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regshoeThis ballad is included by Child, not under its own number, but as an appendix to ballad 215, 'Rare Willie Drowned in Yarrow, or, the Water o Gamrie'. Both 'Annan Water' and 'Rare Willie' belong to a group of ballads about people meeting their deaths by drowning which, in the way of folk songs, mix up with each other in the evolution of oral tradition, swap verses back and forth and share various important story elements. I imagine it must have been a bit of a headache deciding how to classify them under discrete ballad numbers. The texts of 'Rare Willie' (Child gives eight of them) differ quite a bit from each other, and several have a lot in common with ballad number 216, 'The Mother's Malison, or, Clyde's Water'—but they don't have so very much, besides the basic drowning plot, in common with 'Annan Water'.
Here, our unnamed protagonist is trying to cross the river Annan in order to see his love, Annie. After tiring out one horse and changing to another, he tries to persuade the boatman to take him across the river, but the boatman refuses. Desperate, he resorts to swimming across; the raging water overcomes him, and he drowns. It's a simpler, vaguer plot than 'Rare Willie' and 'Clyde's Water', but contains some lovely imagery and intriguing suggestions, and it's been a favourite of mine for a while, but I didn't know very much about its history and variations—so I decided to find out some more and do a post on it!
Here is the only text version of Child's lyrics that I can find online. This is his source, Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Bringing in even more variation, both Scott and Child link it to songs called 'Allan Water', disagreeing about the exact relations involved.
I've found recordings of the ballad by eight artists, plus one instrumental recording of the tune—and an original song by the Decembrists with the same title, which, slightly confusingly, appears to have been inspired by both this ballad and 'Clyde's Water'. All the recordings use a version of the lyrics originally adapted from Child's text by Nic Jones, as explained at Mainly Norfolk (this page lists two more recordings that I couldn't find, but both of those are also described as using Jones's lyrics). Since there are only two distinct versions of the lyrics, it's worth looking at the changes made in a little detail (all verse numbers are as in Child's text):
It is slightly disappointing that no one since Jones seems to have gone back to the traditional lyrics—there are several respects in which I prefer them, and it'd be lovely to have a more traditional-style recording or two. However, interestingly, most of the later recordings don't repeat Jones's lyrics exactly, but make small changes here and there. Some sing 'Or never more I'll see my lady' instead of 'And all to see my bonny lady' at the end of verse 2; combined with changing 'Annie' to 'lady' in verse 8 (it's 'honey' in Child's lyrics) and changing the last line of verse 12 from 'And he never saw his bonny lady' (identical to Child) to 'And never more he'll see his lady', this creates even more poetic repetition, adding to the sense of tragedy as well as raising the stakes early on in the ballad. Interestingly, some recordings also restore the first-person perspective in verse 13, the only place where anyone else seems to have used lyrics from Child that Jones doesn't. I like these little changes; it's as though the ballad has re-entered oral tradition, with singers learning it from other singers, modifying what they hear and passing it on slightly altered, rather than just covering an original with the same words.
I love this ballad for its beautiful sense of inevitable tragedy. A river too wide and strong to swim across becomes an implacable force of fate; the protagonist is failed by first one horse then another, then by the boatman, and finally tries in vain to swim the river alone, only to meet his doom. (That's why I like the kelpy—suggesting, without really being explicit about, the supernatural works very well in a story which uses such a tragic, fated shape to describe mundane events). My favourite part is verse 13:
It's the combination of poetic imagery, personifying the 'frush saugh wand' and the 'bush of brier' and wishing woe on them, with the sharp vividness of the detail. In a few words, we see the drowning man's hands reaching in vain for the branches on the far shore, and the final loss of his last hope as they break, failing him too—nothing can overcome the strength of the river. Kate Rusby arranges this part of the song beautifully, with lone bass notes from the piano under the beginning of verse 12 that build up into a lovely mournful sound in this verse.
But perhaps it is ultimately possible to overcome the doom of the river: the ballad ends with Annie telling the Annan, 'For over thee I'll build a bridge, that ye never more true love may sever' (again, I think it works better to have this line only once at the end, rather than repeating it in a chorus). According to Scott, a bridge was in fact built 'in consequence of the melancholy catastrophe' of the ballad. There are multiple bridges over the Annan today—Scott doesn't clarify which one he's referring to—so I hope it worked. Perhaps the story nowadays is a reminder not to take prosaic modern conveniences like plentiful bridges for granted.
Here, our unnamed protagonist is trying to cross the river Annan in order to see his love, Annie. After tiring out one horse and changing to another, he tries to persuade the boatman to take him across the river, but the boatman refuses. Desperate, he resorts to swimming across; the raging water overcomes him, and he drowns. It's a simpler, vaguer plot than 'Rare Willie' and 'Clyde's Water', but contains some lovely imagery and intriguing suggestions, and it's been a favourite of mine for a while, but I didn't know very much about its history and variations—so I decided to find out some more and do a post on it!
Here is the only text version of Child's lyrics that I can find online. This is his source, Walter Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. Bringing in even more variation, both Scott and Child link it to songs called 'Allan Water', disagreeing about the exact relations involved.
I've found recordings of the ballad by eight artists, plus one instrumental recording of the tune—and an original song by the Decembrists with the same title, which, slightly confusingly, appears to have been inspired by both this ballad and 'Clyde's Water'. All the recordings use a version of the lyrics originally adapted from Child's text by Nic Jones, as explained at Mainly Norfolk (this page lists two more recordings that I couldn't find, but both of those are also described as using Jones's lyrics). Since there are only two distinct versions of the lyrics, it's worth looking at the changes made in a little detail (all verse numbers are as in Child's text):
- The words are Anglicised and modernised, with 'ony' changed to 'any', 'frush saugh wand' to 'willow wand', 'thee' and 'ye' to 'you' and so on.
- The plot is simplified, with several verses and details being left out. The two horses (a black and a grey) in Child's lyrics are combined into one, and less time is spent on describing its journey. Verse 9, in which the boatman refuses to cross the river, is cut, leaving the refusal implied and the boatman's reasons for it a mystery (in Child's lyrics, he says he 'was sworn sae late yestreen' not to go; why and by whom, it's not clear). Verse 11, in which the protagonist takes off his coat and bursts his waistcoat off from sheer emotion, is also cut (perhaps Jones felt the image was a bit silly, or just unnecessary).
- A few words are changed to create more poetic repetition within the lyrics: 'wading' in the first line of verse 1 becomes 'wondrous', matching the 'wondrous' already in the second line, and the first line of verse 7 is changed to repeat the 'o'er moor and moss' from verse 5. Little irregular bits of repetition are important in ballads, which tend not to have choruses, so this feels very appropriate.
- Some other details and bits of wording are changed and simplified. The first line of verse 12, for instance, is changed from 'He has taen the ford at that stream tail' to 'And he has tried to swim that stream'; I think the simpler language here increases the pathos of the situation. The fourth line of verse 10, in which the grey mare is frightened by the water, is changed from 'For she heard the water-kelpy roaring' to 'She stands to hear the water roaring', removing the only supernatural reference in an otherwise mundane plot. But I think it's a shame to lose the kelpy!
- Jones uses verse 14 as a chorus, repeating it after every other verse.
- Finally, verses 12-14 of Child's lyrics are narrated in the first person, apparently by Annie. Jones removes the first-person perspective from verses 12 and 13, changing 'I wot he swam...' to 'And he swam on...' and 'my true-love's hand' to 'her true love's hands', but keeps it in verse 14/the chorus.
It is slightly disappointing that no one since Jones seems to have gone back to the traditional lyrics—there are several respects in which I prefer them, and it'd be lovely to have a more traditional-style recording or two. However, interestingly, most of the later recordings don't repeat Jones's lyrics exactly, but make small changes here and there. Some sing 'Or never more I'll see my lady' instead of 'And all to see my bonny lady' at the end of verse 2; combined with changing 'Annie' to 'lady' in verse 8 (it's 'honey' in Child's lyrics) and changing the last line of verse 12 from 'And he never saw his bonny lady' (identical to Child) to 'And never more he'll see his lady', this creates even more poetic repetition, adding to the sense of tragedy as well as raising the stakes early on in the ballad. Interestingly, some recordings also restore the first-person perspective in verse 13, the only place where anyone else seems to have used lyrics from Child that Jones doesn't. I like these little changes; it's as though the ballad has re-entered oral tradition, with singers learning it from other singers, modifying what they hear and passing it on slightly altered, rather than just covering an original with the same words.
I love this ballad for its beautiful sense of inevitable tragedy. A river too wide and strong to swim across becomes an implacable force of fate; the protagonist is failed by first one horse then another, then by the boatman, and finally tries in vain to swim the river alone, only to meet his doom. (That's why I like the kelpy—suggesting, without really being explicit about, the supernatural works very well in a story which uses such a tragic, fated shape to describe mundane events). My favourite part is verse 13:
"O wae betide the frush saugh wand!And Jones's version of the same verse:
"And wae betide the bush of briar!
"It brake into my true love's hand,
"When his strength did fail, and his limbs did tire.
Oh woe betide the willow wand
And woe betide the bush of briar,
For it broke beneath her true love's hands
When strength did fail and limbs did tire.
It's the combination of poetic imagery, personifying the 'frush saugh wand' and the 'bush of brier' and wishing woe on them, with the sharp vividness of the detail. In a few words, we see the drowning man's hands reaching in vain for the branches on the far shore, and the final loss of his last hope as they break, failing him too—nothing can overcome the strength of the river. Kate Rusby arranges this part of the song beautifully, with lone bass notes from the piano under the beginning of verse 12 that build up into a lovely mournful sound in this verse.
But perhaps it is ultimately possible to overcome the doom of the river: the ballad ends with Annie telling the Annan, 'For over thee I'll build a bridge, that ye never more true love may sever' (again, I think it works better to have this line only once at the end, rather than repeating it in a chorus). According to Scott, a bridge was in fact built 'in consequence of the melancholy catastrophe' of the ballad. There are multiple bridges over the Annan today—Scott doesn't clarify which one he's referring to—so I hope it worked. Perhaps the story nowadays is a reminder not to take prosaic modern conveniences like plentiful bridges for granted.
