We know this because it has so many different versions, points of origin, and people claiming to have had a part in its creation. Any time you have a song that simply refuses to be pinned down, rest assured that it can truly be categorized as “folk.” If there is a known author, then the most you can say is that the piece is “in the style of” a folk song. I have been fascinated to read the Wikipedia article on this piece; the various claims and counterclaims are so multi-branching that they almost form a spider’s web.
My own performance history for this song dates back to March 2014 when the choir to which I belong, the Cherry Creek Chorale, performed it in a Celtic concert, a theme that is repeated every other year. (If you live in the Denver metro area, and it’s an even-numbered year, you could go onto the Chorale’s website to get tickets. Of course, all of our concerts are worth attending, so take a look regardless.) We all enjoyed singing the song, but I for one found the words to be pretty confusing. Our conductor mentioned at some point that by the end of it the girl has become a ghost, but I wanted the story to be explained a little more clearly. (My husband and I have a long-running argument about this sort of thing, with me saying, “Why couldn’t they spend ten seconds explaining thus-and-so in that movie?” and him saying, “Do they have to spell everything out?” Yes, they do.)
Well, it turns out that the arrangement/version that we were singing left out an entire verse, plus a line near the end saying “My dead love came in.” If I were ever to be in charge of directing a group singing this (which will never happen), I’d put the missing words back. No one could sue me, because, while the arrangement is copyrighted and so is the text in the form we sang it, my revision is my own. So there!
Here’s how my wording would go:
My young love said to me, “My mother won’t mind,
And my father won’t slight you for your lack of kind.”
And she stepped away from me, and this she did say,
“It will not be long, love, ‘til our wedding day.”
She stepped away from me, and she went through the fair,
And fondly I watched her move here and move there.
And then she went homeward with one star awake,
As the swan in the evening moves over the lake.
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.
And she laid her hand on me and this she did say,
“It will not be long, love, ‘til our wedding day.”
The third verse was not included in the 1909 sheet music version, and apparently others were just as puzzled as I was about what on earth was going on with the story. The Irish poet who claimed authorship for the majority of the lyrics, Padraic Colum, realized that he hadn’t made it clear that the girl had died, but he didn’t get the additional lines to the publisher in time to make it into the first printed version.
Here’s how the now-more-complete storyline goes:
The “young love” says to her beloved, “My parents won’t mind that you’re poor—that you don’t have many cattle (“kind”) or much else in the way of goods. Don’t worry. Our wedding day will be soon.” And then she goes off, wending her way through the fair, which would be a natural meeting place, and he watches her fondly. Isn’t that lovely wording in the description of its being so late that there’s only “one star awake” and how she moves like a swan? But somehow she dies before they marry. Did she fall in the lake? Hmmm. And maybe the marriage plans were secret, so that’s why the young man’s sorrow “never was said”? Not sure. But it’s perfectly clear what’s going on in the last verse: she comes for him and tells him that he’ll soon join her in death. Our director told us in rehearsals that we should have a “diaphanous” sound, which is so much easier to achieve when you realize that you’re singing about a ghostly love!
Here’s a lovely performance, conducted by John Rutter and using the arrangement that I’ve sung.
