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The Grey Cock / The Lover’s Ghost

[ Roud 179 ; Child 248 ; Ballad Index C248 ; DT GREYCOCK , GREYCOC2 ; Mudcat 18357 , 79144 ; trad.]

The night-visiting song The Grey Cock, or, Saw You My Father is Child ballad #248, having just one text version which is from Herd’s Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, Heroic Ballads, etc., Second Volume. It is traditionally not a supernatural ballad, whatever A.L. Lloyd and Ewan MacColl argued as quoted below.

Cecilia Costello sang a supernatural version of this ballad it on 30 November 1951 in Birmingham in a recording made by Maria Slocombe and Patrick Shuldham-Shaw for the BBC (recording 17033). It was included as The Grey Cock in Ralph Vaughan Williams and A.L. Lloyd’s book The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs and on the anthology The Child Ballads 2 (The Folk Songs of Britain Volume 5; Caedmon 1961; Topic 1968), and in 1975 as The Lover’s Ghost on her eponymous album on the Leader label, Cecilia Costello. Roy Palmer commented in the album’s booklet:

This ballad (Child 248) is variously called The Lover’s Ghost, Willie’s Ghost and The Grey Cock. Mrs. Costello seems to prefer the last, which she sometimes abbreviates to The Cock.

The ballad was circulating in England as early as the seventeenth century, but no version as fine as Mrs. Costello’s has been collected. She believes that the ghostly lover was a soldier, and that the visit to his lady took place while his corporeal body lay mortally wounded on the battlefield. The cock’s summon to the ghost to return indicated that the death of the soldier was to take place.

But Malcolm Douglas noted in the Mudcat Café thread Child’s ’Grey Cock’ in March 2005:

Bert Lloyd did indeed take up Mrs Costello’s song quite soon after it was first recorded (by Pat Shuldham-Shaw and Marie Slocombe, for the BBC, 30 November 1951, on a foggy day in Birmingham).

You have to understand that some theorists had very much wanted The Grey Cock to be a supernatural ballad “rationalised” by transmission, and this example was seized on as a sort of “missing link” that proved the theory. Eagerness may have blinded many to the fact that, as Shields later showed [Hugh Shields: The Grey Cock: Dawn Song or Revenant Ballad?, in Ballad Studies, ed. E.B. Lyle, 1976] , the supernatural sections of Mrs. Costello’s song are borrowed from an unrelated 19th century Irish broadside, Willy O (itself a re-working of Sweet William’s Ghost).

No question of playing fast and loose here; The Grey Cock has become mingled with genuinely revenant songs on other occasions, too […],but all the evidence points to these being late, and relatively rare, accretions.

Lloyd and MacColl were far from uninformed, but scholarship has moved on in the last 50 years. It used to be the received wisdom that supernatural elements were gradually stripped from ballads over the years (and particularly as they travelled to America) and that the existence of such elements in a song was therefore an indicator of antiquity. While that may be true of songs like The House Carpenter, there has also been a process working in the opposite direction. Under the influence of 19th century romanticism, many revenant songs were written based on the night-visiting model, and in some cases entered tradition. In a few cases these became mixed up with older, non-supernatural songs such as The Grey Cock.

That sort of thing happens. The new, hybrid songs are indeed “revenant” songs; but to extrapolate from that and insist that The Grey Cock is a revenant ballad in most versions of which the supernatural element has disappeared, is to take a stand on increasingly shaky ground. As Shields demonstrates, the reverse is the conclusion supported by the evidence; that is, The Grey Cock is a night-visiting song which, in a few, relatively recent cases, has acquired supernatural elements from other songs. Quite an important distinction.

As for credulity; anyone can be credulous at times if what they are seeing is something they had always hoped to see, and if it seems to confirm something they already wanted to believe. Neither Lloyd nor MacColl were above “playing fast and loose” with ballads (as we are becoming increasingly aware) but that isn’t the case here.

A.L. Lloyd sang The Lover’s Ghost in 1956 on his and Ewan MacColl’s Riverside anthology, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (The Child Ballads) Volume IV. As all of his songs from this series it was reissued in 2011 on his Fellside CD Bramble Briars and Beams of the Sun.

A.L. Lloyd also recorded this song as The Grey Cock in 1960 for his Collector album A Selection From the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs. Again, his words were very similar to Cecilia Costello’s but this time he left out the second-to-last verse. All tracks on this LP were reissued in 2003 on his Fellside CD England & Her Traditional Songs. Lloyd noted:

In folk song, when a cock crows, it’s usually a sign that lovers are to be untimely parted or that ghosts are about. In this ballad it means both, for the lover is himself a revenant spirit. The cock in the song is a descendant of the legendary fowls of Oriental folklore, with feathers of gold, diamond beaks and ruby legs. Indeed, the whole ballad may be based on a tale that spread from the East, through Byzantium, as far as Ireland. This rare and well-kept song was recorded in Birmingham, of all places, in 1951. The singer was Mrs. Cecilia Costello; the collectors, Miss Marie Slocombe and Patrick Shuldham-Shaw.

Ewan MacColl sang The Grey Cock in 1966 on his Topic album The Manchester Angel. This track was also included in 1993 on his Topic CD The Real MacColl. The original album’s liner notes commented, contrary to Malcolm Douglas above:

The theme of two lovers being interrupted at their devotions by the premature crowing of a cock is found in a number of English and Scots love songs. Much less common is the supernatural ballad from which they probably derive. Only a single text of The Grey Cock appears in the Child collection and that is an unsatisfactory one. lt wasn’t until 1951 that a version in which all the supernatural elements were still intact was collected in England and then it was from a Birmingham woman of Irish descent, Mrs. Cecilia Costello.

Chris Foster sang The Grey Cock in 1979 on his Topic album All Things in Common.

Jez Lowe sang The Grey Cock, with Linda Adams singing harmony vocals, on the 1986 Fellside anthology A Selection From the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs. This track was also included in 1992 on his compilation CD Backshift. The original record’s sleeve notes commented:

From Mrs Cecilia Costello, Birmingham, recorded in 1951 by Marie Slocombe and Patrick Shuldham-Shaw. A number of lyrical folk songs present the situation of two lovers disturbed by the early crowing of a cock. Perhaps the origins of these songs is found in the supernatural ballad of the lover returned from the dead. Its themes echo ancient folklore notions that have spread from the Orient, through the Balkans, as far west as Ireland. (Mrs Costello was of Irish descent.) The song appears as no. 248 in Child’s collection.

And Eliza Carthy sang The Grey Cock in 1994 on Waterson:Carthy’s eponymous debut album, Waterson:Carthy. Martin Carthy noted:

Having decided to sing The Grey Cock again after quite a long time, I accidentally practised it in Eliza’s hearing. She promptly announced that the song was, in fact, hers and, after another hearing-and-a-bit, she knew the whole thing. So that was that. Ho hum. The song comes from a recording made in the 1960s of Mrs Cecilia Costello, an Irish woman domiciling in Birmingham, who was featured on her own fine album produced by Bill Leader in the early 1970s. That the song turned up when and where it did was exciting given that it’s a pretty rare piece. Maybe it’s an indication that it’s a trifle early to be counting this music out.

Eliza Carthy recorded this song again in 2005 with Salsa Celtica as Grey Gallito for their 2006 CD El Camino (The Road). The verses are nearly identical to her Grey Cock lyrics with an additional chorus after verses five, seven and eight:

No le cantes, ahora gallito (Don’t sing to him, not yet, cockerel)
No le cantes, ahora, no (Don’t sing to him yet)

Eliza Carthy also sang The Grey Cock on her 2024 album No Wasted Joy where she noted:

The Grey Cock is the second of the Cecilia Costello songs here.a I learned it sitting behind my Dad on a long car journey when I was sixteen and it has always been with me. This is the third iteration of it in my recordings the first being on Waterson:Carthy’s eponymous first album (Topic, 1994), the second being partly in Spanish on Salsa Celtica’s album El Camino (2006, Discos León).

Martyn Wyndham-Read sang The Lover’s Ghost in 1997 on the Fellside anthology Ballads. Paul Adams noted:

Martyn learned this song from A.L. Lloyd. The most famous version (and Lloyd’s source) was the one collected from Cecilia Costello in Birmingham in 1951. Mrs Costello was of Irish descent. The theme of the lover returning from the dead and having to return at dawn—when the cock crows—is a very ancient folklore theme which as Lloyd states in the The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs “has spread from the Orient, through the Balkans as far west as Ireland.”

Charlotte Greig sang The Grey Cock on her 1998 album Night Visiting Songs.

Martin Simpson sang The Lover’s Ghost in 2001 on his Topic CD The Bramble Briar. He noted:

The Lover’s Ghost was sung by Mrs Cecilia Costello who was recorded in Birmingham in 1951. It was also published in the Penguin Book. Again, I absorbed it through my ears sometime in the 1960s, whether at a concert, folk club, festival or record, I don’t recall. I am delighted to have Martin Carthy accompany me on this, with his inimitable musicality.

Hazel Askew sang The Lover’s Ghost unaccompanied in 2007 on the Askew Sisters’ WildGoose CD All in a Garden Green. She noted:

Also known as The Grey Cock, this haunting ballad was collected from the singing of Cecilia Costello in 1951. It’s one of my favourite songs and is full of interesting ideas from ancient folklore. References to travelling “without a stumble” and to “kneeling on a stone” follows the idea that someone returning from the dead must not fall on or touch the ground. The cockerel referred to is a mythical creature that guards the gates to the afterworld, and Mary tries to bribe it by making an offering out of “beaten gold” and “silver grey”. The idea that the dead can only travel between the two worlds in the gap between night and day, can be found in ancient folklore across the world.

Graham and Eileen Pratt sang Lover’s Ghost in 2008 on their album The Greek King’s Daughter. They noted:

A ballad collected from Cecilia Costello in 1951. The ghostly lover’s night visit, cruelly disturbed by cockcrow, is a theme from oriental folklore. Our arrangement was influenced by the film A Chinese Ghost Story, which told a similar tale.

Mick Ryan and Paul Downes sang The Lover’s Ghost in 2013 on their WildGoose CD When Every Song Was New. Mick Ryan noted:

The song which I have always referred to as The Burning Thames, is more correctly entitled The Lover’s Ghost. I got it, at the club, from a singer called Sylvia who, to my recollection, rarely sang anything else. carcely surprising, then, that I just ‘picked it up’. The ‘proper’ version is, again, in ‘Penguin’, where it says the song was collected from a Mrs. Cecilia Costello of Birmingham.

Diana Collier sang The Grey Cock unaccompanied on her 2020 bonus EP So Dearly I Loved My Love.

Piers Cawley got The Grey Cock from Eliza Carthy, and sang it in 2020 on his download album Isolation Sessions #1. He noted:

It sounds very grand to say I learned this from Eliza, doesn’t it? Sadly, it was in the modern traditional of learning ‘knee to CD‘ from the first Waterson:Carthy album, which is full of wonderful stuff. This one went straight in. I don’t remember sitting down to learn it, Suddenly, I just knew it and, after a little polishing and practice, I was singing it out. I was tempted to record The Night Visiting Song in this session too. It differs lyrically from The Grey Cock by about one and a half verses and thus has a completely different plot. And a much happier tune. Maybe for volume 2.

See also this song’s variants:

Lyrics

Cecilia Costello sings The Grey Cock

“I must be going, no longer staying,
The burning Thames I have to cross.
Oh, I must be guided without a stumble
Into the arms of my dear lass.”

When he came to his true love’s window
He knelt down gently on a stone,
And it’s through a pane he whispered slowly:
“My dear girl, are you alone?”

She rose her head from her down-soft pillow,
And snowy were her milk-white breasts,
Saying: “Who’s there, who’s there at my bedroom window,
Disturbing me from my long night’s rest?”

“Oh, I’m your lover, don’t discover *,
I pray you rise, love, and let me in,
For I am fatigued out of my long night’s journey,
Besides, I’m wet into the skin.”

Now this young girl rose and put on her clothing.
Till she quickly let her own true love in.
Oh they kissed, shook hands and embraced together,
Till that long night was near an end.

“Willie dear, O dearest Willie,
Where is that colour you’d some time ago?”
“O Mary dear, the cold clay has changed me,
I am but the ghost of your Willie O.”

“Then O cock, O cock, O handsome cockerel,
I pray you not crow until it’s day.
For your wings I’ll make of the very first beaten gold,
And your comb I’ll make of the silver ray.”

But the cock it crew and it crew so fully.
It crew three hours before it was day.
And before it was day my love had to go away,
Not by the light of the moon nor the light of day.

When she saw her love disappearing
The tears down her pale cheeks in streams did flow.
He said, “Weep no more for me, dear Mary,
I am no more your Willie O.”

Then it’s “Willie dear, O dearest Willie,
Whenever shall I see you again?”
“When the fish they fly, love, and the sea runs dry, love,
And the rocks they melt in the heat of the sun.”

* Perhaps the phrase should be: “but I can’t uncover” (can’t reveal myself). [note in the Penguin Book]

A.L. Lloyd sings The Lover’s Ghost

“I must be going, no longer staying,
The burning Thames I have to cross,
And I must be guided without a stumble
Into the arms of my dear lass.”

And when he come to his true love’s window
He knelt down gently upon a stone,
And it’s through the pane he whispered slowly,
"Oh, my dear lass, are you alone?”

She rose her head from her down-soft pillow,
And snowy were her milk-white breasts,
Saying: “Who’s there, who’s there at my bedroom window,
Disturbing me from my long night’s rest?”

“Oh, I’m your lover and don’t discover,
I pray you rise, love, and let me in,
For I’m fatigued out of my long night’s journey,
Besides I’m wet unto the skin.”

Now this young girl rose and put on her clothing,
She quickly let her own true love in.
Oh, they kissed, shook hands, and embraced each other
Until that long night was near an end.

“O, Willie dear, O my dearest Willie,
Where is that colour you’d some time ago?”
“O Mary dear, the clay has changed me.
I’m but the ghost of the man you knew.”

Then O cock, O cock, O my handsome cockerel,
I pray you not crow until it is day,
And your wings I’ll make of the very best beaten gold,
Your comb I’ll make of the silver grey.

But the cock it crew and it crew so fully,
It crew three hours before it was day,
And before it was day, my love had to go away,
Neither by the light of the moon nor the light of day.

So when she saw her love disappearing,
The tears down her pale cheeks in streams did flow,
He said, “Weep no more for me, dear Mary,
For I’m no more your Willie, O.”

Then it’s "Willie dear, O my dearest Willie,
Whenever shall I see you again?”
“When the fish they fly, love, and the sea runs dry, love,
And the rocks they melt by the heat of the sun.”

Waterson:Carthy sing The Grey Cock

“I must be going, no longer staying,
The burning Thames I have to cross.
I will be guided without a stumble
Into the arms I love the best.”

And when he came to his true love’s window
He knelt down gently all on a stone,
And it’s through the pane he has whispered slowly,
“My darling dear, do you lie alone?”

She’s raised her head from her down-soft pillow,
And snowy were her milk-white breasts,
Saying: “Who’s there, who’s there at my bedroom window,
Disturbing me from my long night’s rest?”

“Tis I, your love, but don’t discover,
I pray you rise and let me in,
For I am fatigued from my long night’s journey,
Besides, I am wet unto my skin.”

So this young girl rose and put on her clothing,
So swift she’s let her true love in.
And it’s there they kissed and embraced each other
Through that long night they lay as one.

Then it’s: “Willy dear, O dearest Willy,
Where’s your colour you’d some time ago?”
“O Mary dear, the clay has changed me
And I’m but the ghost of your Willy O.”

“Then it’s cock, O cock, O handsome cockerel,
I pray you not crow before it is day,
And your wings I’ll make of the very first beaten gold,
Your comb I will make of the silver grey.”

But the cock he crew and he crew so fully,
He crew three hours before it was day,
And before twas day my love had to leave me,
Not by light of the moon nor light of the sun.

“So Willy dear, O dearest Willy,
When shall I see you again?”
“When the fishes fly, love, and the sea runs dry, love,
And the rocks they melt in the heat of the sun”

Graham and Eileen Pratt sing Lover’s Ghost

“I must be going, no longer staying;
The burning Thames I am bound to cross.
I must be guided without a stumble,
Into the arms of my own dear lass.”

And he’s arrived at his true love’s window,
And knelt down weary upon a stone.
And it’s through the pane he’s whispered softly:
“My dearest girl, are you all alone?”

And she’s arose and put on her clothing;
And she’s gone down and she’s let her lover in.
They have kissed, caressed, embraced each other,
Till that long night was at an end.

“Oh, Willy dear, oh dearest Willy,
Where is that colour you’d sometime ago?”
“Oh, Mary dear, the clay has changed me;
I am but the ghost of your Willy-o.”

“And it’s cock, oh cock, oh handsome cockerel,
I beg you not to crow before the day;
And your cage I’ll make of beaten gold;
And your comb I’ll make from the silver grey.”

But the cock crew and it crew so suddenly;
It crew two hours before the day.
And before the dawn, her love had gone;
Not by light of the moon, nor the light of the sun.

“Oh, Willy dear, oh dearest Willy,
When shall I see your sweet face again?”
“When seas run dry and fishes fly,
And the rocks they melt in the sun and the rain.”