Woman at the churchyard gate, song / Kitty Shields, singing in English
ITMA Reference | 55152 |
Creator | Shields, Kitty, singing in English |
Contributor | Shields, Hugh, collector |
Date | 22 March 1975 |
Location | Hugh Shields’s house, Dublin |
Type | Sound |
Extent | 1 computer file (MP3 file, 1 min., 15 sec.) : digital, stereo |
Collection | Hugh Shields Collection |
Subject | Ireland: Singing in English |
Language | English |
Publisher | Irish Traditional Music Archive |
Copyright | Performers, Hugh Shields |
Source | 1106-ITMA-REEL [HS 7506] |
Roud Number | 501 |
View in ITMA catalogue: |
Woman at the churchyard gate
Oo - oo - ooh, aa - aa - aa - aah
Very dark and very late
Oo - oo - ooh, aa - aa - aa - aah
All verses similarly
Corpses three were carried in
Very tall and very thin
Woman to the corpses said
‘Will I be like that when I’m dead?’
Corpses to the woman said
‘Aa - aa - aa - aargh!’
Widely known in Britain and America, often as the “Skin-and bone lady.” For other references see Opie and Opie’s The lore and language of schoolchildren (1967:37); Cox’s Folk songs of the South (1967:482–83); Halliwell’s The nursery rhymes of England (1842:64–65). The lugubrious broadside “Death and the lady” was probably a source of inspiration.
Brian O’Linn
The Town of Antrim