Messages from multiple threads combined.
-Joe Offer-

Threads on this song:

• The Water is Wide - one more time!
• Waly, Waly - Water is Wide
• Water is wide: song history request
• Lyr Req: HELP! Version of WATER IS WIDE
• Help: Looking for recording of Water is Wide
• The Water is Wide - alternate lyrics
• The Water Is Wide - Waly Waly
• The River Is Wide.....My Love and I
  

  Digital Tradition

• WATER IS WIDE
• WHEN COCKLESHELLS TURN SILVER BELLS (Waly, Waly)
• WALY, WALY 2
• WALY, WALY 3
• WALY WALY (JAMIE DOUGLAS)
• OF LATE I'VE BEEN DRIVEN NEAR CRAZY

CHO: The water is wide I can't cross o'er
And neither have I wings to fly
Give me a boat that can carry two
And both shall row, my love and I

A ship there is, she sails the sea
She's loaded deep, as deep can be
But not as deep as the love I'm in
I know not if I sink or swim

For love is gentle and love is kind
And love's a jewel, when first it's new
But when it's old, it waxes cold
And fades away, like morning dew

Hope this helps...
Marie

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 16-Jul-02.

I leaned my back against an oak, thinking it was a mighty tree. But first it bent, and then it broke, And so did my false love to me.

"Oh love be handsome and love be kind
Gay as a jewel when first it is new
But love grows old and waxes cold
And fades away like the morning dew."

alarose is pretty much on the mark re: the second verse, although DT's version has the phrase "Thinking it was a trusty tree" rather than "Thinking it was a mighty tree". The DT version has seven verses. Enjoy!

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 16-Jul-02.

I wished I had you in Carrickfergus
Only for nights in Ballygrand
I would swim over the deepest ocean
The deepest ocean to be by your side

But the sea is wide and I can't swim over
And neither have I wings to fly
I wish I could find me a handy boatman
To ferry me over to my love and die

The lyrics in the book were used "But the water is wide and I can't get o'er."

Hope this helps

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 16-Jul-02.

Had I but known before I loved,
The aching pain that love could bring,
I'd have locked my heart with keys of gold
And tied it fast with a silver string.

Oh love it is a painful thing,
Like blossoms trampled in the rain,
But blossoms grow again each spring,
My love will never grow again.

He was quite the wordsmith and possibly could have created verses. Thanks everyone!

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 16-Jul-02.

In an article 'Some notes on "O Waly Waly" in The Journal of the English Folk Dance & Song Society, 1954, J. W. Allen attempted to classify 30 total texts into Down in the Meadows (Picking Lillies), Jamie Douglas, Waly Waly, and The Water is Wide. Subsequently discovered chapbook and traditional texts cross the boundaries, so there doesn't seem to be any clear way of separating songs by these titles, except for Jamie Douglas (Child #204.

Even the early copies of the Scots Waly Waly are not completely unambiguous. A four verse song called "Waly Waly" was given (with music) in Orpheus Caledonius, 1725. A ten verse version was given (without music) in vol. II of The Tea Table Miscellany, c 1727. With a different fourth verse, and some trivial variants in other verses, a ten verse version is in vol. I of Orpheus Caledonius, 1733. With minor differences this later was reprinted in vol. II of The Scots Musical Museum. None of these have "The water is wide" verse.

The Water is Wide verse is a merely another floating verse in many songs, including some called The Water is Wide.

There is a two verse Water is Wide song in the Greig-Duncan collection where the 2nd verse actually seems related to the Water is Wide verse.

In a medley of song lines and parodies of song lines in the Interlude of the Four Elements, 1519, we find:

A hundred winter the water was deep,
I can not tell you how broad.

Is this an early parody of The Water is Wide verse?

Excerpt from "The Seamans leave taken from his sweetest Margery", c 1660. (ZN2431 in my broadside ballad index on the web)

I have seven ships upon the sea,
and they are laden to the brim;
I am so inflam'd with love to thee,
I care not whether I sink or swim.
......

If I had wist before I kist,
that love had been so ill to win;
My heart I would have clos'd in gold,
and pin'd it with a silver pin.

Mick

Chet W.

Carrickfergus is a town just outside Belfast on the shores of Belfast Lough. It has a beautiful Norman Castle.

Slainte

alison

All of them seem to have the verse about the stones:

Well, in Killkenny, it is recorded On marble stones there, as black as ink.

What is the significance of these stones? What is recorded on them? Are there such stones in Kilkenny?

It's on Van Morrison and the Chieftains in Ireland. Personally I don't like the version, but then there are very few verions of Carrickfergus that I do like.

Good song though...

Slainte

alison

The line in my version goes:

In Kilkenny, it is reported/There are marble stones/as black as ink.........

Marble stones, as far as I am aware were smooth stones used for beating the water out of clothes before drying them. Being Kilkenny, these rocks were probably basalt, hence their being black. Just why such a thing should be featured in the Carrickfergus song beats me, but remember the singer is thinking about his home while in a drunken haze - ("I'm drunk today/And I'm seldom sober") so maybe that's why!

Cheers!

Graeme

In Danmark we use the type of stone on the roofs, I do not know the name in English. In Danish it's "Skifer" Well this has not much to do with music, but I hope it is okay, even if I'm wrong. regards anne....

It's called slate in Ireland too.

Slainte

alison

Cheers!

G

I always reckoned he was talking about headstones... seeing as he himself is dying in that verse.

Just my opinion though.

Slainte

alison

anne....

I've just found out that there is a beautiful Serpentine Marble (very dark green) found in Connemara - but that's miles away from Kilkenny! I work in the geology department of an oil company - perhaps I'll ask someone there can help us out on this one!

Graeme