Origins: Lyke Wake Dirge (This Ae Nicht)

Subject: RE: Phrase from: Lyke Wake Dirge
From: Darowyn
Date: 05 Nov 06 - 09:05 AM

I've been thinking about this while I've been doing the garden.I think I was lead astray by the spelling and Tolkien associations of gutorcs.
There is no standard spelling in dialect, and phrases are often elliptical, so maybe Mo and I were trying to be too literal.
"Guttoxed" would look more like the version I understand.
Does it mean something more like, "I'm getting tired, I think I'll call it a day".
"Shut t'yat" standing for "lock up for the night"
Cheers
Dave

Subject: Origins: Lyke Wake Dirge's Elizabethan origins
From: Stower
Date: 01 Mar 16 - 01:24 PM

The Lyke-Wake Dirge, with its dark, mysterious imagery and its brooding melody, is known to singers of traditional songs through its resurrection in the repertoire of The Young Tradition in the 1960s, and its subsequent recording by The Pentangle and others. What many of its performers may not realise is that its history can be reliably traced to Elizabethan Yorkshire, with a hint from Geoffrey Chaucer that its origins may be earlier. Here is an article using direct testimony from the 16th and 17th century to explore its meaning, its perilous and punishing "Whinny-moor", "Brig o' Dread", and "Purgatory fire";
and the surprising origin of its doleful dorian melody.

Subject: RE: Origins: Lyke Wake Dirge
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 Jul 17 - 12:09 AM

Here are the lyrics from the Digital Tradition. Does anyone know where they came from?

LYKE WAKE DIRGE

This ae night, this ae night
Every night and a'
Fire and sleet and candle lighte,
And Christ receive thy saule

When from hence away art past
Every ...
To whinny moor thou com'st at last
And ...

If ever thou gavest hosen and shoon
Sit thee down and put them on.

If hosen and shoon thou ne'er gav'st nane
The whinnies shall prick thee to the bare bane.

From whinny moor when thou may'st pass
To Brig o' Dread thou com'st at last.

If ever thou gavest meat or drink
The fire shall never make thee shrink.

If meat or drink thou ne'er gav'st nane
The fire will burn thee to the bare bane.

This ae night, this ae nighte
Fire and sleet and candle lighte.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
recorded by The Young Tradition on their first album (1966), also I think
by Buffy Sainte Marie on "Fire and Fleet and Candlelight" (the title is
from this song).

@death @ritual @Scottish @dialect @ghost
filename[ LYKEDIRG
MJ

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Here's the entry from the Traditional Ballad Index:

Lyke-Wake Dirge, The

DESCRIPTION: A warning to those not yet dead. Those who gave to the poor shall receive as they have given; those who have not will pay the penalty. "This ae nicht, this ae nicht, ilka nicht and alle -- Fire and sleet and candlelicht, and Christ receive thy soule"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE:
KEYWORDS: death funeral lament religious Hell
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (4 citations):
OBB 33, "A Lyke-Wake Dirge" (1 text)
ReedSmith, p. 5, "A Lyke-Wake Dirge" (1 text)
DT, LYKEDIRG
ADDITIONAL: Walter de la Mare, _Come Hither_, revised edition, 1928; #278, "A Lyke-Wake Dirge" (1 text)
Roud #8194
NOTES: De la Mare quotes Sidgwick to the effect that sleet means not falling water but salt (the token of eternal life) -- or perhaps is an error for "fleet." The editors of the Oxford English Dictionary prefer the latter reading (remember that a "long s" looked very like an f, so it's an easy error). "Fleet" in this context would be a flat surface or floor -- it's the same word as J. R. R. Tolkien's "flet" for a platform in a tree. But it's not obvious what this would mean.
Bengt R. Jonsson suggests ("Oral Literature, Written Literature: The Ballad and Old Norse Genres," in Joseph Harris, editor, The Ballad and Oral Literature, Harvard University Press, 1991, p. 170), "As for the 'Lyke-Wake Dirge' we cannot entirely dismiss the possibility that we have to do with one out of many examples of Norwegian influence on Scottish tradition." The Norwegian influence is genuine, but Jonsson offers no real evidence for this particular contention.
Malcolm Douglas gave the following information about the tune to the Ballad-L list in 2008 (slightly edited, mostly for formatting reasons):
"The tune Hans Fried got from Peggy Richards [which was recorded by the Young Tradition] was written by Sir Harold Boulton, and first appeared in his Songs of the North(Vol I, c.1885) set to the text (slightly edited) from Scott. It had changed a bit in detail by the time it got to The Young Tradition, but not fundamentally. Songs of the North was immensely popular (at least 23 editions) and there would seem to be a decent chance that Peggy Richards (described as 'old') had learned it at school, or directly from print.
"It is *just* possible that a tune that may perhaps have been traditionally associated with the text survives. A song ('The Silkstone Disaster', written by Rowland Kellett) appeared in 'English Dance and Song' (XXXIII No 2 Summer 1971), set to a tune described as 'The Yorkshire Lyke-Wake'. Kellett noted that it was played as a funeral march in the Yorkshire Dales, but didn't say where, when or from whom he had got it. It bears no resemblance to Boulton's melody, but the words would fit.
"Some years later, the same tune (though slightly variant and in a different key) turned up in Blowzabella's tunebook 'Encyclopedia Blowzabellica.' There, it was titled 'Lyke Wake Dirge' and described as 'traditional' (but with a query if I remember correctly). No source was identified, and it's unclear whether the change of name is significant or not."
The connection with Yorkshire adds to the interest. According to Arnold Kellett, The Yorkshire Dictionary of Dialect, Tradition, and Folklore, revised edition, Smith Settle, 2002, p. 107, the Lyke Wake Dirge is a "funeral lament of great antiquity, the earliest example of Yorkshire dialect, not printed until 1686.The theme is the progress of the soul towards Purgatory and Hell, where good works done by the deceased in life help to minimise suffering. Though a Christian song, it has its roots in the pagan dread of death." The first verse quoted by Kellett opens, 'This yah neet, this yah neet, Ivvery neet an' all, Fire an' fleet an' cann'l leet," so it favors the reading "fleet" over "sleet." - RBW
Last updated in version 4.1
File: OBB033

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Here's the recording by the Young Tradition, which is different from the DT lyrics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3JyVHOq7PQ

Here's a performance by Pentangle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_jKsQjuCfE

Here's a spooky one. Don't know who it's by: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr3deapIlIM

And one by Matt Berninger and Andrew Bird: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0CW0r58XEg

Subject: RE: Origins: Lyke Wake Dirge
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 29 Jul 17 - 02:31 AM

The spooky version...??? probably recorded by The Insects - Bristol based soundtrack producers...

Subject: RE: Origins: Lyke Wake Dirge
From: GUEST,Alistair
Date: 29 Jul 17 - 03:08 AM

Ref: Whinny Moor - whin is an old word meaning gorse or any prickly plant. We used to go regularly in the summer to pick Whinberries on the Long Mynd, Church Stretton. These are the wild and small version of Bilberries, Blueberries, or Myrtilles (in France). They don't grow on the gorse but on a short, leafy moorland berry plant. I don't know if their name comes from the fact that they grow among the gorse (which is true) or whether the name Whin was a more general name for a prickly bush along the lines of -wort or -rose meaning simply flower. Probably both are true.

Ref: problems with deciphering whether it is sleet or fleet in the lyrics. It may not be known by everyone that a printing habit required that an 's' used at the beginning or in the middle of the word was written with a shape that resembled the lower case f. This ornate letter 's' can still be seen on old gravestones and in books printed in the 18th century and earlier. It was still in use as late as 1824.

Further information on the letter s

Subject: RE: Origins: Lyke Wake Dirge
From: BobL
Date: 29 Jul 17 - 03:09 AM

Not to mention of Britten's 1943 setting of the Minstrelsy words.

Subject: RE: Origins: Lyke Wake Dirge
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jul 17 - 09:22 AM

What an interesting thread. I have learned a great deal here. I have been singing this for years and I did know a bit about it, but this thread has taught me a lot. Over the past few hours I have listened to many versions, still like Pentangle best. Thanks to all, great thread

Subject: RE: Origins: Lyke Wake Dirge
From: GUEST,Brian Grayson
Date: 30 Jul 17 - 11:02 AM

There's a parallel to the Brig o' Dread in Islam:

As-Sirāt (Arabic: الصراط‎‎ aṣ-ṣirāṭ) is, according to Islam, the hair-narrow bridge which every person must pass on the Yawm ad-Din ("Day of the Way of Life" i.e. Day of Judgment) to enter Paradise. It is said that it is as thin as a hair and as sharp as the sharpest knife or sword. Below this path are the fires of Hell, which burn the sinners to make them fall. Those who performed acts of goodness in their lives are transported across the path in speeds according to their deeds leading them to the Hauzu'l-Kausar, the Lake of Abundance.

Spooky, eh?

Subject: RE: Origins: Lyke Wake Dirge
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jul 17 - 12:58 PM

That is very interesting! In what writing is this found? Yes, very spooky!

Subject: RE: Origins: Lyke Wake Dirge
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 30 Jul 17 - 06:33 PM

By chance (?) the link quoted by Stower 01 Mar 16 - 01:24 PM has just been updated and now includes a different tune. See the section headed "A new discovery".