it can also be within the power of a fine ballad singer to raise it from the trough of sentimentality and demonstrate his ability as arr objective storyteller. This is exactly what Tom Lenihan does here.

The story itself is certainly congenial to the folk and a very similar song, Mary on the Wild Moor (Laws P21), is also found in Ciare. The Month of January, which is sung exquisitely by Sarah Maken of Co. Armagh (Topic 12T182), is certainly related to A Wintry Evening and may, in fact, be a particularly successful traditional reworking of this song which Tom learned from his mother.

As Fanaid Grove Herbert Hughes publishes an ‘adapted’ version in his Irish Country Songs (1999, Vol. 1, 55-8).

Dolores Keane sang The Month of January in 1979 on her and John Faulkner’s Mulligan album Broken Hearted I’ll Wander. She noted:

When I was growing up in Caherlistrane, singers and musicians from the North of Ireland would often visit us. It was during a session with Cathal McConnell, Len Graham and the late Jeo Holmes that I learnt this song.

Sara Grey and Ellie Ellis sang this song as Wintry Winds on their 1982 Fellside album of songs and tunes from North America, A Breath of Fresh Air. They noted:

This short ballad from Ontario highlights the differences in social attitudes before the turn of the century towards women who bore children out of wedlock. This hauntingly beautiful song, which comes from the singing of Vera Keating of Ontario, emphasises the tragic irony of a woman who is outcast by her family to die a certain death.

June Tabor sang The Month of January on her 1983 Topic LP Abyssinians and on her 1993 compilation Anthology. She gave Sarah Makem as her source.

Kathryn Roberts sang Mother and Child in 1999 on Equation’s CD The Lucky Few. Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman recorded it again for their 2020 album On Reflection.

Bob Fox sang In the Month of January in 2000 on his CD Dreams Never Leave You. He noted:

One of the most beautiful melodies I’ve ever come across. The story is age old—the daughter of wealthy parents becomes pregnant to her poor lover who accepts a large bribe to disappear without trace!

I first heard Fiona Simpson of “Therapy” sing this; I believe it comes from the singing of Sarah Makem.

Alasdair Roberts sang The Month of January in 2001 on his Secretly Canadian album The Crook of My Arm.

Geordie Hanna of Derrytresk, Co Tyrone learned The Month of January from the Keane sisters and sang it on his posthumous 2002 album The Fisher’s Cot.

John Doyle and Linda Thompson sang The Month of January in 2005 on Doyle’s Compass CD Wayward Son. He noted:

I have always loved this song ever since I heard it on the Dolores Keane and John Faulkner recording Broken Hearted I’ll Wander. The stark loneliness of the lyric and tune is so lovely and haunting, one gets list in the heartbreak of it.

I am honoured to have Linda Thompson sing this with me. She’s one of the reasons I play music today and there’s no one who sings angst and heartache better than she.

Tim Radford sang The Month of January on his 2005 CD Home From Home. He noted:

Being born in January, I have always had a great affection for this song. The way the story is told as a third party means it can be sung by a man or a woman and still make sense, and this is a common device in traditional songs that makes them more accessible. Learned originally from the singing of Sarah Makem, I recently augmented it with a verse from Peter Kennedy’s Folk Songs of Britain and Ireland, where it is called The Forsaken Mother and Child.

The Albion Christmas Band sang The Month of January in 2008 on their CD Snow on Snow.

Debra Cowan sang Cruel Was My Father on her 2009 CD Fond Desire Farewell. She noted:

I had learned a version of this called In the Month of January that was collected by Peter Kennedy from Sarah Makem. To me, Makem’s tune was always hauntingly beautiful, but the story never quite made sense. Many years later I found another version of the song in the Helen Hartness Flanders Collection, sung by Mrs. Christine Henry of Providence, RI. We decided to put Mrs. Henry’s lyrics to Mrs. Makem’s tune to give this sad tale a setting that befits it.

Niamh Boadle sang The Month of January in 2010 on her CD Wild Rose.

Jon Boden sang In the Month of January as the 10 January 2011 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day.

Owl Service sang January Snows on their 2011 Rif Mountain album The Pattern Beneath the Plough.

Josienne Clarke sang The Month of January in 2012 on her and Ben Walker’s CD Fire and Fortune and in 2022 on her EP Now and Then.

Joshua Burnell sang In the Month of January on 18 January 2017 in his “a folk song a week” song cycle. This recording was included in 2021 on his album Seasons Vol. 1 Winter. He noted:

When January came around, what better song to choose than… In the Month of January! I learned it from Jon Boden’s A Folk Song a Day project (yeah, thanks Jon, now my folk-song-a-week project looks rubbish by comparison—) and just could not get the tune out of my head. All those bends and modal bits make it weirdly catchy and an unexpectedly good song to sing in the shower. You should try it sometime.

I found some chords to fit under the melody, and on guitar it recalled that wistful, hippie sound you’d expect from an early 70s Zeppelin album. I needed an instrumental part to slot in between the verses, and as luck would have it, there was another tune from Music to Make Merrie that I’d wanted to use: Lavolto.

Lavolto, or La Volta, was like a renaissance version of the macarena. Our buddy Thoinot Arbeau from earlier was big on his voltas and apparently wrote lots of instructions. He must have been a cheeky chappy, because the dance was considered a bit naughty. ‘Volta’ comes from ‘voltare’ (‘to turn’ in Italian) and the ‘turn’ in question was when the male dancer had to briefly lift up his female partner (filth!) leading King Louis XIII to the unavoidable decision to ban the dance. Disaster narrowly averted, Louis! Tres bien!

Ben did a superb job playing La Volta on mandolin, having heard it only once, just before I asked him to play it.

On reflection, my main criticism of this track is that the music doesn’t match the lyrics. They tell the tragic tale of a woman who has been abandoned by her true love and her father and now it seems even the weather is turning on her. Lines like, “he’ll kiss you and embrace you ‘til he thinks he has you won, then go away and leave you all for another one” are packed with such pain and bitter honesty that perhaps a more subdued arrangement would have worked better.

Siobhan Miller sang The Month of January on her 2017 album Strata.

The Unthanks sang The Month of January (Uncle Rat) on their 2022 album Sorrows Away. Adrian McNally noted:

There are two sources going on here—The Month of January, and the tune from a song called Uncle Rat, which is the tune heard between the verses. I found myself working on both a few years ago, when I was invited to a week in Galway by Moonfish Theatre Company, to help them develop a theatre adaptation of the Joseph O’Connor novel, Redemption Falls.

The Month of January is a heavily recorded song, but I felt Rachel and I could bring something new to it. In Galway I worked on it with Moonfish director Máiréad Ní Chróinín who also introduced me to Uncle Rat, which she learned from the singing of her great grandmother, the celebrated source singer, Elizabeth ‘Bess’ Cronin (1879-1956). Bess was called the “Queen of Irish Song” by Séamus Ennis; she was recorded by Alan Lomax, admired by Christy Moore and her legacy is captured in a recently released book by her grandson and Máiréad’s father, Dáibhí Ó Cróinín.

Uncle Rat is usually sung at fair pace. I’ve slowed it down and just used the tune. It’s a beauty!

Janice Burns and Jon Doran learned The Month of January from the singing of Paddy Tunney. They recorded it in 2024 for their album Great Joy to the New. They noted:

Although this age-old tale of deceit and heartbreak may not be our most festive song in this collection, it’s definitely one of the most beautiful. We learned it from listening to one of our all-time favourite singers, Paddy Tunney, who learned it from the legendary Irish singer Sarah Makem.

Janice & Jon’s earlier home video is from January 2021:

Lyrics

Sarah Makem sings It Was in the Month of January

It was in the month of January, the hills all clad with snow,
It was over hills and valley my true love he did go.
It was then I met a pretty young girl with a salt tear in her eye,
She had a baby in her arms and bitter she did cry.

“O cruel was my father that he barred the door to me,
And cruel was my mother, that dreadful crime to see.
Cruel was my own true love that he changed his mind for gold,
And cruel was that winter’s night that pierced my heart with cold.”

For the taller that the palm tree grows the sweeter is the bark,
And the fairer that a young man speaks, the falser is his heart.
For he’ll kiss you and embrace you till he thinks he has you won,
Then he’ll go away and leave you all for some other one.

So come all you pretty fair maidens and a warning take by me,
Never try and build your nest at the top of a high tree,
For the green leaves they will wither and the branches all decay
And the beauty of a young man it soon will fade away.

Caroline Hughes sings It Was on a Cold and Winter’s Night

It was on of a cold and winter’s night
When it first came down to snow;
Here’s my innocent babe all in my arms,
Not knowing where to go.

O how cruel it was my father
When he turned the door on me;
And how cruel it was your false-hearted mother
When she knowed what things would be.

[Later, Mrs Hughes sang this verse:
How cruel was my father
When he turned the door on me;
And how cruel was that false-hearted man
When he changed his love for gold.]

So, come all you nice young ladies
Will you take warning what now I say?
Don’t trust yourself to no young man
‘Til your heart don’t grieve no pain.

They will kiss, they’ll coax, they’ll cuddle you,
And they’ll call to you their bride;
And they’ll leave you like my first love left me
With sorrow, grief and pain.

O come hush-a-bye, my darling son,
O and don’t you begin to cry,
Now if your daddy did but know
All these things you’re suffering from,
He would roll you in his arms this night
And wrap you in flannel warm.

O we both jogged on together
‘Til we come to some union door.
Now as we feeled tired and sleepy,
O we set ourselves down to rest;
And we closed our eyes to the heavens above
And we both laid there and died.

June Tabor sings The Month of January

It was in the month of January, the hills all clad with snow,
It was over hills and valleys my true love he did go.
It was there I met a pretty young girl with a salt tear in her eye,
She had a baby in her arms and bitter she did cry.

For the taller that the palm tree grows, oh, the sweeter is the bark,
And the fairer that a young man speaks, oh, the falser is his heart.
O he’ll kiss you and embrace you till he thinks he has you won;
Then he’ll go away and leave you all for some other one.

So come all you pretty fair maids, and warning take by me,
Never try and build your nest at the top of a high tree,
For the green leaves they will wither and the branches all decay
And the beauty of a young man it soon will fade away.

Tim Radford sings The Month of January

It was in the month of January, the hills were clad with snow,
And over hills and valleys I carelessly did go.
It was there I spied a fair pretty maid with a salt tear in her eye,
She had a baby in her arms, and bitter she did cry.

“O cruel was my father who barred to door on me,
And cruel was my mother this dreadful crime to see,
But cruel was my own true love to change his mind for gold,
And cruel was the bitter wind that pierced my heart with cold.

“For the taller that the palm tree grows the sweeter is the bark,
And the fairer that a young man speaks, the falser is his heart,
He will kiss you and embrace you ’til he thinks he has you won,
Then he’ll go away and leave you all for some other one.

“O hush my little baby boy and lay closer to my breast,
How little does your father know this night we’re in distress.”
He kissed me and embraced me till he had my favour gained,
Then he went away and left me in sorrow grief and shame.

So come all you pretty fair young maids a warning take by me,
And never try to build your nest on top of a high tree,
For the leaves they will all wither and the branches will decay,
And the beauties of a false young man will all soon fade away.

Debra Cowan sings Cruel Was My Father

’Twas on a frosty morning, the snow lay on the ground,
A fair maid was walking a few miles out of town.
A few miles out of town against the winter’s frost and snow
She had a baby in her arms, she had nowhere to go.

“O cruel was my mother she barred the door to me,
And cruel was my father for I know he kept the key.
Cruel was that winter’s night that pierced my heart with cold,
But crueler was the false young man who sold his love for gold.”

She came unto to a lonely grove and there she did kneel down,
She prayed unto her Saviour dear for mercy on her soul.
She kissed her little baby’s lips and laid it by her side,
She raised her eyes to heaven above and then laid down and died.

Early the next morning this fair maid was found,
Her little baby’s fingers were frozen to the ground.
When her mother heard of this, she wrung her hands and she cried,
It was for her father’s cruelty that caused them both to die.

So come all ye pretty fair maids, a warning take by me,
Never try to build your nest at the top of any tree.
For the leaves they will wither and the roots they will decay,
And the beauty of a fair young maid it soon will fade away.

Jon Boden sings In the Month of January

It was in the month of January, the hills all covered in snow,
It was over hills and valleys my true love he did go.
It was there I beheld a pretty fair maid with a salt tear in her eye,
She had a baby in her arms and bitterly she did cry.

“O cruel was my father who he barred the door from me,
And cruel was my mother, that dreadful crime to see.
And cruel was my own true love to change his mind for gold,
And cruel was that winter’s night that pierced my heart with cold.”

For the taller that the palm tree grows, the sweeter is the bark,
And the fairer that a young man speaks, the falser is his heart.
For, he’ll kiss you and embrace you till he thinks he has you won;
Then he’ll go away and leave you all for another one.

So come all fair and tender maids, and a warning take by me,
And never try and build your nest at the top of a tall tree,
For the green leaves they will wither and the branches seen decay
And the beauty of a fine young man will surely fade away.