{"id":493,"date":"2015-10-06T14:06:15","date_gmt":"2015-10-06T13:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/old-oak-tree-the\/"},"modified":"2016-01-25T13:41:16","modified_gmt":"2016-01-25T13:41:16","slug":"old-oak-tree-the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/old-oak-tree-the\/","title":{"rendered":"Old Oak Tree, The"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 id=\"t:seinnteoirin1\">Play recording: Old Oak Tree, The<\/h2>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-493-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/00-micil\/me\u00e1in\/old-oak-tree-the.mp3?_=1\" \/><source type=\"audio\/ogg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/00-micil\/me\u00e1in\/old-oak-tree-the.ogg?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/00-micil\/me\u00e1in\/old-oak-tree-the.mp3\">https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/00-micil\/me\u00e1in\/old-oak-tree-the.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<div class=\"dmeite\">\n<p><span id=\"neasc-nocht-ceilth\" class=\"nmeite\">view \/ hide recording details [+\/-]<\/span><\/p>\n<ul id=\"clarMeiteashonrai\" class=\"meiteashonrai\">\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Teideal <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Title)<\/span>:<\/span> Old Oak Tree, The.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Uimhir Chatal\u00f3ige Ollscoil Washington <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(University of Washington Catalogue Number)<\/span>:<\/span> 781514.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Uimhir Chnuasach Bh\u00e9aloideas \u00c9ireann <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(National Folklore of Ireland Number)<\/span>:<\/span> none.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Uimhir Roud <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Roud Number)<\/span>:<\/span> 569.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Uimhir Laws <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Laws Number)<\/span>:<\/span> P37.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Uimhir Child <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Child Number)<\/span>:<\/span> none.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Cnuasach <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Collection)<\/span>:<\/span> Joe Heaney Collection, University of Washington, Seattle.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Teanga na Cro\u00edmh\u00edre <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Core-Item Language)<\/span>:<\/span> English.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Catag\u00f3ir <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Category)<\/span>:<\/span> song.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Ainm an t\u00e9 a thug <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Name of Informant)<\/span>:<\/span> Joe Heaney.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Ainm an t\u00e9 a th\u00f3g <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Name of Collector)<\/span>:<\/span> Cynthia Thiessen.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">D\u00e1ta an taifeadta <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Recording Date)<\/span>:<\/span> 03\/03\/1978.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Su\u00edomh an taifeadta <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Recording Location)<\/span>:<\/span> University of Washington, United States of America.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Oc\u00e1id an taifeadta <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Recording Occasion)<\/span>:<\/span> day class.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">Daoine eile a bh\u00ed i l\u00e1thair <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Others present)<\/span>:<\/span> Fredric Lieberman.<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai\">St\u00e1das ch\u00f3ipcheart an taifeadta <span class=\"lipead-meiteashonrai-bearla\">(Recording copyright status)<\/span>:<\/span> unavailable.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>There used to be a song called <cite class=\"amhr\u00e1n\">The Old Oak Tree<\/cite>. Now, Ewan Mac&nbsp;Coll told me there was a version of this in mostly every country. I don&#8217;t know do ye have a version. It&#8217;s about the keeper of the hounds who got into trouble &mdash; or she got into trouble &mdash; with this particular country girl, and he wrote her a letter promising her he&#8217;d marry her. And she travelled to meet him. And what he did, he killed her and buried her under the oak tree. But he made one mistake: his knife, with his name on it, he left in her body. And the day of the hounds &mdash; The day of the hunting of the hounds, the hounds stopped at this old tree. Then, the people around him thought there was a fox there. But the hounds started digging up with their paws, digging up the clay. And the gentlemen of the hounds asked to get spades. They dug it up &mdash; and there they found the girl, murdered. The name of the man was James Mc&nbsp;Cullough, and some people give it [the song] that name, and some give it <cite class=\"amhr\u00e1n\">The Old Oak Tree<\/cite>. But this is the way it goes.<\/p>\n<p>The night was dark, cold blew the wind, and thickly fell the rain<br \/>\nAs Bessie left her own dear home, and came not back again<br \/>\nShe left her widowed mother, she feared not wind and cold<br \/>\nFor the girl was young and fair to see, and love had made her bold.<\/p>\n<p>The night was gone, the day came on, and Bessie came not home<br \/>\nWhich caused her loyal friends to grieve where Bessie thus did roam<br \/>\nUntil her widowed mother cried, she cried in a wailing voice<br \/>\n&#8216;I&#8217;ll search this world o&#8217;er and o&#8217;er till I find my darling child.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>For three long weary months she spent in wandering up and down<br \/>\nBut her journey proved of no avail, for Bessie was not found<br \/>\nUpon returning home again, this poor old woman cried<br \/>\nUntil worn out with grief and woe, with a broken heart she died.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Twas at the end of all this scene, the keeper of the hounds<br \/>\nYoung James McCullough came one day to hunt with all his hounds<br \/>\nUp hill, down dale they bravely rode, a gallant company<br \/>\nUntil they lost a great big fox beneath the old oak tree.<\/p>\n<p>And when he came and looked upon the corpse of bleeding shame<br \/>\nHe drew a pistol from his breast and drove it through his brain<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s there the dogs began to bark, to sniff and tear the clay<br \/>\nAnd all the pikes and spades they had would not drive the dogs away<br \/>\nThe gentlemen all gathered round, called for their pikes and spades<sup class=\"tagairt-n\u00f3ta-bun-leathanaigh\">1<\/sup><br \/>\nThey dug the ground and there they found the missing murdered maid.<\/p>\n<p>Her body once most beautiful was covered o&#8217;er with gore<br \/>\nThe blood it flew from every wound and scattered down her clothes<sup class=\"tagairt-n\u00f3ta-bun-leathanaigh\">2<\/sup><br \/>\nThe hand that did the horrid deed<sup class=\"tagairt-n\u00f3ta-bun-leathanaigh\">3<\/sup>, oh it was a fearful sight<br \/>\nFor the worms were creeping from her eyes that once were pure and bright.<\/p>\n<p>A knife revealed in her breast, oh what a horrid shame<br \/>\nThe name upon the handle was James McCullough&#8217;s name<br \/>\n&#8216;Oh, hide the corpse,&#8217; McCullough cried, &#8216;my soul is bound for Hell<br \/>\nOh, hide the corpse from my very eyes, and I the truth will tell.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;It&#8217;s true I loved my Bessie dear, and on her I did fall<br \/>\nI wrote her a letter, that sealed that girl&#8217;s call<sup class=\"tagairt-n\u00f3ta-bun-leathanaigh\">4<\/sup><br \/>\nI wrote her a marriage promise, and on it I signed my name<br \/>\nFrom that very day &#8217;til this very hour, sealed poor Bessie&#8217;s fate.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>He was buried where he fell, no Christian grave got he<br \/>\nNo priest was found to bless the ground beneath the old oak tree.<\/p>\n<div class=\"n\u00f3ta\u00ed-bun-leathanaigh\">\n<h2 id=\"t:notai\">Notes<\/h2>\n<p class=\"n\u00f3ta-bun-leathanaigh\">1. It seems unlikely that anyone would take pikes and spades out hunting. Here is how Tom Lenihan remembered the second and third lines of this stanza:<br \/>\n<i>And all that horse and whip could do could not drive those dogs away<\/i><br \/>\n<i>The gentlemen all gathered round, sent for a pick and spade&hellip;<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"n\u00f3ta-bun-leathanaigh\">2. This vivid line, with its depiction of blood &#8216;flying from every wound&#8217;, suggests the folk-belief that a corpse would begin to bleed afresh in the presence of the murderer &mdash; a belief which, as Munnelly points out, can be traced back to medieval times, and which has been attested in Conamara as recently as the 1880s (T. Munnelly, <cite class=\"leabhar\">The Mount Callan Garland<\/cite>, Dublin 1994, p. 36 and note).<\/p>\n<p class=\"n\u00f3ta-bun-leathanaigh\">3. This line is unclear; perhaps something like &#8216;The grave revealed the horrid deed&#8217;?<\/p>\n<p class=\"n\u00f3ta-bun-leathanaigh\">4. A number of factors &#8211; Joe&#8217;s slight hesitation following the word &#8216;dear&#8217; in the first line, the obscure phrase at the end of that line, and the use of the word &#8216;sealed&#8217; in two lines of the stanza &#8211; suggest that he may be improvising to cover a memory-lapse here. The problem could be solved with the application of the word &#8216;downfall&#8217;, perhaps &#8211; but this example demonstrates the challenge Joe set himself every time he performed one of these long songs in the English of a bygone era. It is worth remembering that English was <em>not<\/em> Joe&#8217;s native language.<\/p>\n<p>Tom Munnelly, who collected a very similar version of <cite class=\"amhr\u00e1n\">The Old Oak Tree<\/cite> from Tom Lenihan in Miltown Malbay, County Clare, writes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The very graphic details of the murdered maiden and the nemesis which overtakes the villain have guaranteed [the song&#8217;s] popularity with singers throughout Ireland and much further abroad.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>One verse that Joe leaves out contains a particularly arresting image, as the murderer confesses his foul deed:<br \/>\n<i>The knife that did my dinner cut, I plunged it in her breast<\/i><br \/>\n<i> And with my staff I knocked her down &mdash; I need not tell the rest.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>The air is the same one that Joe uses for <cite class=\"amhr\u00e1n\">The Glen of Aherlow<\/cite>.<\/p>\n<p>This song was recorded while Joe was Artist in Residence at University of Washington.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"templates\/template-full-width.php","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amhrain","category-amhrain-i-mbearla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1570,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493\/revisions\/1570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joeheaney.org\/ga\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}