The Cruel Mother

"The Cruel Mother" (a.k.a. "The Greenwood Side" or "Greenwood Sidey") (Child 20, Roud 9) is a murder ballad originating in England that has since become popular throughout the wider English-speaking world.[1][2]

"Down by the Greenwood Side" redirects here. For the opera by Harrison Birtwistle, see Down by the Greenwood Side (opera).

According to Roud and Bishop[3]

Widely collected in Britain and Ireland, and in North America, 'The Cruel Mother' has clearly struck a chord with singers over a number of generations. We will never know quite why, of course, but in performance the combination of the matter-of-fact handling of a difficult subject and the repeated rhythmic refrain often creates a stark and hypnotic tale, which is extremely effective.

Synopsis

A woman gives birth to one or two illegitimate children (usually sons) in the woods, kills them, and buries them. On her return trip home, she sees a child, or children, playing, and says that if they were hers, she would dress them in various fine garments and otherwise take care of them. The children tell her that when they were hers, she would not dress them so but murdered them. Frequently they say she will be damned for it.

Some variants open with the account that she has fallen in love with her father's clerk.

Variants

This ballad exists in a number of variants, in some of which there are verses where the dead children tell the mother she will suffer a number of penances each lasting seven years, e.g. "Seven years to ring a bell / And seven years porter in hell".[4] Those verses properly belong in "The Maid and the Palmer" (Child ballad 21).[5] Variants of "The Cruel Mother" include "Carlisle Hall", "The Rose o Malinde", "Fine Flowers in the Valley", "The Minister's Daughter of New York", and "The Lady From Lee", among others. "Fine Flowers of the Valley" is a Scottish variant. Weela Weela Walya is an Irish schoolyard version.[6] A closely related German ballad exists in many variants: a child comes to a woman's wedding to announce himself her child and that she had murdered three children, the woman says the Devil can carry her off if it is true, and the Devil appears to do so.[7]

Ballad scholar Hyder Rollins listed a broadside print dated 1638, and a fairly complete version was published in London in broadside ballad format as "The Duke's Daughter's Cruelty: Or the Wonderful Apparition of two Infants whom she Murther'd and Buried in a Forrest, for to hide her Shame" sometime between 1684 and 1695.[8]

This ballad was one of 25 traditional works included in Ballads Weird and Wonderful (1912) and illustrated by Vernon Hill.

Recordings
Album/SinglePerformerYearVariantNotes
False True LoversShirley Collins1959The Cruel Mother
Dear Companion: Bonnie DobsonBonnie Dobson1960The Cruel Mother
Folksongs of Britain: Child Ballads Vol 1Thomas Moran1961The Cruel MotherRecorded 1954
Four Strong WindsIan & Sylvia1964The Greenwood Side
The Judy Collins ConcertJudy Collins1964The Cruel Mother
The Long Harvest, Vol. 1Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger1967see noteAlbum contains three versions of The Cruel Mother, one variant called "Down By the Greenwood Sidey-O", and another called "The Lady From Lee".
BalladsHedy West1967The Cruel Mother
JoanJoan Baez1967The Greenwood Side
A Beacon from MarsKaleidoscope1968The Greenwood Sidee
The Sweet PrimrosesShirley Collins1970The Cruel Mother
LandfallMartin Carthy1972The Cruel Mother
The Voice of the People Vol. 3Lizzie Higgins1988The Cruel MotherRecorded 1975
Tempted and triedSteeleye Span1989The Cruel Mother
Flesh and BloodMaddy Prior1997The Cruel Mother
Ye Shine Whar Ye Stan!Jock Duncan1996The Cruel Mother
Live at NewportIan & Sylvia1996The Greenwood SideRecorded live at the Newport Folk Festival, 1963.
Songs Of ExperienceCindy Mangsen1998The Cruel Mother
ShantallaShantalla2000Fine flowers in the valley
Greenwood SideLothlorien2000Greenwood Side
A Day Like TodayEmily Smith2002The Cruel Mother
No Earthly ManAlasdair Roberts2005The Cruel Mother
Wolverley Summer of Love 2007Stuart Estel2007The Cruel Mother
To The GroundKerfuffle2006Down By The Greenwood Side
In The Shadow of MountainsBella Hardy2009Cruel MotherMiss Hardy omits 'The' from the title but it is nonetheless a variant of the folk song.
Lady DiamondBryony Griffith
& Will Hampson		2011The Lady of YorkFrom the singing of Jim Eldon.
Born to wonder EPLouise Jordan2011The Cruel Mother
Here's to those we could not saveThe Imaginary Suitcase2012Fine flowers in the valley
Old Light: Songs from my Childhood & Other Gone WorldsRayna Gellert2012Cruel Mother
RevivalBellowhead2014Greenwood Side
Fiona HunterFiona Hunter2014The Cruel Mother
Twice Told Tales10,000 Maniacs2015Greenwood Sidey
MurmursNancy Kerr2015Cruel Mother
Here in the DeepDave Heumann2016Greenwood Side

See also

References
  1. The Ozarks: An American Survival of Primitive Society By Vance Randolph
  2. Francis James Child, English and Scottish Popular Ballads, "The Cruel Mother"
  3. Roud, Steve & Julia Bishop (2012). The New Penguin Book of Folk Songs. Penguin. ISBN 978-0-141-19461-5.
  4. Child, Francis James (1882). The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. Vol. 1. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin. p. 225. Retrieved 18 July 2019.
  5. Child (1882), p. 218
  6. "Weela Weela Walya". Songs of Clare. Clare County Library. Retrieved 11 July 2019.
  7. Child (1882), pp. 219–20
  8. Cazden, Norman, Herbert Haufrechtt, and Norman Studer. Folksongs of the Catskills. Albany: SUNY Press, 1982. 251-252. Print.
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