The Cruel Mother


"The Cruel Mother" is a murder ballad most likely originating in Scotland, see or England that has since become popular throughout the wider English-speaking world.
According to Roud and Bishop

Synopsis

A woman gives birth to one or two illegitimate children in the woods, kills them, and buries them. On her return trip home, she sees a child, or children, playing, and says that if they were hers, she would dress them in various fine garments and otherwise take care of them. The children tell her that when they were hers, she would not dress them so but murdered them. Frequently they say she will be damned for it.
Some variants open with the account that she has fallen in love with her father's clerk.

Variants

This ballad exists in a number of variants, in some of which there are verses where the dead children tell the mother she will suffer a number of penances each lasting seven years, e.g. "Seven years to ring a bell / And seven years porter in hell". Those verses properly belong in "The Maid and the Palmer". Variants of "The Cruel Mother" include "Carlisle Hall", "The Rose o Malinde", "Fine Flowers in the Valley", "The Minister's Daughter of New York", and "The Lady From Lee", among others. "Fine Flowers of the Valley" is a Scottish variant. Weela Weela Walya is an Irish schoolyard version. A closely related German ballad exists in many variants: a child comes to a woman's wedding to announce himself her child and that she had murdered three children, the woman says the Devil can carry her off if it is true, and the Devil appears to do so.
Ballad scholar Hyder Rollins listed a broadside print dated 1638, and a fairly complete version was published in London in broadside ballad format as "The Duke's Daughter's Cruelty: Or the Wonderful Apparition of two Infants whom she Murther'd and Buried in a Forrest, for to hide her Shame" sometime between 1684 and 1695.
This ballad was one of 25 traditional works included in Ballads Weird and Wonderful and illustrated by Vernon Hill.

Recordings

Album/SinglePerformerYearVariantNotes
False True LoversShirley Collins1959The Cruel Mother
Dear Companion: Bonnie DobsonBonnie Dobson1960The Cruel Mother
The Folk Songs of Britain, Vol. IV: The Child Ballads 1Thomas Moran1961The Cruel MotherRecorded 1954. Although the refrain of this version is that of "The Cruel Mother", the actual verses belong to a different song, Child Ballad no. 21, "The Maid and the Palmer"
Ian & Sylvia1964The Greenwood Side
The [Judy Collins Concert]Judy Collins1964The Cruel Mother
The Long Harvest, Vol. 1Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger1967see noteAlbum contains three versions of The Cruel Mother, one variant called "Down By the Greenwood Sidey-O", and another called "The Lady From Lee".
BalladsHedy West1967The Cruel Mother
JoanJoan Baez1967The Greenwood Side
A Beacon from MarsKaleidoscope1968The Greenwood Sidee
The Sweet PrimrosesShirley Collins1970The Cruel Mother
LandfallMartin Carthy1972The Cruel Mother
The Voice of the People Vol. 3Lizzie Higgins1988The Cruel MotherRecorded 1975
Tempted and triedSteeleye Span1989The Cruel Mother
Duše mé láskyAsonance1994Krutá matkaCzech translation
LegacyOld Blind Dogs1995The Greenwood SideThe track is titled "The Rose and the Lindsey O'."
Ye Shine Whar Ye Stan!Jock Duncan1996The Cruel Mother
Live at NewportIan & Sylvia1996The Greenwood SideRecorded live at the Newport Folk Festival, 1963.
Flesh and BloodMaddy Prior1997The Cruel Mother
Songs Of ExperienceCindy Mangsen1998The Cruel Mother
Jolly Rogues TogetherSimply English1999The Cruel Mother
ShantallaShantalla2000Fine flowers in the valley
Greenwood SideLothlorien2000Greenwood Side
A Day Like TodayEmily Smith2002The Cruel Mother
No Earthly ManAlasdair Roberts2005The Cruel Mother
Wolverley Summer of Love 2007Stuart Estel2007The Cruel Mother
To The GroundKerfuffle2006Down By The Greenwood Side
In The Shadow of MountainsBella Hardy2009Cruel MotherMiss Hardy omits 'The' from the title but it is nonetheless a variant of the folk song.
Lady DiamondBryony Griffith
& Will Hampson		2011The Lady of YorkFrom the singing of Jim Eldon.
Born to wonder EPLouise Jordan2011The Cruel Mother
Here's to those we could not saveThe Imaginary Suitcase2012Fine flowers in the valley
Old Light: Songs from my Childhood & Other Gone WorldsRayna Gellert2012Cruel Mother
OutsidersChris Foster2013The Cruel Mother
RevivalBellowhead2014Greenwood Side
Fiona HunterFiona Hunter2014The Cruel Mother
Twice Told Tales10,000 Maniacs2015Greenwood Sidey
Anna & ElizabethAnna & Elizabeth2015Greenwood Sidey
MurmursNancy Kerr, Martin Simpson and Andy Cutting2015Cruel Mother
Shirley InspiredGraham Coxon2015The Cruel Mother
The Essential Gretchen PetersGretchen Peters2016The Cruel MotherRecorded 2011 and a bonus track on Blackbirds
Here in the DeepDave Heumann2016Greenwood Side
CYRMØXN2023Cruel Mother
Cruel Morher || Edan Archer || 2016 || Cruel Mother ||