Here are the notes from Harry Tuft on his 1976 Folk-Legacy album, Across the Blue Mountains. The album is available on CD from Sandy and Caroline Paton at Folk-Legacy. For comparison, I'll post the Digital Tradition lyrics in the right-hand column - I think they should be the same.
-Joe Offer-

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The Griesly Bride
Tom Campbell read a poem called "The Griesly Wife" by John Manifold, an Australian poet, in a high school text book called Sound and Sense, An Introduction to Poetry, edited by Laurence Perrine and published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. (New York). He adapted the text and added the melody that I sing here. Griesly, by the way, is the correct spelling; it means "uncanny". I've heard that the story of wolves assuming human form to take revenge on hunters and trappers can be found in the folklore of a number of countries. I try to sing this as close as I can to the way Tom sang it into a cassette recorder for me at the Cafe York in Denver around 1972. Tom's best-known song to date is "Darcy Farrow" written with Steve Gillette. More recently, Tom has been working throughout the western states on initiatives to limit the expansion of the use of nuclear energy.

 

"Lie down, my newly married wife;
Lie easy as you can.
You re young, and ill-accustomed yet
To sleeping with a man.

The snow was deep, the moon was full
As it shown on the cabin floor.
His young bride rose without a word
And ran barefoot through the door.

He up and followed, fast and sure,
And an angry man was he,
But his young bride wasn't e'er in sight,
And only the moon shone clearly.

He followed her track through the new deep snow,
Calling out loud her name.
Only the dingoes* in the hills (*wild dogs)
Yowled back at him again.

Then the hair stood up along his neck
And his angry mind was gone,
For where the two-foot track gave out,
A four-footed track went on.

Her nightgown lay upon the snow
As it might on a bed sheet,
And the tracks that led from where it lay
Were never of human feet.

He first started in to walkin' back,
Then he began to run,
And his quarry turned all in her track
And hunted him in turn.

An empty bed still waits for him
As he lies in a crimson tide.
Beware, beware, oh trapper men,
Beware of a griesly bride.
(Tuft's version)

"Lie down, my newly married wife;
Lie easy as you can.
You're young, and ill-accustomed yet
To sleeping with a man."

The snow was deep, the moon was full
As it shown on the cabin floor.
His young bride rose without a word
And ran barefoot through the door.

He up and followed, fast and sure,
And an angry man was he,
But his young bride wasn't e'er in sight,
And only the moon shone clearly.

He followed her track through the new deep snow,
Calling out loud her name.
Only the dingoes in the hills
Yowled back at him again.

Then the hair stood up along his neck
And his angry mind was gone,
For where the two-foot track gave out,
A four-footed track went on.

Her nightgown lay upon the snow
As it might on a bed sheet,
And the tracks that led from where it lay
Were never of human feet.

He first started in to walkin' back,
Then he began to run,
And his quarry turned all in her track
And hunted him in turn.

An empty bed still waits for him
As he lies in a crimson tide.
Beware, beware, oh trapper men,
Beware of a griesly bride.

-----------------------------
Words by John Manifold,
music by Tom Campbell.
Recorded by Harry Tuft on "Across the Blue Mountains,"
copyright 1976 by Folk Legacy Records, FSA-63.
also by Cindy Mangsen
@myth @animal @marriage
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