Willie's Lady- Martin Carthy 1976
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 October 20, 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.
Willie's Lady- Martin Carthy
King Willie he's sailed over the raging foam,
He's wooed a wife and he's brought her home.
He wooed her for her long golden hair,
His mother wrought her a mighty care.
A weary spell she's laid on her:
She'd be with child for long and many's the year
But a child she would never bear.
And in her bower she lies in pain.
King Willie at her bedhead he do stand
As down his cheeks salten tears do run.
King Willie back to his mother he did run,
He's gone there as a begging son.
Says, “Me true love has this fine noble steed
The like of which you ne'er did see.
At every part of this horse's mane
There's hanging fifty silver bells and ten
There's hanging fifty bells and ten.
This goodly gift shall be your own
If back to my own true love you'll turn again
That she might bear her baby son.”
“Oh, the child she'll never lighter be
Nor from sickness will she e'er be free.
But she will die and she will turn to clay
And you will wed with another maid.”
Then sighing said this weary man
As back to his own true love he's gone again,
“I wish my life was at an end.”
King Willie back to his mother he did run,
He's gone there as a begging son.
Says, “me true love has this fine golden girdle
Set with jewels all about the middle
At every part of this girdle's hem
There's hanging fifty silver bells and ten
There's hanging fifty bells and ten.
This goodly gift shall be your own
If back to my own true love you'll turn again
That she might bear her baby son.”
“Oh, of her child she'll never lighter be
Nor from sickness will she e'er be free.
But she will die and she will turn to clay
And you will wed with another maid.”
Sighing says this weary man
As back to his own true love he's gone again,
“I wish my life was at an end.”
Then up and spoke his noble queen
And she has told King Willie of a plan
How she might bear her baby son.
She says, “You must go get you down to the market place
And you must buy you a loaf of wax.
And you must shape it as a babe that is to nurse
And you must make two eyes of glass.
Ask your mother to a christening day,
And you must stand there close as you can be
That you might hear what she do say”
King Willie he's gone down to the market place
And he has bought him a loaf of wax.
And he has shaped it as a babe that is to nurse
And he has made two eyes of glass.
He asked his mother to a christening day
And he has stood there close as he could be
That he might hear what she did say.
How she spoke and how she swore,
She spied the babe where no babe could be before,
She spied the babe where none could be before.
Says, “Who was it who undid the nine witch knots
Braided in amongst this lady's locks?
And who was it who took out the combs of care
Braided in amongst this lady's hair?
And who was it slew the master kid
That ran and slept all beneath this lady's bed
That ran and slept all beneath her bed?
And who was it unlaced her left shoe
And who was it that let her lighter be
That she might bear her baby boy?”
And it was Willie who undid the nine witch knots
Braided in amongst this lady's locks.
And it was Willie who took out the combs of care
Braided in amongst this lady's hair.
And it was Willie the master kid did slay
And it was Willie who unlaced her left foot shoe
And he has let her lighter be.
And she is born of a baby son
And greater the blessings that be them upon
And greater the blessings them upon.