There lived a Wife at Usher's Well,
three stalwart sons had she.
She sent them away to the North Country
to learn their grimoire.
They hadn't been gone but about three weeks,
and it was scarely three,
when word came back to Usher's Well,
that her sons she'd never more see.
She prayed the winds would never cease,
nor solace from the flood,
till her three sons came home to her
in their own flesh and blood.
It fell about the Martimas time,
when nights are cold and long, that
this ladies sons came home to her
with shining robes put on.
The hats they wore were made of bark
that grew on no earthly site,
but on the North side of that tree
that grows in Paradise.
She bid her girl to blow the fire,
to bring them wine and bread,
and she herself has made their bed
with a pillow for each head.
Then up and crowed the rooster red,
an hour before the day.
The oldest to his brothers said,
"We must be away."
The cock doth crow, the day doth grow,
the chunnering worm doth chide,
and we must fly from Usher's Well,
back to Paradise.
................................................................................
I first heard this ballad sung by Jean Ritchie, and like a number of ballads
that I have only heard sung a single time, certain lines stuck in my memory
and others flew back to Paradise. It was a single word that eventually led me
to reconstruct this ballad, "grammarie" (as Jean sang it.) For years I figured
that it was a fanciful or archaic way of saying "grammar school" (the playfulness
of Kentucky mountain people with language is legendary, or should be.)...and
that is the definition, according to Oxford...but there is another layer of
meaning; "In the Middle Ages, grammatica chiefly meant the knowledge or study
of Latin, and (was) hence often synonymous with learning in general, the knowledge
peculiar to the learned class. As this was popularly supposed to include magic
and astrology, the OF "gramaire" was sometimes used as a name for these occult
sciences."
By itself that particular term needn't take on occult associations,
but in this ballad it seems significant to me. I made my version out of stanzas
deliberately chosen from many variants to make a certain sense of this ballad
which may be merely my own fantasy. (but I like it.)
To my way of thinking what the lady does in this ballad is plain old necromancy...perhaps
she sent her three sons up North to her old Alma Mater, High Druid University...wherever
it was, something went wrong (or right?) and instead of returning home the three
sons wound up somewhere where making hats out of bark was the fashion. (Cone-shaped
hats of bark, fusing the image of the world-tree, (Yggdragsil in Norse myth,)
and the "cone of power" raised by a sorcerer, are not unknown in Northern climes...magical
haberdashery is a rather obscure subject so I'm going to let it lay with that.)
What the mother prays for is that storms and floods will not cease until her
sons come back from the dead, "in their own flesh and blood."
The cold and dark nights of Martimas (Nov. 11) are the time they return, this
old holiday at the beginning of winter, was the traditional date for salting
the meat of slaughtered cattle for keeping.
You've got to love a ballad with a line like, "the chunnering worm doth chide."
(sometimes "channering")...this sentence has some very unusual and uncommon
words and ideas. If the word is "chunnering," it probably means that the worms
split or burst open the corpse. The word chide goes back to Old English, meaning
"To give loud or impassioned utterance to anger, displeasure, disapprobation,
reproof." Even worms are weirded out by this ladies creepy and excessive death-defying
affection...that the three sons are aware of the worms chiding them as they
split apart their decaying bodies is a strong stimulus for them to fly back
to Paradise at cock crow, and who could blame them?