minstrel: Carlisle Wall

[Lisa and Ken Theriot]

Cara wrote:

[I am looking for the lyrics to an old Scottish song called Carlisle
Wall.  I know that it was rewritten by Sir Walter Scott and he changed
the lyrics significantly in his version.  I am looking for the original
version, not his.]

Hi Cara!

I also checked my sources, and I have a bunch, including Ritson's
Scotish Songs (2 vols.), Jamieson's Ballads (2 vols.), Greig's Scots
Minstrelsie (6 vols.), Percy's Reliques (3 vols.), etc.  If it predated
Scott, I would probably have found it.  Some observations:

Scott's poem was part of "The Lay of the Last Minstrel", published in
1805.  The notes to that say that he got the burden lines for this piece
from the following:

"She lean'd her back against a thorn,
The sun shines fair on Carlisle wa':
And there she has her young babe born
And the lyon shall be lord of a'."

That's "Cruel Mother" (Child #20), more often found with the burden
"Fine Flowers in the Valley", sometimes given as its title.  It's a
totally different story, about an unwed mother who murders her new-born
(usually with a "wee pen-knife") and later encounters the baby's ghost
in the churchyard.  The substance of Scott's story is much like "Cruel
Brother" (Child #11), although the means of the murder is poison, which
is very uncommon in Scottish ballads.  Scottish ballads generally favor
stabbing; in fact, a friend of mine once said "If there's a 'wee
pen-knife' in this song, I'm leaving" because it's so pervasive.

If you could quote exactly the note you read that referenced an
underlying piece to Scott's poem, I might be able to help you further.
If they are only referencing Scott's notes to "Lay", then I don't think
there is one.  I bet Scott wrote it more or less from whole cloth, in
imitation of "Cruel Brother" with a nod or two to "Fair Flower of
Northumberland" (Child #9) in which a Scotsman romances an English girl.
I can certainly give you a whole mess of versions of "Cruel Brother",
but I don't think I've got one that uses poison, and I know I haven't
got any where the bridegroom kills the brother and then goes off to die
in the Crusades.  In fact, the bridegroom generally disappears after the
first couple of stanzas as he becomes incidental to the story.
Occasionally this bone is tossed in at the end:

It would have made your heart full sair
To see the bridegroom rive his hair.


Adelaide