Chords for Tom Spiers - Cruel Mother

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ Right, I'm Tom Spears.
I'm from Aberdeen originally, now living in Aberdeenshire up near the Moray Firth.
I've been interested in folk music since the _ 1960s _ and particularly the traditional folk music of North East Scotland. _ _
_ _ My main interest is in the Child ballads, _ _ Child being Professor Child, _ who was an American professor who made the definitive _ collection of the big ballads,
which are basically old stories that come from _ Norse [E] legends _ _ _ and sort of German, _ [N] Celtic legends, that kind of things.
_ Of the collection which Child made, which was over 300 ballads, _ one third of those, one third of the main texts in those, came from the North East of Scotland, Aberdeenshire, _ Buchan area,
_ which is a pretty amazing statistic.
It means that of a collection which was for the whole of the British Isles, _ an area with less than 1% of the population produced over 30% of _ these big ballads. _
One of the ones, the one I'm going to sing for you just now, The Cruel Mother, is one of the best known of these.
_ It's a very old tale.
_ You can tell _ from some of the words in it where it makes references to the spirits, the ghosts of the children coming back and _ _ _ being _ _ transmogrified, is the word that they use, into inanimate objects, either living objects,
it's usually things like birds, it can be other animals, but also in this particular version of the ballad, _ _ _ the mother, the cruel mother, is told that she will have to spend seven years as a tongue to the warden bell, so it can be inanimate objects as well as _ _ _ live animals.
_ This is a punishment for murdering the children.
_ There are a whole _ proliferation of ballads about the cruel mother, different tunes, different sets of words.
_ This particular version is from North East Scotland, _ _ and it's one of the few that has a fairly simple tune.
_ One of the ways you know _ a traditional ballad as opposed to a made up ballad is that it tells the story _ absolutely straight, it doesn't make any judgement as to whether what was done was right or wrong, it just sees this is what happened.
So, here's the story, let's go.
_ _ [Bb] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [G] And for anybody that's [Bb] interested, the fiddle is in an open tuning, _ Bb, F, Bb, F. _ _
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_ _ _ [Ab] _ _ [Bb] _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [Ebm] _ _ _ [Bbm] _
_ _ _ [Db] _ _ [Bb] _ _ _
_ _ _ [Ebm] _ [Db] _ [Bb] _ _ _
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_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [Ebm] _
_ [Bbm] _ _ _ _ _ _ [Bb] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ [Db] _ [Bb] _
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_ And the _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [Ebm] _ [Bbm] _ _
_ [Bb] _ _ _ _ _ [Ebm] _ _
[Bbm] _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ fiddle is in _ _ _ an open tuning, Bb, _ F, _ [Eb] Bb, _ [Bbm] _ F.
She mack lift her tee, Doon by the greenwood sidee o.
[Eb] _ [Bb] She's leaned her back against the thorn, Hi-wee the rose and [Eb] the [Bbm] linsie o.
It's their clap when he [F] firms they [Bb] were born, Doon by the [F] greenwood [Bbm] _ [Bb] sidee o. _
She's deened the ribbons up o' her hair, Hi-wee the rose and the [Eb] linsie [Bb] o.
And [F] choke at them though they [Bb] grats fair, Doon by the greenwood sidee o. _
She's buried them neath a marble stain, Hi-wee the rose and [Eb] the linsie [Bbm] o.
Then kentee cock a [Ab] [Bb]-beedin' him, Doon by the greenwood sidee o. _
Then she's looked down her fiddler's castle bar, Hi-wee the rose and [Ebm] the linsie [Bbm] o.
It's a-quab on he hens they're playin' at the bar, Doon by the greenwood _ [F] sidee [Bb] o.
_ O bonnie bairns, can ye wear mine, Hi-wee the rose and the [Eb] [Bb] linsie o.
I'd dress you up in silksie fine, Doon by the greenwood sidee o.
It's a-bonnie bairns, can ye wear mine, Hi-wee the rose and the linsie o.
I'd [F] feed you on coos milk [Bb] and reed o' wine, Doon by the greenwood _ sidee o.
_ _ _ _ _ [F] _ _
[Bb] _ _ It's _ _ [Ebm] _ _
_ [Bbm] _ _ _ _ _ _ [Bb] _
_ _ _ [Ebm] _ [Bbm] _ _ _ [Bb] _
_ _ a-croon me derf and wee were fine, Hi-wee the rose and the [Eb] linsie [Bbm] o.
Wee sa' neen I am [Bb] silksie fine, Doon by the greenwood sidee o. _
_ _ I'd croon me derf and wee were fine, Hi-wee the rose and [Eb] the [Bb] linsie o.
Wee sa' neen I am silksie fine, Doon by the greenwood _ sidee o.
It's a-bonnie bairns, come tell tae me, Hi-wee the rose and the [Eb] linsie [Bb] o.
It's a [Fm]-kind o' a derf from [Bb] A to D, Doon by the greenwood sidee o. _
_ Seven years a-bairn in the wood, Hi-wee the rose and the [Eb] linsie [Bb] o.
Seven years a-fish in the flood, Doon by the greenwood _ sidee o.
Seven years a-tongue tae the warning bell, Hi-wee the rose and the linsie o.
Seven long years in the caves a-hell, Doon by the greenwood _ sidee o. _
It's welcome, welcome bairn in the wood, Hi-wee the rose and the linsie o. _
[Bbm] Welcome, welcome fish in the [Bb] flood, Doon by the [F] [Bb] greenwood sidee o. _ _
Welcome tongue tae the warning bell, Hi-wee the rose and [Eb] the [Bbm] linsie o.
But God keep me fae the caves a [Bb]-hell, Doon by the [F] greenwood _ [Bb] sidee o. _ _ _ _ _ _ _
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