Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'

Subject: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Windsinger
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 09:23 PM

Greetings everyone!

A recurring discussion comes up among the musicians with whom I trade folk-songs. It concerns a poetic device I call the "mystery bardic disease."

You know the cuplrit. It dropped Sweet William in "Barbara Allen," and a thousand other tear-jerker ballads like it. Basically, it sounds like balladeers have been suggesting for hundreds of years that heartbreak can kill you outright.

Hmph. Hyperdramatic, huh?

...or is it just a euphemism for something else? Suicide? Heart attack/stroke from stress? Voluntary starvation? Or just the way clinical depression slowly erodes your health until you catch something fatal?

Whatever this malady is---real or fictitious---do you guys ever discuss, postulate, or kick around ideas about what it might be?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 09:46 PM

Well, let's see. In the ballad "Sweet Willie and Lady Margot," after the lady dies of love, her lover, the evil Willie, rides to her father's castle.

Her father budged the coffin lid.
Her brother unwound the sheet.
And after he's kiss-ed her many, many times,
Sweet Willie fell dead at her feet.

I've often wondered whether the father and brother conked him on the head and didn't mention it.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: GUEST,Julia
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 10:12 PM

It often seems to be some kind of "wasting" malady suggesting anorexia or at the very least depression. Most of these seem to occur in ballads from the north lands- long cold winters, lots of rain...
It's enough to make you wizzle up!

Anyone know of any from sunnier climes?

Julia

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: CapriUni
Date: 06 Feb 06 - 11:48 PM

Well, I heard this report on my radio, one morning, while listening to NPR: Study Links Emotional Stress, Heart Attacks.

(I see by the dateline it was nearly a year ago. I could have sworn it was only a couple of months... where does the time go?)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 12:00 AM

Well, extreme depression does weaken the immune system. I knew 2 terminally depressed girls who both managed to die quite young by just wasting away. They speeded the process up with alcoholism and other bad habits.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Kaleea
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 12:02 AM

Just the other day on tv, I saw a heart Dr saying that it is true that often people DO die because their emotional "heart" is broken over some life change-especially a big loss, thus causing their physical heart to become broken literally.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 12:41 AM

Yes, the vital energy that keeps the heart healthy diminishes, and the heart fails, killing the person.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: robinia
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 01:37 AM

I'll second Kaleea on this -- and I don't think it's just people who can lose the will to live. It can happen to other animals with a strong "attachment" potential (like dogs and baby elephants). Sorry I can't furnish some links to this, but I'm convinced it's no myth. And not restricted to "romantic love" either...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 02:58 AM

My grandfather lived just long enough to bury my grandmother. He collapsed and died when he got home from the funeral – both at a fairly young age. Maybe coincidence or maybe he couldn't live without her.

DC

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Paul Burke
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 03:38 AM

Weel Doug, my grandmother did better than that. Grandad had been taken into hospital following a stroke. My Mum was looking after Granny. Granny said, "Make us a cup of tea, Peggy." She went to the kitchen to make it, but when she came back, Granny was slumped in her chair, not breathing. She rushed out to telephone the doctor (few people had phones in the house then), and met her brother comimg from the hospital, bringing the news that Grandad had died.

Everyone said it was a lovely funeral.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 04:03 AM

There are many documented instances of widowed partners waiting just long enough to bury the deceased, just as there are many others who live on for several years after. Quite often though, you'll find couples who died within days of each other, but years apart. My own grandparents both died in the week before Christmas, granpop went first on the 19th Dec and granny died on the 20th, 3 years later.

Personally, knowing how much my own health suffered after a particularly traumatic breakup several years ago, I am sure it could happen that someone might go into a decline and fade away.

LTS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Windsinger
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 07:30 AM

"Well, I heard this report on my radio, one morning, while listening to NPR:"
----------------------------------

Right, stumbling over a report on acute stress cardiomyopathy (a.k.a. "Broken Heart Syndrome") was one of the things which brought the question foremost to my mind.

Another was watching a performance of "King Lear" recently. In Lear's case, I'm willing to believe it was a stroke or heart attack. The character WAS eightysomething at time of death, and was being subjected to an awful lot of stress. (Shakespearean characters get taken out by the "mystery bardic disease" too---though they're far more likely to be stabbed, or stab themselves, or drink poison.)

But the malady referenced in most tragic romance-ballads, seems to afflict young lovers more than anyone. People who ought to be perfectly hale and healthy.

Heh. Maybe I should start formulating a list of ballads as examples, and see if there's common linkage? The "symptoms," if any, are always kind of vague.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 07:34 AM

I believe there was a slight reduction in the death rate in the days leading up to the new millennium, and a slight increase thereafter - perhaps people were just hanging on.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Janie
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 08:17 AM

When I was in graduate school, a friend and class mate lost a son in a car wreck. The shock of it caused a heart attack and she nearly died herself. There was no indication of heart disease. (We were both in our early 40's at the time.)

Janie

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 11:45 AM

Maybe it was actually the "new" disease mentioned earlier in the thread?

Supposedly, Acute Stress Cardiomyopathy happens when your system is flooded with so many stress hormones, it stuns the heart and makes it temporarily cease to beat. Just long enough to mimick the symptoms of a classic heart attack.

Main difference being, the rate of fatality and/or permanent damage is lower. While A.S.C. *CAN* be lethal, usually the worst that happens is their left ventricle is sluggish for a few days. After that, if the victim's otherwise healthy and has a good emotional support network, they bounce back pretty quickly.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Janie
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 01:02 PM

Guest, you may well be correct.

Janie

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 02:24 PM

Sometimes it's when a woman (usually young) is forced to marry someone other than the man she loves (who is usually off traveling somewhere, not necessarily by her father's suggestion).

Linn

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Amos
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 02:52 PM

Lady Nancy she died as it were today
Lord Lovell, he dies on the morrow
Lady Nancy, she died of a broken heart,
And Lord Lovell died of sorrow,
Lord Lovell he died of sorrow

Of course, this is an extreme romantic ballad -- these people were not pragmatists.

But the theme is scattered throughout the genre.

A

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Windsinger
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 03:05 PM

And speaking of extreme, let's not forget good ol' "Anarchie Gordon." ;) A great example of the archetype.

Lawks. Oppressive father or not, I totally wanted to SMACK Jeannie the Hystrionic Heroine in that one. :P Sounds like she and Anarchie deserved one another...

Whereas in "Step It Out Mary," which has a lot in common with "Anarchie," that was a clear-cut case of suicide (IIRC.)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 04:46 PM

Then there is "The Unquiet Grave," in which the ghost counsels the young woman to let go of her grief because she is too young to die.

Here it is in the DT.

"My breast is cold as clay,
My breath is earthly strong,
And if you kiss my cold clay lips,
You days they won't be long."

SRS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Windsinger
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 05:14 PM

Incidentally:

A friend of mine who did a thesis on the subject, indicated that out of Child's ballads, "Unquiet Grave" actually presents a respectable case for having a medieval/Renaissance origin.

("Wife of Usher's Well" was another, I forget the one or two others she cited.)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Rapparee
Date: 07 Feb 06 - 07:05 PM

Very very recents studies show that women don't exhibit that same heart attack symptoms as men. This could very well be one of the reasons that they are hale and hearty one moment and dead the next.

As for kissing clay cold lips -- I suppose that viruses and bacteria could easily be spread that way.

But I have experienced at least two cases in my own family where the will to live simply became non-existent and the people (one elderly, one in his 30s) can only be said to have wished themselves to die and did.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Windsinger
Date: 08 Feb 06 - 10:56 AM

"As for kissing clay cold lips -- I suppose that viruses and bacteria could easily be spread that way."
---------------

Hmph. Good point.

Some of the ballads in question seem to romanticize death unto the point of actual necrophilia (a quirk shared by fairy tales like Snow White and Sleeping Beauty.)   ewwwwwwwwwwww

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Amos
Date: 08 Feb 06 - 11:16 AM

Why anymore from cold ones than from the ones at bacteria-favored temperatures?


A

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: CapriUni
Date: 09 Feb 06 - 04:05 AM

Well, A.S.C. may only be fatal in rare cases, today. But I wonder if the same was true in previous centuries, when diets were poorer (especially in the winter, when fresh vegetables were not available) and the general life expentancy was far shorter.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Windsinger
Date: 09 Feb 06 - 07:36 AM

Why anymore from cold ones than from the ones at bacteria-favored temperatures?

Heh.

I haven't looked at what the cocktail of decomposer-bacteria (psycrophilic, mesophilic and thermophilic) might do to a live human. But these ARE still the three main "critters" present in the average compost heap. Which is essentially what the impassioned lover'd be kissing. :P

It bears mentioning that when these bugs are active, they do generate their own heat, creating a habitable environment for other bugs. Ones that might be far nastier to a live human.

Not to mention, the aroma of all this activity should be enough to send the most romantic and stalwart mourner screaming, surely. :P

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Ron Davies
Date: 09 Feb 06 - 07:41 AM

Consider how soon after June Carter Cash died that Johnny Cash also did (among many other examples). It seems to happen often with very close couples.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 09 Feb 06 - 08:33 AM

Most of these seem to occur in ballads from the north lands- long cold winters, lots of rain...

... but it also happens on the sunny knolls and meadows of my home Germany - in a lot of old ballads.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Windsinger
Date: 09 Feb 06 - 09:41 AM

OK...let me toss out the following time-waster. :)

Just for a lark, let's compile a list of ballads where a grieving lover, spouse (or in rare cases, parent) either drops dead suddenly or wastes away. No clear cause of death given, but "oh-they-must-have-died-of-grief" is either stated or strongly implied (i.e., the mystery bardic ailment.)

Here's four to start with, some of which have already been mentioned in this thread:

-Anarchie Gordon
-Barbara Allen
-Sweet Willie and Lady Margot
-Standing Stones*

*This one was made popular by Loreena McKennit, but the liner notes say she arranged it from a traditional piece (not named).

Any other suggestions?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 09 Feb 06 - 10:20 AM

I may be mistaken (a handsome admission if I ever heard one), but I think the name is Anachie, not "Anarchie".   

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Feb 06 - 10:21 AM

All I can think of now are the ones where one of the lovers was murdered.

Lord Randall
Three Craw (Crows)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Windsinger
Date: 09 Feb 06 - 10:59 AM

Ah, now murder ballads. :) Folks on this list can probably rattle off a dozen without breaking a sweat...

-Lord Randall
-Three Ravens/Twa Corbies
-Twa Corbies
-Long Lankin
-Little Sir Hugh
-The Cruel Mother
-Twa Sisters (recorded by Pentangle as "The Cruel Sister" and McKennit as "The Bonnie Swans")
-Lady Isabel
-Bold Poachers
-Sir James the Rose
-Maid of Cabra West
-Tom Dooley

...but in most or all of these, the deceased has a clearly stated cause of death.

Good sub-genre though.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 09 Feb 06 - 11:15 AM

The Great Selkie is one of the most explicit in regards to this:
"An her tender heart, it brak in three."

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Amos
Date: 09 Feb 06 - 11:25 AM

Lord Lovell, a s mentioned above, is clearly heartbreak-caused death; it says so.

And there's "The Butcher Boy", where a lass hangs herself by a rope for abandoned love; and "I Never Shall Marry", which is another suicide for love.

These are slightly off dying of a broken heart directly, but I am sure you could argue it as the first cause in the chain.

A

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Feb 06 - 04:50 PM

but it also happens on the sunny knolls and meadows of my home Germany - in a lot of old ballads.

Wilfried...really? Care to rattle off any titles?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Windsinger
Date: 09 Feb 06 - 07:37 PM

(GAH! forgot I wasn't logged in when I made the previous post. Oops.)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 09 Feb 06 - 11:00 PM

"Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love." -- _As You Like It_

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: An economic question is a moral question rendered spuriously precise in terms of a unit of exchange. :||

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Feb 06 - 12:35 AM

". . .that I hanged myself, for the butcher's boy. . . "

I have to go get out some of the albums out and listen to them again. McCurdy recorded that one that, I think. Or was it Dyer Bennett?

Silkie I thought of mentioning above also, but figured I'd get too far off track to quickly if I expanded the list. I see others have the same thoughts about these great old songs. They do stick with you.

SRS

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 10 Feb 06 - 02:59 AM

First rattle, some poems by well known authors, but sung by the folk:
Die Wehklage
Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen
Der Traum
Have to browse some songbooks, because I'm interested more in other kinds of songs

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Windsinger
Date: 10 Feb 06 - 07:18 AM

Oo! Oo!

I can't believe I forgot to mention "She Moved Through The Fair:"

The people were saying, no two e'er were wed
But one had a sorrow that never was said
And I smiled as she passed with her goods and her gear,
And that was the last that I saw of my dear.

Last night she came to me, my dead love came in
So softly she came that her feet made no din
As she laid her hand on me and this she did say
"It will not be long, love, 'til our wedding day"

Anyone ever wonder what dropped her so darned suddenly? Not heartbreak, surely. Maybe a freak disease?

I have similar questions about Mary from "Banks of the Lee...."

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 10 Feb 06 - 07:46 AM

Methinks the song is concerning about him - dying soon (of broken heart, I suppose)

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Windsinger
Date: 10 Feb 06 - 08:51 AM

Right, I think the remark about their "wedding day" pretty clearly means he will join her in death soon.

As to what killed her, I guess we're supposed to wonder.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Snuffy
Date: 10 Feb 06 - 09:02 AM

Plenty of threads on here pointing out that the "dead" love in She Moved Through The Fair is a later addition (or misprint, or similar). Definitely not in the song as originally written.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Feb 06 - 10:58 AM

I don't know if "My Last Duchess" was ever sung, but she's dead and he's not pining.

Lots of poems that are probably also great songs (but I haven't heard them yet).

How about "The Griesly Wife."

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

The snow lay thick, the moon was full
And shone across the floor.
The young wife went with never a word
Barefooted to the door.

He up and followed sure and fast,
The moon shone clear and white.
But before his coat was on his back,
His wife was out of sight.

He trod the trail wherever it turned
By many a mound and scree,
And still the barefoot track led on,
And an angry man was he.

He followed fast, he followed slow,
And still he called her name,
But only the dingoes of the hills
Yowled back at him again.

His hair stood up along his neck,
His angry mind was gone,
For the track of the two bare feet gave out
And a four-foot track went on.

Her nightgown lay upon the snow
As it might upon the sheet,
For the track that led from where it lay
Was never of human feet.

His heart turned over in his chest,
He looked from side to side,
And he thought more of his gumwood fire
Than he did of his griesly bride.

And first he started walking back
And then began to run,
And his quarry wheeled at the end of her track
And hunted him in turn.

Oh, long may the fire burn for him
And open stand the door,
And long the bed may wait empty
He'll not be back any more.

- John Manifold


I stumbled upon a paper discussing the following poem when looking for the last one. We don't know the cause of death, but it certainly conveys the sentiment that would follow many of the songs like Barbara Allen.
An Epitaph upon a Young Married Couple, Dead and Buried Together
by Richard Crashaw

To these, whom death again did wed,
This grave's their second marriage-bed.
For though the hand of fate could force
'Twixt soul and body a divorce,
It could not sunder man and wife 5
'Cause they both livéd but one life.
Peace, good reader. Do not weep.
Peace, the lovers are asleep.
They, sweet turtles, folded lie
In the last knot love could tie. 10
And though they lie as they were dead,
Their pillow stone, their sheets of lead,
(Pillow hard, and sheets not warm)
Love made the bed; they'll take no harm;
Let them sleep, let them sleep on. 15
Till this stormy night be gone,
Till th' eternal morrow dawn;
Then the curtains will be drawn
And they wake into a light,
Whose day shall never die in night. 20

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 10 Feb 06 - 11:16 AM

I'm going to be practical. If you are composing a work, whether a s poem, novel, or drama, it is much easier to kill off a character than to describe the character's dreary existence for years and years. It's also more dramatic.

I agree that old couples may well die within a short time, but you can also kill an old person by taking them out of her home. At least, that's what a friend of mine who is a social worker for the aged tells me. So it's not love, it's the shock to a frail system of losing the familiar.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Windsinger
Date: 10 Feb 06 - 11:34 AM

I don't know if "My Last Duchess" was ever sung, but she's dead and he's not pining.

The one by Browning?

Yeah...IIRC tho, there's some scholarly debate (supported by hints and nods from Browning himself) over whether the duke had his wife killed, or he put her away quietly in a nunnery. I don't know that he himself ever made up his mind.

Killed is more dramatic, I suppose.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Feb 06 - 02:08 PM

Yes, Browning. It has been years since I studied that one, but it read like a sly confession to me.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Windsinger
Date: 10 Feb 06 - 02:15 PM

Sure; shades of Henry VIII.

Though if any of the Medici or their coevals (the duke was supposed to be Italian, right?) ever entered and dissolved as many marriages as Henry did, or as frivolously, I've not heard of it.

However the speaker did dispose of his last duchess, he sounded frostily unrepentant.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 11 Feb 06 - 11:05 AM

Further German examples:

1. Schwesterlein, wann gehn wir nach Haus?
A hidden reference to the girl's untrue lover in stanza 4, her imminent death in last stanza.
2. 's ist alles dunkel
Stanza 4 later addition?
3. Die Königskinder
Translation of the Nether German original .
4. Das Lied vom jungen Grafen (Elsaß)
The Alsatian version was collected by Goethe during his studies in Strassburg.
5. Es ritt ein Reiter sehr wohlgemut
The surviving lover didn't die, but killed himself immediately when seeing his dead love (maybe to hasten the process of a slow death)

All in ingeb.org, also in Robokopp: 1, 2, 3, 4

In Jewish Folk Songs / Ruth Rubin. - New York, 1965
I found: "Ale vasserlech flisn avek" where a girl states: Agirl whose love is not return must perish - which we could take as an aequivalent to Dying of a broken heart

Subject: RE: Folklore: Dying of a 'Broken Heart'
From: Windsinger
Date: 11 Feb 06 - 11:43 AM

Thanks, Wilfried!

(Now I wish my German was better. lol)