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Death and the Lady

[ Roud 1031 ; Ballad Index ShH22 ; VWML COL/5/29 , COL/5/28 , CJS2/9/1158 ; Bodleian Roud 1031 ; Wiltshire 288 , 776 ; trad.]

English Traditional Songs and Carols The Constant Lovers The Everlasting Circle One Hundred English Folksongs Songs of the West The Folk Handbook

The ballad Death and the Lady was collected in 1946 by Francis M. Collison from Mr Baker of Maidstone, Kent, and published in Ralph Vaughan Williams and A.L. Lloyd’s Penguin Book of English Folk Songs.

Shirley Collins sang this version of Death and the Lady in 1970 as the title track of her and her sister Dolly’s album Love, Death & the Lady. She also sang Death and the Lady on her 2016 album Lodestar where she noted:

Many English folk songs begin with the words “As I roved out one May morning”, a device for setting the song up, much as a fairy tale opens with “Once upon a time”. On this walk you might encounter your true love, or a seducer, or perhaps a long lost lover returned from fighting abroad for seven weary years. You might encounter the Devil, who you could outwit, or Death, who you couldn’t.

Death and the Lady harks back centuries, but these words were noted down from a Mr Baker of Maidstone, Kent, in 1906, collector unknown. The tune is my own. The song puts me in mind of the sombre scene from Ingmar Bergman’s 1975 film The Seventh Seal, where a Knight, returned home from the Crusades, plays a long game of chess with Death, on a lonely Scandinavian seashore. That was set at the time when the Black Death ravaged Europe, and this song may well have started its life then.

The John Renbourn Group sang Death and the Lady in 1977 on their Transdatlantic album A Maid in Bedlam.

Kate Burke and Ruth Hazleton sang Death and the Lady on their 2000 album A Thousand Miles or More.

Waterson:Carthy sang Death and the Lady in 2002 with somewhat different verses on their fourth album, A Dark Light. Martin Carthy noted:

Norma learned Death and the Lady from [the Cecil Sharp collection One Hundred English Folksongs (1916)]. It’s a dark song here and she did what was second nature to the Watersons in their heyday, transforming the tune by altering just a couple of notes.

Mike Bosworth sang Death and the Lady on his CD of songs from the Baring-Gould Collection, By Chance It Was. He noted:

Collected by Captain Hale Munro from an old man in Newton Abbott [VWML SBG/1/1/460] . There are many forms of this folk tale in plays.

Bellowhead recorded Death and the Lady in 2006 for their CD Burlesque and Jon Boden sang it as the 7 May 2011 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day. He noted in the CD booklet:

The theme of a conversation between the grim reaper and a lovely young maiden has featured in European ballads, plays and paintings since the Middle Ages; existing English broadsides, also entitled The Great Messenger of Mortality and Life and Death Contrasted date back to the late 17th century. A number of oral versions were collected in the south and south west of England during the early 20th century, including the one published by the collector Alfred Williams in Folk-Songs of the Upper Thames (London: Duckworth, 1923), from which our version is derived. As Williams collected no melodies at all, the words were set to a reworking of Rakish Paddy, or Caber Feidh (The Deer’s Antlers), claimed by both the Irish and the Scots.

Frank Purslow has written about the song in The Constant Lovers (London, EFDSS Publications, 1972), p. 121, and further studies can be found in the Journal of the English Folk Dance & Song Society 5/1 (1946), pp. 19-20, and Vaughan Williams and Lloyd’s Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, now revised by Malcolm Douglas and issued as Classic English Folk Songs (London: EFDSS, 2005).

The Demon Barbers got Death and the Lady from Michael Raven’s book Hynde Horn to the tune of The Gardener. They sang it on their 2008 CD +24db.

Maggie Boyle sang Death and the Lady in 2008 on Sketch’s eponymous album Sketch.

Ian King sang Death and the Lady in 2010 on his Fledg’ling album Panic Grass & Fever Few.

Phillip Henry and Hannah Martin sang Death and the Lady in 2011 on their CD Singing the Bones. They adapted their lyrics from the version in the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs.

James Findlay sang Death and the Lady in 2012 on his Fellside CD Another Day, Another Story. He noted:

The classic story of bumping into Death whilst out and about. Such meetings are recorded in text as early as 16th century. This song came from a Mrs. R. Sage of Chew Stoke [VWML CJS2/9/1158] and is the only version of this ballad that Cecil Sharp collected in Somerset. Revd Sabine Baring-Gould noted very similar words in Songs From the West (no. 99) but to a different tune.

Bernie Cherry sang Death and the Lady on his Musical Traditions album With Powder, Shot and Gun. Rod Stradling nored in the accompanying booklet:

Although Roud has 110 instances of this wholly English song—all from printed sources of one kind or another—it would seem that it has only been collected from six traditional singers, and that there are no sound recordings. The text would imply a great age to the song, and Roud’s earliest entry shows it having been published in Carey, Sailor’s Songbag, pp.38-39, in 1778.

Bernie: This is from the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs. “If life was a thing that money could buy, the rich would live and the poor would die.” Well, it isn’t good job too!

Andy Turner sang Death and the Lady as the 26 May 2013 entry of his project A Folk Song a Week.

Peter Knight sang Death and the Lady in 2015 on Gigspanner’s CD Layers of Ages and at the Gigspanner Big Band’s concert at Nettlebed Folk Club in January 2017. This recording was released in the same year on their CD Gigspanner Big Band Live.

Nuala Kennedy sang Death and the Lady on her 2016 album Behave the Bravest.

The Dovetail Trio sang Death and the Lady on their 2019 CD Bold Champions. Rosie Hood noted:

Collected in 1946 by Francis M. Collison from Mr Baker of Maidstone, Kent [VWML COL/5/29, COL/5/28] . We came across this song in Ralph Vaughan Williams and A.L. Lloyd’s Penguin Book of English Folk Songs. We then adjusted a few of the words and the tune but it’s still the same song!

This April 2019 video shows them singing Death and the Lady live in a tunnel:

Matt Lazenby sang Death and the Lady on his 2020 EP Sweet Dreams of Life.

Lilian recorded Death and the Lady as the title track her 2019 EP Death and the Lady.

Landless sang Death and the Lady on their 2024 album Lúireach. They noted

We learned this song from the singing of Norma Waterson who believed, whilst the earliest writings of the song were in the seventeenth century, that the singing of it dates back to the time of the Black Death in the fourteenth century.

Lyrics

Shirley Collins sings Death and the Lady

As I walked out one morn in May
The birds did sing and the lambs did play,
The birds did sing and the lambs did play;
𝄆 I met an old man 𝄇 by the way.

His head was bald, his beard was grey,
His coat was of a myrtle shade,
I asked him what strange countryman,
𝄆 Or what strange 𝄇 place he did belong.

“My name is Death, cannot you see?
Lords, Dukes and Ladies bow down to me.
And you are one of those branches three,
𝄆 And you fair maid 𝄇 must come with me.”

“I’ll give you gold and jewels rare,
I’ll give you costly robes to wear,
I’ll give you all my wealth in store,
𝄆 If you’ll let me live 𝄇 a few years more.”

“Fair lady, lay your robes aside,
No longer glory in your pride.
And now, sweet maid, make no delay,
𝄆 Your time is come 𝄇 and you must away.”

And not long after this fair maid died;
“Write on my tomb,” the lady cried,
“Here lies a poor distressed maid,
𝄆 Whom Death now lately 𝄇 hath betrayed.”

Waterson:Carthy sings Death and the Lady

As I walked out one day, one day
I met an aged man by the way.
His head was bald, his beard was grey,
His clothing made of the cold earthen clay,
His clothing made of the cold earthen clay.

I said, “Old man, what man are you?
What country do you belong unto?”
“My name is Death—hast heard of me?
All kings and princes bow down unto me
And you fair maid must come along with me.”

“I’ll give you gold, I’ll give you pearl,
I’ll give you costly rich robes to wear,
If you will spare me a little while
And give me time my life to amend,
And give me time my life to amend”

“I’ll have no gold, I’ll have no pearl,
I want no costly rich robes to wear.
I cannot spare you a little while
Nor give you time your life to amend,
Nor give you time your life to amend”

In six months time this fair maid died;
“Let this be put on my tombstone,” she cried,
“Here lies a poor distressed maid.
Just in her bloom she was snatched away,
Her clothing made of the cold earthen clay.”

(repeat first verse)

Bellowhead sing Death and the Lady

As I walked out alone one day
All in the merry month of May
I met an old man on my way,
All in the morning early.

His head was bald, his beard was grey,
His cheeks were like the mortal clay;
I asked him how he came that way,
All in the morning early.

“My name is Death, oh don’t you see?
Lords, Dukes and Squires bow down to me.
And you must come along with me,
All in the morning early.”

“I’ll give you gold and riches rare,
I’ll give you costly robes to wear,
I’ll give you all my earthly share,
If you’ll spare me a little while longer.”

“Lady, leave your robes aside,
No longer glory in your pride.
No more in life you may abide
So come along with me.”

And then the mortal toll was paid
And all alone this pretty maid
By Death so cruelly was betrayed
And we all come stumbling after.

The Dovetail Trio sing Death and the Lady

As I walked out alone one day,
All in the merry month of May,
The birds did sing and the lambs did play,
𝄆 I met an old man all on the way. 𝄇

His head was bald his beard was grey,
His cheeks were of the mortal clay.
I asked him why he came that way,
𝄆 From what strange place did he lately stray. 𝄇

“My name is Death, oh can’t you see.
Lords, dukes and ladies bow down to me.
And you are one of those branches three,
𝄆 And you fair maid must come with me.” 𝄇

“I’ll give you gold and jewels so rare,
I’ll give you costly robes to wear.
I’ll give you all of my earthly share,
𝄆 If a few more years, my life you’ll spare.” 𝄇

“Fair lady, lay your bequests aside,
No longer glory in your pride.
No more in life will your body stay,
𝄆 Your time is come, and you must away.” 𝄇

And not long after this fair maid died,
“Write on my tomb”, the lady cried.
“Here lies a poor distressed maid,
𝄆 Whom Death now lately hath betrayed.” 𝄇