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The Unquiet Grave / Cold Blows the Wind

[ Roud 51 ; Master title: The Unquiet Grave ; Child 78 ; Ballad Index C078 ; The Unquiet Grave at Fire Draw Near ; VWML CJS2/9/227 , CJS2/9/205 , GG/1/10/620 ; GlosTrad Roud 51 ; Wiltshire 755 , 1066 ; DT UNQUIGR1 , UNQUIGR2 ; Mudcat 1706 , 104911 ; trad.]

Sabine Baring-Gould: Songs of the West Lucy E. Broadwood: English Traditional Songs and Carols Lucy E. Broadwood, J.A. Fuller Maitland: English County Songs Nick Dow: Southern Songster Ralph Dunstan: Cornish Song Book Nigel Gatherer: Songs and Ballads of Dundee Fred Hamer: Garners Gay Maud Karpeles: The Crystal Spring James Kinsley: The Oxford Book of Ballads John Morrish: The Folk Handbook John Jacob Niles: The Ballad Book of John Jacob Niles Roy Palmer: Everyman’s Book of British Ballads Roy Palmer: Songs of the Midlands Frank Purslow: Marrow Bones James Reeves: The Everlasting Circle Jean Ritchie: Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians Steve Roud, Julia Bishop: The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs Stephen Sedley: The Seeds of Love Cecil J. Sharp: One Hundred English Folksongs

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. Together with all others of his songs from this series it was reissued in 2011 on his Fellside anthology Bramble Briars and Beams of the Sun. Editor Kenneth G. Goldstein noted:

Aside from its exquisite poetry and music, this ballad is notable for its exhibition of the universal popular belief that excessive grief on the part of mourners disturbs 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 19^th century. 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.

May Bradley from Ludlow sang Cold Blows the Wind to Fred Hamer in October 1959. He printed this song in his 1967 EFDS book Garners Gay and the recording was included in 1971 on the accompanying EFDSS album Garners Gay. It was also included in 2010 on her Musical Traditions anthology Sweet Swansea. Fred Hamer noted:

This is a version of the folk song classic, The Unquiet Grave. It is well known in a number of versions on the Welsh border, particularly to the travelling folk who worked in the hopfields of Herefordshire and Worcestershire.

…and Rod Stradling noted:

This is the ballad known to Child as The Unquiet Grave. Surprisingly, no version antedates the nineteenth century, but it is just possible that a moralising carol of the late fifteenth century, beginning “There blows a cold wynd todaye, todaye”, could have been based on Cold Blows the Wind—so says B.H. Bronson in The Singing Tradition of Child’s Popular Ballads (Princeton, New Jersey, 1976), p.203.

Equally surprisingly, despite its popularity and Roud’s 144 instances—mostly English, with a score from North America—there appears to have only ever been three sound recordings made of traditional singers in these islands—George Dunn (MTCD317-8) and Archer Goode being the other two. They are the only British sources since Sharp’s 1921 collections from Kathleen Williams and Thomas Taylor (in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire respectively).

V.C. Clinton-Baddeley and Pauline Letts recited The Unquiet Grave in 1959 on the anthology The Jupiter Book of Ballads.

Shirley Collins recorded The Unquiet Grave 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 noted on the first album:

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.

Jean Ritchie sang The Unquiet Grave in 1960 on her Folkways album British Traditional Ballads in the Southern Mountains, Volume 2. Kenneth S. Goldstein noted:

It is possible that this is only a fragment of a once longer popular ballad, for it contains lines very reminiscent of stanzas in several other Child ballads, including Sweet William’s Ghost (Child 77) and The Two Brothers (Child 49). Child preferred to believe that the ballad as it has come down to us is an imperfect survival and states that “Even such as it is… this fragment has a character of its own.”

The ballad is extremely widespread in England, was known in the 19^th century in Scotland, but has been reported rarely in America. Fewer than a half dozen texts have been reported in this hemisphere.

Jean Ritchie’s Kentucky version, learned from her Uncle Jason, is almost identical (with a few minor verbal variations) with Child’s A text. It is notable for its exhibition of several universal popular beliefs, including a talking ghost, the idea that excessive grief on the part of mourners disturbs the peace of the dead, a troth-plight binding lovers even after death (with the death-kiss perhaps indicating a return of the troth), and the belief that the kiss of a dead person may result in death. Jean Ritchie’s version, truly exquisite as to both its poetry and music, is a valuable addition to our recorded ballad lore.

For additional texts and information, see:

See Child (78), Volume II, p. 78ff; Coffin, p. 82; Dean-Smith, p. 113; Brown Collection, Volume II, pp. 94-95; Davis, pp. 57-160.

Derek Sarjeant sang The Unquiet Grave on his 1962 EP Folk Songs Sung By Derek Sarjeant and as Cold Blows the Wind on his 1970 album Derek Sarjeant Sings English Folk. The latter album’s sleeve noted:

A folk ballad (Child No. 78) which has undergone so many changes over the years that it is now impossible to say which is the original wording. Derek uses his own melody, which is an effective amalgam of several folksong tunes.

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.

Sandy and Caroline Paton sang The Unquiet Grave in 1966 on their Folk-Legacy album Folksongs and Ballads. They noted:

It seems incredible that this is the only “Child Ballad” on the entire record, since we are both confirmed members of that obsolescent group sometimes referred to as “ballad buffs”, by those who find our admiration for this classic form of traditional song difficult to understand. We intend to make up for this sin of omission on our next record, so you may consider yourselves forewarned.

The Unquiet Grave is, perhaps, the most lyric of all the ballads included by Francis James Child in his immense compilation, English and Scottish Popular Ballads. Only a suggestion of that narrative element which distinguishes a ballad from a song remains in the ballad as we have it today. Regardless, it is one of our favourites, and the fact that we sing several versions of it will account for some of the word changes in the ballad as it is sung here and those sung by our source, Mrs. Lily M. Delorme of Cadyville, New York. Marjorie Porter, together with Marguerite Olney, obtained this version from Mrs. Delorme on 8 December 1941. It has been published by Helen Hartness Flanders in Ballads Migrant in New England (p. 232) and in Ancient Ballads Traditionally Sung in New England (Vol. II, p. 184). Mrs. Delorme’s father came from the town just over the hill from our farm; Starksboro, Vermont. Actually, the western boundary of our land is delineated by the Huntington-Starksboro town line. Furthermore, if we were to make use of the rural mail delivery available to us, our address would be  R.F.D., Starksboro, Vermont”. So you will understand why we feel particularly close to this version of the ballad. Mrs. Delorme herself was born in Schuyler Falls, New York, her mother’s home town, but we shan’t make so much of that.

Following Folk-Legacy’s established policy, we will print the text as it is sung here, but we want you to bear in mind that a number of the phrases are accidental intrusions from other versions we also sing. Please refer to the two printed sources mentioned above for verbatim transcriptions of the ballad as it was sung by Mrs. Delorme, who called it “Cold Blows the Winter’s Winds”, the correct reading of her opening line.

Hedy West sang another American version of 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 Roumania 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).

Sandra Kerr sang The Unquiet Grave in 1968 on the Argo Voices anthology series, Third Book, Record One (Argo DA95, reissued in ca 1970 as PLP1116), and in 1969 on her and John Faulkner’s Argo album John & Sandra. They noted:

In many of the ballads, extraordinary acts related to primitive beliefs result in the evocation of the supernatural. A young woman mourns for a year and a day over the grave of her dead lover. He has no choice but to return to the one who is unwilling to relinquish him, for he can get no rest. But the dead can offer no comfort to the living, for the exchange of a kiss or a caress would only result in them both having to return to the grave.

Sandra Kerr’s daughter Nancy Kerr sang The Unquiet Grave 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 on the Voices anthology.

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. They noted:

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 noted:

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.

George Dunn sang Cold Blows the Wind to Bill Leader in December 1971. This recording was released in 1973 on his eponymous Leader album George Dunn. Another recording made by Roy Palmer on 14 July 1971 was included in 2002 on Dunn’s Musical Tradition anthology Chainmaker. Roy Palmer and Rod Stradling noted in the accompanying booklet:

“If yo were troubled about the dead after they’d gone, yo’d give the dead no rest” : so George Dunn explained the song, which came from his father. The reference in verses 4 and 5 to fetching a ‘note from a dungeon so deep’—rather than the more conventional ‘nut’ of other versions—is curious, since the broadside version issued by William Pratt of Birmingham between 1845 and 1861 has the same peculiarity. It also has ‘rest’ (verse 3), where the rhyme requires ‘repose’. […] These are trifles.

George’s singing is at its most majestic in this ballad known to Child as The Unquiet Grave. Surprisingly, no version antedates the nineteenth century, but it is just possible that a moralising carol of the late fifteenth century, beginning “There blows a cold wynd todaye, todaye”, could have been based on Cold Blows the Wind—so says B H Bronson in The Singing Tradition of Child’s Popular Ballads (Princeton, New Jersey, 1976), p.203..

Union Folk sang The Unquiet Grave on their 1971 Traditional Sound album Waiting for a Train.

Gryphon sang The Unquiet Grave in 1973 on their eponymous Transatlantic album Gryphon. They noted:

A four-part crumhorn arrangement opens this traditional song of the unrequited love of a young man and his encounter with the ghost of his love. Our arrangement includes an interlude for bassoon and drums depicting the atmosphere of the graveyard, and then returns to the verse with the harpsichord suggesting a change in the young mans mood as he learns that he will meet his love again “Ere the oaken leaves that fall from the trees are green and spring up again”.

Cheryl Jordan sang The Unquiet Grave in 1975 on the Forest Tracks album Folk Songs From Dorset of songs collected in 1905-07 by the Hammond Brothers. Frank Purslow noted:

Marrow Bones p. 111, A Dorset Book of Folk Songs p. 10 from Mrs. Jane Hann, Stoke Abbot, June 1906 [VWML HAM/3/20/10] .

I myself must admit to a little ‘cheating’ with this song. The actual tune sung by Mrs. Hann was the second part of the tune which I  printed in Marrow Bones, and her verses were half the length. (I pointed this out in my original notes, but they were not used.) The ballad has, in fact, been collected many times to this ‘truncated’ tune; but as the full time is one of the glories of British folk song, I printed it In full, and this is the way that Cheryl sings It. The actual tune is usually referred to as Dives and Lazarus because of its early association with the ballad of that name. The ancient belief that excessive mourning disturbs the rest of the dead is very widespread and has still not entirely disappeared. This theme is considerably elaborated upon by Prof. Child in The English & Scottish Popular Ballads in his notes to the versions of the ballad he prints therein (No. 78). He quotes numerous examples from European sources, and also from ancient Roman, Greek, Persian and Indian ballads and epics. As he also points out, portions of this ballad, or verses very similar, occur as parts of other ballads, and it may be that it has come down to us in a very Imperfect form. On the other hand, the ballad was printed on broadsides more or less in the forms in which it is usually collected, so it may well be that it was the broadside printers who ‘made’ the present ballad out of scraps of older ones.

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 noted:

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.

Brian Peters sang The Unquiet Grave on his 1989 Harbourtown album Fools of Fortune. He noted:

The Unquiet Grave is based on the belief that excessive mourning prevents the dead from resting; the song appears in Richards and Stubbs’ The English Folksinger, though I first heard it from Gill McKay.

Jo Freya sang The Unquiet Grave in 1992 on her Saydisc album Traditional Songs of England. The liner notes commented:

It is a popularly held belief that excessive grieving over the deceased destroys their peace and that tears wet the shroud or even, as reported in Ireland, pierce a hole in the dead. This widespread supernatural ballad is commonly is associated with two tunes, both of which are beautiful.

Louis Killen sang The Unquiet Grave on his 1993 CD A Bonny Bunch. He noted:

The Unquiet Grave ([learnt from] Brian Ballinger) speaks of our reluctance to “let go” of lost loves.

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. She returned to this ballad in 2012 on her anniversary album Twenty.

Tom and Barbara Brown sang The Unquiet Grave in 2000 on their WildGoose CD of “songs with a West Country flavour”, Where Umber Flows. Tom Brown commented:

One of the classic ballads—Child N8 78 for those to whom it’s important. This is a collated version of two tunes that crept up on Barbara when I was ‘messing about’ on the guitar. A warning about the power of love—and absolutely overflowing with folk-lore: plants, riddles, ghost, revenant, excessive grieve, but above all it’s the images the song creates that are so extraordinary.

Mary Humphreys and Anahata sang Unquiet Grave on their 2001 album Through the Groves.

Isambarde sang The Unquiet Grave in 2004 on their CD Brunel’s Kingdom.

Circulus sang The Unquiet Grave on the 2007 anthology Old Wine New Skins that accompanied John Morrish’s book The Folk Handbook.

Lau sang Unquiet Grave on their 2007 CD Lightweights & Gentlemen. This track was also included in 2023 on the anthology The Best of Kris Drever.

Pamela Wyn Shannon sang Cold Blows the Wind on her 2007 album Courting Autumn. This track was also included on the anthology of songs and tunes from the Leigh Folk Festival 2011, Fire Feathers Felony & Fate.

Paul and Liz Davenport sang The Unquiet Grave in 2008 on their Hallamshire Traditions CD Songbooks. They noted:

The concept of over elaborate grief causing the dead to rise has been explored in two songs on our previous album. This short ballad is probably related to those songs and may even be a fragment of Child 49 [The Two Brothers].

Like John Kirkpatrick, Jon Boden learned Cold Blows the Wind from the singing of May Bradley. He also sang Cold Blows the Wind with Bellowhead on their 2010 CD Hedonism and in their 2020 one-off broadcast performance released on their 2021 album Reassembled, and he sang it unaccompanied as the 29 December 2010 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day. This video is from Bellowhead’s farewell tour:

The Jones Boys sang The Unquiet Grave on their 2010 album Like the Sun A-Glittering. Gordon Jackson noted on their website:

Ghosts do not appear that often in English folksong (although, of course, there is one in The Fowler). However, the belief that excessive grieving disturbs the dead is as old—and widespread—as the proverbial hills. Roud and Bishop make the entirely valid point in The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs (2012) that just because a folkloric belief is old, and because that belief is featured in a song, we shouldn’t assume the song is likewise old. They suspect the song itself dates from the early nineteenth century.

One of the things I like about folksongs and folksingers is that the singer is gender-neutral, in so far as whether the narrator of the song is male or female, it may be sung by a man or a woman regardless. (One thinks of how the feminine-gendered Then He Kissed Me by the Crystals was covered by The Beach Boys, but reworked to Then I Kissed Her, but I digress.) The Unquiet Grave (also known as Cold Blows the Wind) is found in tradition in both the masculine and feminine voice. So while Lucy Broadwood (English Traditional Songs and Carols, 1908) had three ‘masculine’ versions, Sabine Baring-Gould (Songs of the West, 1891) and Cecil Sharp (One Hundred English Folksongs, 1916) had ‘feminine’ versions. F.J. Child (The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Vol. II, 1885) had both. So, on this occasion, I’m a man!

Now for my confession: I absolutely can’t remember, nor find, our version! It’s not in any of the books mentioned above (all on my bookshelf!), so maybe I put together a composite version—I really don’t know, it was a decade ago…

Barbara Dymock sang The Unquiet Grave on her 2011 CD Hilbert’s Hotel. She noted:

Child Ballad #78 which is thought to date from 1400. In it the occupant of the grave reproaches the mourner for not getting on with life. It feels like a fragment of some longer, more complicated story. There are many different versions of this ballad. Hedy West used this tune for an American version in 1967 on her Topic album Ballads.

Peter and Barbara Snape sang The Unquiet Grave on their 2011 CD Revel & Rally. Barbara Snape noted:

There are many versions of this song found all over the British Isles. The words are from The Seeds of Love, collected in Dorset/Herefordshire. The tune, however, is that from Child Ballad 56, Dives and Lazarus. Gill Burns, a friend of mine and a very fine singer and guitarist, set the song to this tune. The superstition is that the dead are tormented and cannot rest until the living stop mourning.

Rob Williams sang The Unquiet Grave on his 2012 CD Outstanding Natural Beauty of songs collected in spring 1905 from Jane Gulliford of Combe Florey, Quantock Hills, by the brothers Henry and Robert Hammond.

Andy Clarke and Steve Tyler sang Cold Blows the Winter Wind in 2013 on their WildGoose CD Wreck Off Scilly. Andy Clarke noted:

The words were collected in 1893 by Baring-Gould from Jane Jeffrey in Dunterton on the river Tamar near Tavistock, Devon [VWML SBG/3/1/42] . There was no tune so I set the song to one from Sharp’s collection from Somerset.

Elliott Morris sang The Unquiet Grave on his 2013 EP Shadows and Whispers.

The Askew Sisters sang The Unquiet Grave in 2014 on their RootBeat CD In the Air or the Earth. They noted:

[…] The Unquiet Grave is a similar story of loss, but this time between a girl and her lover. We were struck with the beautiful melody collected by Cecil Sharp from Lucy White of Hambridge, Somerset, in August 1904, and have added some additional text from other sources. It’s an old folkloristic belief that prolonged grief can disturb the dead and mourning for more than a year might bring back their ghost. Somehow this song manages to intertwine that idea with both the Christian belief that you are called away by God and the certainty that all things must decay and die.

This video shows the Askew Sisters at Twick Folk Club, Twickenham, Middlesex, on 21 September 2014:

Sam Kelly sang The Unquiet Grave in 2015 on his EP Spokes.

Rosemary Lippard sang The Unquiet Grave in 2015 on the anthology of songs from the reportoire of Shirley Collins, Shirley Inspired….

Rachel Newton sang The Unquiet Grave on The Furrow Collective’s 2015 EP Blow Out the Moon. This track was also included on the anthology BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards 2016. She noted:

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.

Daoirí Farrell sang The Unquiet Grave on his 2016 CD True Born Irishman. He noted:

I used to attend The Belgard Sunday Session which was run by Dermot and Gavin Whelan in Tallaght, Dublin. It was here where I heard a wonderful version of this song sung by my good friend Alan Doherty’s father, Ned. Occasionally, he would join the session and sing this song.

Hannah Sanders and Ben Savage sang The Unquiet Grave in 2016 on their CD Before the Sun.

Siobhan Miller sang The Unquiet Grave on her 2017 album Strata. This video shows her, accompanied by Kris Drever, at The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh in February 2017:

Nick Dow sang The Unquiet Grave on his 2018 album of unaccompanied traditional folk songs, Far and Wide. He noted:

From the Gardiner collection, sung by James Brown of Basingstoke 1906 [VWML GG/1/17/1052] . This is an unusual 6/8 tune, with its refrain. I gleaned that from Sam Richards The English Folksinger.

John Smith sang Unquiet Grave in 2018 on his CD Hummingbird.

Cath and Phil Tyler sang Finest Flower on their 2018 CD The Ox and the Ax. They got the words from Michael Walker and the tune from the Sacred Harp (Cooper edition), credited to David Walker.

Banter sang The Unquiet Grave in 2021 on their Mrs Casey album Three. They noted:

We love taking songs and tunes that are so universally known and doing something unexpected with them. Collected widely by Cecil Sharp and sung as widely today. Also known as Cold Blows the Wind.

Painted Sky (George and Holly Brandon) sang The Unquiet Grave on a June 2021 download single.

Anna Tam sang The Unquiet Grave on her 2021 CD Anchoress. She noted:

Words from a girl in Sussex, collected by Miss Charlotte Latham in 1868 (edited a little); and tune sung to Sabine Baring-Gould by J. Woodrich, blacksmith, Thrustleton in 1889. I love how this tender dialogue mixes the supernatural aspect of the ghostly visitation with its pragmatic advice, and how the spirit encourages his sweetheart to release herself from mourning and live.

TRADarrr sang Cold Blows the Wind on their 2021 album Strange News!. Mark Stevens noted:

A fabulous duet with Marion [Fleetwood] on a truly epic scale with full string section, tymps, tubular bells, haunting trumpet and dark tremolo guitar. This is another one I found in PJ [Wright]’s schoolbook of folk songs, the original melody was a lot more upbeat and I felt it would work better for us if it was more sombre and orchestral so I came up with a new tune. My vocal was just for the demo so that the rest of the band could get a feel for the song but somehow it managed to stay there until the end and makes Marion sound even more fantastic than she already is (Ed….the rest of the band thought your vocals were fabulously perfect on here Parky!)

The Yellow House All-Star Band sang The Unquiet Grave in 2022 on their eponymous EP. They noted:

Child Ballad #78, an English folk song thought to date back to around 1400, in which a young man mourns his dead love so much that he prevents her from resting in peace.

Bridget Hayden sang The Unquiet Grave on her 2025 album with The Apparitions, Cold Blows the Rain.

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.”

May Bradley sings Cold Blows the Wind

Cold blow the drops over my true love,
Cold blow the drops of rain,
I never, never had but one true love,
And in the grave he was lain.

I will do as much for my true love,
That any young woman may,
I will sit and I will weep all over his grave,
For a twelvemonth and one day.

When the twelvemonth and a day was past,
This young man he arose,
What makest thou weep all over my grave,
For I cannot take my repose?

One kiss, one kiss from your clay cold lips,
One kiss I wish and crave,
If I have one kiss from your clay cold lips,
You can turn back to your grave.

Go fetch me a knot from a dungeon deep,
And water from a stone,
And milk out of a fair maid’s breast,
Where milk there never was none.

How can I fetch a knot from a dungeon deep?
How can I get water from a stone?
How can I get milk from a fair maid’s breast.
Where milk there never was none?

Shirley Collins 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.

“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.”

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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“’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.”

“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.”

Jean Ritchie sings The Unquiet Grave

The wind doth blow today, my love,
With a few small drops of rain,
I never had but one true love
And she in the cold grave has lain.

I will do much for my true love
As any young man may
I’ll sit and mourn all on her grave
For a twelve month and a day.

The twelve months and day being up
The dead began to speak
Ob who is this sits on my grave
And will not let me sleep.

It is I my love sits on your grave
And will not let you sleep
I crave one kiss from your cold sweet lips
And that is all I seek.

You crave one kiss from my clay cold lips
My breath smells earthly strong,
It you had one kiss from my cold clay lips
Your time would not be long.

Down in yonder’s garden green
Love, where we used to walk
The fairest flower that ever bloomed
Is withered to a stalk.

The stalk is withered dry my love
So must our hearts decay
So make yourself content my love
Till God calls you away.

Sandy and Caroline Paton sing The Unquiet Grave

Cold blows the wintry wind, sweetheart;
Cold are the drops of rain.
I never had but one sweetheart,
And in the greenwood she lies slain.

I’ll do as much for my sweetheart
As any young man may.
I’ll sit and mourn all at her grave
A twelve-month and a day.

The twelve-month and a day being past,
The dead began to speak.
“Who sits all on my grave and mourns,
And will not let me sleep?

“What do you want of me, sweetheart?
What do you want of me?”
“One kiss from your clay-cold lips,
And that is all I want of thee.”

“My lips are colder than the clay;
My breath is earthy strong.
If one kiss of these lips you have,
Your time on earth will not be long."

George Dunn sings Cold Blows the Wind

Cold blows the wind over my true love,
Cold blow the drops of rain.
I never, never had but one true love,
In the greenwood he was slain.

But I’ll do as much for my true love
As any young lass can do
I’ll sit and I’ll weep right o’er his grave
For a twelve month and one day.

When a twelve month and one day had passed
This young man he arose,
And said, “What brings you here by my grave side,
And I can take no rest?”

“Go fetch me a note from the dungeon so deep
Fetch water from a stone
Or milk white out of a fair maid’s breast
When a fair maid never had none.”

“How can I fetch a note from the dungeon so deep
Or water from a stone
Or milk white out of a fair maid’s breast
When a fair maid never had none?”

“Give me a kiss from your clay-cold lips
One kiss is all I crave
Give me a kiss from your clay-cold lips
And return back to your grave.”

“If you have a kiss from my clay-cold lips
My breath’s so earthly strong
If you have a kiss from my clay-cold lips
Your days will not be long.”

“Don’t you remember the garden gate,
Where you and I used to wait,
The piercing look that then you gave,
But now I am hurled into my grave.”

Jo Freya sings The Unquiet Grave

Cold blows the wind tonight my love,
Cold are the drops of rain.
I only had but one truelove,
And in greenwood she lies slain.

I’ll do as much for my truelove,
As any young man may.
I’ll sit and mourn upon her grave,
For twelve months and a day.

The twelve months and a day being o’er,
A voice cries from the deep,
“Who is it weeps upon my grave
And will not let me sleep?”

“’Tis I, ’tis I, your own truelove
Who sits upon your grave,
’Til I have one kiss from your cold lips,
No comfort will I have.”

“My lips are cold as clay my love,
My breath is earthy strong,
And if you had one kiss from my cold lips,
Then your time it would not be long.

“O down in yonder shady grove,
Love where we used to walk.
The fairest flower that greweth there
Is withered to a stalk.

“And the stalk is withered dry truelove,
So will our hearts decay.
So make yourself content my love,
’Til death calls you away.”

Nancy Kerr sings The Unquiet Grave

“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 on his grave
For twelve months and a day.”

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?”

“’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.”

“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.“

“’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 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.”

Steeleye Span sing One True Love

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)

Bellowhead sings Cold Blows the Wind

“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.”

Rob Williams sings The Unquiet Grave

How cold the wind doth blow, sweetheart, fast falls the drops of rain,
𝄆 I never had but one sweetheart and in green wood he lies slain. 𝄇

I’ll do as much for my sweetheart as any poor girl may.
𝄆 I’ll sit and mourn all on his grave for a twelvemonth and one day. 𝄇

The twelvemonth and one day was up, this ghost began to speak,
𝄆 “Why sit you here all on my grave and will not let me sleep?” 𝄇

There is one thing more I want, sweetheart, and that pray let me have,
𝄆 It’s one more kiss from your lily­white lips and I’ll go from your grave. 𝄇

“My lips is cold as clay, sweetheart, my breath is quite a­gone,
𝄆 And if you should kiss my cold clay lips, your time will not be long.” 𝄇

Let my time be long or short, sweetheart, ay! then today or tomorrow,
𝄆 I’ll leave this world and all behind, nor leave it not in sorrow. 𝄇

O! Don’t you see the fire, sweetheart, where you and I have walked,
𝄆 The finest flowers that ever grew there are withered to the stalk. 𝄇

Are withered to the stalk, my love, and so must you and I,*
𝄆 For the dearest friends on earth must part and so must you and I. 𝄇

TRADarrr sing Cold Blows the Wind

Cold blows the wind tonight true love, cold are the drops of rain
I never had but one sweetheart, In Grayswood she lies slain
I’ll do as much for my sweetheart as any young man may
I’ll sit and mourn all on her grave a twelvemonth and a day

The twelvemonth and a day were past, the ghost began to speak
Why weep you there upon my grave and will not let me sleep
what is it that you want of me and will not let me rest
Your salty tears they trickle down and soak my linen dress

What dost thou want of me true heart of me what dost thou crave
Well only a kiss from your lily white lips then I’ll go from your grave
My lips are cold as clay sweetheart, my breath is earthy strong
And if you kiss my lily white lips your time will not be long

Our time be short our time be long, tomorrow or today
May Christ in heaven have my soul, but I’ll kiss your lips of clay
When shall we meet again sweetheart, tell me, tell me when
As the oaken leaves fall from the trees and green will spring again

(repeat first verse)

Acknowledgements

Transcribed from the singing of Nancy Kerr by Kira White.