"The Wife of Usher's Well"

Vernon Hill

Ballads Weird and Wonderful (1912)

 

 

 

"The Wife of Usher's Well" is a traditional ballad originally from Britain, but is

more particularly considered a Scottish ballad.

 

The ballad concerns a woman from Usher's Well, who sends her three sons away,

to school in some versions, and a few weeks after learns that they had died. The

woman grieves bitterly for the loss of her children, cursing the winds and sea.

 

 

 

Vernon Hill's illustration from Ballads Weird and Wonderful (1912)

 

 

Vernon Hill - 'The Wife of Usher's Well' from ''Ballads Weird and Wonderful'' (1912)

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 Vernon Hill - Detail of 'The Wife of Usher's Well' from ''Ballads Weird and Wonderful'' (1912)

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'The Wife of Usher's Well' from Ballads Weird and Wonderful (1912)

 

 

The Wife of Usher's Well

 

There liv'd a wife at Usher's Well,

And a wealthy wife was she;

Se had twa stout and stalwart sons,

And she sent them o'er the sea.

 

They hadna been a week frae her,

A week but barely ane,

When word came to the carline wife

That her twa sons were gane.

 

They hadna been a week frae her,

A week but barely three,

When word came to the carline wife

That her sons she'd never see.

 

"I wish the wind may never cease,

Nor freshes in the flood,

Till my twa sons come hame to me

In earthly flesh and blood!"

 

It fell about the Martinmas,

When the nights were lang and mirk,

When in and came her ain twa sons,

And their hats were o' the birk.

 

It neither grew in syke nor ditch,

Nor yet in any sheugh;

But at the gates of Paradise

That birk grew fair eneugh.

 

"Blaw up the fire, now, maidens mine,

Bring water frae the well,

For all my house shall fear this night,

Since my twa sons are well.

 

"Oh, eat and drink, my merry men a',

The better shall ye fare,

For my twa sons they are come hame

To me for evermair."

 

And she has gane and made the bed,

She'd made it saft and fine;

And she's happit them in her grey mantle,

Because they were her ain.

 

Up then crew the red, red cock,

An up and crew the gray;

And the aulder to the younger said,

"Brother, we maun away.

"The cock doth craw, the day doth daw,

The channerin' worm doth chide;

Gin we be missed out o' our place,

A sair pain we maun bide."

 

Oh, it's they've ta'en up their mither's mantle,

And they've hung it on a pin:

"Oh, lang may ye hing, my mither's mantle,

Ere ye hap us again!

 

"Fare ye weel, my mither dear!

Fareweel to barn and byre!

And fare ye weel, the bonny lass

That kindles my mither's fire."