> Martin Carthy > Songs > Willie's Lady
Willie's Lady
[
Roud 220
; Child 6
; G/D 2:346
; Ballad Index C006
; Mudcat 10248
, 19892
; trad.]
King Willie's choice of bride apparently does not meet with his mother's approval, and she puts a curse on her: although come to full term with her pregnancy, she cannot give birth. The king tries to bribe his mother with various gifts: a fine horse and a jewelled belt. However, the queen has an idea as to how to outwit the witch. Willie is to make a fake baby out of wax, with glass eyes, so that she can pretend she has successfully born a child. He then overhears his mother, in her surprise, give away the details of the curse: there were witches' knots in the queen's hair, her left shoe was tightly laced, and there was a toad, the witch's familiar, under the queen's bed. Hearing this, Willie undoes all the spells, and she is now successful in her delivery.
This song is the title track of Ray Fisher's 1982 album, Willie's Lady. She commented in the accompanying booklet:
I have set this magnificent ballad to a tune of a Breton drinking song [Son Ar Chistr or The Song of Cider]. The text is based entirely on the contents in Francis James Child's massive collection, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. I have omitted, added, and ‘telescoped’ some of the verses.
For immediate understanding, the plot is as follows: Willie marries a young and beautiful girl. His mother, a witch, disapproves of the girl and curses her. The girl will never produce a child; she and the child will die in childbirth. Offers of gifts to the mother to lift the curse prove fruitless. Willie seeks and gets help from the servant, the Billy Blind. Willie follows the Billy Blind's instructions and foils his mother's scheme and eventually fathers a son.
The Billy Blind: Some Scottish households retained a non-working servant who possesses some disability, e.g. deaf, dumb, hare-lipped or blind. The belief was held that they had second-sight, wisdom, or some supernatural power to compensate for their disability. They were feared by many, mainly due to ignorance. A blind man may well develop an extra keen hearing capacity and a refined sense of touch, so the belief was reasonably well-founded. Thus, as a means of protection or insurance against evil, a household would shelter such a person. In this ballad he was blind.
A brief clarification of the curses:
The knots in the girl's hair (note the magic number, nine; 3 × 3 = powerful) symbolise the constricting elements—holding back the free-flowing birth of the child. Even today, in some parts of Scotland, during childbirth a girl's garments are loose, unbuttoned, without pins or fastenings.
The combs (kaims o' care) of care were pressed through the long, golden hair, accompanied by a curse each time, and then left in the hair to hold in the curse. The hair is a powerful vehicle for curse-making.
The master kid (a young goat) was the link between the forces of evil and the witch—the catalyst or carrier. This invariably is an animal—the witch's cat being the most widely-known example.
The woodbine is a clinging, constricting plant that holds on and winds around other plants and branches—holding in again is symbolised here.
Lastly, the left-side shoe (leften shee) again has evil influence (i.e., Latin: sinister). This was tightly knotted to strengthen the curse.
Finally, the advice from the Billy Blind to make a wax baby and invite the mother to the christening is a master stroke indeed. This results in the eventual birth of a son.The mother really laid it on pretty heavily with the curses—any one would have done the trick! She must either have doubted her own skills or have feared the power of the love bond between her son and the girl.
Martin Carthy sang Willie's Lady on his 1976 album Crown of Horn; this recording was also included in 1993 on his anthology The Collection. A live recording from the Sunflower Folk Club, Belfast, on 20 October 1978 was published in 2011 on his CD The January Man; and he sang it Live in Whitby 1984 and at Ruskin Mill in December 2004. Martin Carthy commented in the first album's sleeve notes:
It was a particularly happy stroke of genius on Ray Fisher's part to marry the song Willie's Lady to the tune of the Breton song Son Ar Chistr (The Song of Cider), and it is with her permission that I have recorded it. I was informed by a young Breton that the tune was written in 1930 by a piper who became a tramp on the streets of Paris. The story of the song is very close to that of the birth of Hercules, although there the timing of the trickery is, if anything, even more critical.
This YouTube video shows Martin Carthy explaining and singing Willie's Lady at Watford Folk Club on 18 June 2010:
Rubus sang Willie's Lady in 2008 on their CD Nine Witch Knots; the CD title is a phrase from this song. Emily Portman commented in their liner notes:
A ballad about the age-old problem of jealous mother-in-laws. To make matters worse, and much more interesting in this case, this mother is also a witch (a doubly branded woman) who puts a spell on her blonde bombshell of a daughter-in-law, rendering her perpetually pregnant. Luckily Billie Blind, a magical helper who saves the day in various ballads, helps to trick the witch into revealing her spells which include nine witch knots tied in the lady's hair. Superstition once had it that all knots should be untied and animals freed to ease a difficult birth. Although the “master kid” is probably a phrase that has distorted over time, I like the image of a baby goat running around under her bed!
Willie's Lady was the first ballad I learnt and it has remained with me as a mongrel hybrid, mis-remembered from the singing of Ray Fisher who adapted the Breton melody Son Ar Chistr to fit the text, and Martin Carthy who anglicised the Scots dialect.
Jon Boden got Willie's Lady from Martin Carthy and the Australian duo Cloudstreet; he sang it as the 3 March 2011 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day.
Lady Maisery sang Willie's Lady in 2011 on their CD Weave & Spin. They commented in their liner notes:
Our version of this ballad is based on the Scottish version from the Fraser Tytler MS, which Hazel [Askew] edited and wrote the tune for. Billy the Blind appears in lots of ballads and is a handy household sprite who often gives good advice.
This YouTube video shows Lady Maisery singing Willie's Lady at Shrewsbury Folk Festival in August 2011:
Anaïs Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer sang Willie's Lady in 2013 on their CD of Child Ballads.
The Owl Service learned Willie's Lady from Martin Carthy's album and sang it in 2016 on their CD His Pride. No Spear. No Friend..
Lyrics
| Martin Carthy sings Willie's Lady | Lady Maisery sing Willie's Lady |
|---|---|
|
King Willie he's sailed over the raging foam, He wooed her for her long golden hair, A weary spell she's laid on her: And in her bower she lies in pain. King Willie back to his mother he did run, Says, “Me true love has this fine noble steed “At every part of this horse's mane “This goodly gift shall be your own “Oh, the child she'll never lighter be “But she will die and she will turn to clay Then sighing said this weary man King Willie back to his mother he did run, Says, “Me true love has this fine golden girdle At every part of this girdle's hem This goodly gift shall be your own “Oh, of her child she'll never lighter be But she will die and she will turn to clay Sighing says this weary man Then up and spoke his noble queen She says, “You must go get you down to the market place “And you must shape it as a babe that is to nurse “Ask your mother to the christening day, King Willie he's gone down to the market place And he has shaped it as a babe that is to nurse He asked his mother to the christening day How she spoke and how she swore, Says, “Who was it who undid the nine witch knots “And who was it who took out the combs of care “And who was it slew the master kid “And who was it unlaced her left shoe And it was Willie who undid the nine witch knots And it was Willie who took out the combs of care And it was Willie the master kid did slay And she is born of a baby son |
Oh Willie he's crossed over the foam, He wooed her for her golden hair, So wicked spells she's cast on her, But in her bower she sits in pain So to his mother he has gone, And says, “My lady has a cup “This goodly gift shall be your own “Oh of her babe she'll not be free “But she will die and turn to clay, So Willy sighed and turned away, “Oh go you to your mother again, “And say your lady has a steed “For he has golden hooves before, “And just below that horse's mane “This goodly gift shall be your own “Oh of her babe she'll not be free “But she will die and turn to clay, So Willy sighed and turned away, “Oh go you to your mother again, “And say your lady has a gown “And every stitches made from gold “And at every golden hem “This goodly gift shall be your own “Oh of her babe she'll not be free “But she will die and turn to clay, So Willy sighed and turned away, Then up and spoke old Billy the Blind Then up and spoke old Billy the Blind “Oh go you down to the market place “And shape a babe that is to nurse, “And bid you mother to his christening day “And never stray too far away “Oh who has loosed the nine witch knots “And who has take the combs of care “And who has killed the master kid “And who has loosened her left shoe So Willie's loosed the nine witch knots And Willie's taken the combs of care And Willie's killed the master kid And Willie's loosened her left shoe They from this witch's curse be free |
Acknowledgements
Transcription of Martin Carthy's singing from Mudcat Café, carefully checked by Garry Gillard. Abby Sale refers in the Mudcat Café thread Origin: Willie's Lady (Child #6) to The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection, #III, Simon's Lady, and says, following him, that the “kid” under the bed is in fact a “ted”, ie. a toad, a witch's familiar.