Ballads: Willie o Winsbury

One of the new projects I want to start working on for 2022 is BALLADS, and I'm getting a bit of a head start now. My goal is to write up some ballads here, and then think about ways to turn them into new kinds of stories: microfiction, flash fiction, readers theater, etc.

I'll start by working through the songs on one of my favorite albums, Anaïs Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer's Child Ballads, beginning with Willie o Winsbury.

Child Ballad 100: but the lyrics are a quite different version

Roud 64

Here are the lyrics for the version on their album:

The king has been a prisoner

And a prisoner long in Spain

And Willie of the Winsbury

Has lain long with his daughter Jane.

"What ails you, what ails you, my daughter Jane?

Why you look so pale and wan?

Oh have you had any ill sickness?

Or yet been sleeping with a man?"

"I have not had any ill sickness

Nor yet been sleeping with a man;

It is for you my father dear

For biding so long in Spain."

"Cast off, cast off your robe and gown,

Stand naked on the stone,

That I might know you by your shape

If you be a maiden or none."

And she's cast off her robe and gown,

Stood naked on the stone;

Her apron was tight and her waist was round

Her face was pale and wan.

"And was it with a lord or a gentleman

Or a man of wealth and fame?

Or was it with one of my servingmen

While I was a prisoner in Spain?"

"No, it wasn't with a lord or a gentleman

Or a man of wealth and fame;

It was with Willie of Winsbury

I could bide no longer alone."

And the king has called his servingmen

By one, by two and by three,

Saying, "Where is this Willie of Winsbury?

For hanged he shall be."

And when they came before the king

By one, by two and by three

Willie should have been the first of them

But the last of them was he.

And Willie of the Winsbury

All dressed up in red silk,

His hair hung like the strands of gold,

His breast was white as milk,

"No wonder, no wonder," the king he said

"That my daughter's love you did win.

If I were a woman as I am a man

In my own bed you would have been.

And will you marry my daughter Jane

By the faith of your right hand?

And I'll make you the lord of my servingmen

I'll make you the heir to my land."

"Oh yes, I'll marry your daughter Jane

By the faith of my right hand,

But I'll not be the lord of any man;

I'll be not be the heir to your land."

And he's raised her up on a milk white steed

And himself on a dapple gray

He has made her the lady of as much land

As she can ride on a long summer's day.

And here's an old broadside, where he's called Thomas Bright:

 

Here's a playlist: