Nic Jones – vocals, guitar
Tony Hall – melodeon
Bridget Danby – recorder
Track 2 on the album Penguin Eggs (1980)
Willie sits in his stable door
And he’s combing his coal-black steed,
And he’s doubting on fair Margaret’s love
And his heart began to bleed.
“Give corn unto my horse, mother,
And meat to my man John,
And I’ll away to fair Margaret’s bower
Before the night comes on.”
“Oh stay at home with me, dear Willie,
Oh stay at home with me,
And the very best cock in all the roost
For your own supper shall be.”
“It’s all your cocks in all your roosts
I value not a pin,
But I’ll away to fair Margaret’s bower
Before the night sets in.”
“If you go to fair Margaret’s bower
Without the leave of me,
In the deepest part of the Clyde water
Then drowned you shall be.”
“Oh the good steed that I ride upon
Cost me thrice thirty pounds,
And I’ll put trust in his swift feet
To take me safe and sound.”
He’s ridden o’er the high, high hills
And he’s down the dowy den,
And the noise that was in the Clyde water
Would have feared five hundred men.
“O roaring Clyde, you roar so loud,
Your streams are wondrous strong,
Make me a wreck as I come back
But spare me as I’m going.”
Oh when he’s got to Margaret’s bower,
He’s tirled low on the pin.*
“Oh wake up, my May Margaret,
Rise up and let me in.”
“Oh who is this at my bower door,
A-calling May Margaret’s name?”
“It’s only your first love, little William,
This night come to her home.”
“Open your gates this night,
Open and let me in,
For my boots they are full of the Clyde water
And I’m frozen to the skin.”
“My barns are full of corn, Willie,
The stable’s full of hay.
And my bower’s full of gentlemen,
They’ll not remove till day.”
“Then it’s fare thee well to you, May Margaret,
It’s fare thee well and adieu,
For I have won my mother’s own curse
In coming this night to you.”
And as he’s ridden o’er the high, high hill
And down yon dowy den,
And the rushing in the Clyde water
Took Willie’s cane from him.
And he’s leaned him over his saddle-bow
To catch his cane again,
And the rushing in the Clyde water
Took Willie’s hat from him.
And he’s leaned him over his saddle-bow
To catch his hat by force,
But the rushing in the Clyde water
Took Willie from his horse.
And the very hour that young man sank
Into the parts so deep,
There up and awoke this May Margaret
Out from her drowsy sleep.
“Come here, come here, my mother dear,
And you read my dreary dream.
I dreamed my lover was at our gates
And nobody let him in.”
“Lie down, lie down, you May Margaret,
Lie down and take your rest.
And since your lover was at our gates
It’s but two quarters passed.”
Then nimbly, nimbly rose she up,
Went down to the river’s brim,
And the louder that this lady cried,
The louder grew the wind.
And the very first step that she went in,
She stepped up to her feet,
And it’s “oh” and “alas,” this lady cried,
“The water’s wondrous deep.”
And the very next step that she went in,
She’s waded to her knee.
Says she, “I would wade farther in
If I my true lover could see.”
And the very next step that she went in,
She’s waded to her chin.
And the deepest part of Clyde water
She found sweet William in.
Saying, “ You have had a cruel mother, Willie,
And I have had another.
And now we’ll sleep in Clyde water
Like sister and like brother.”
These lovers are very young. They are a Clydeside Romeo and Juliet, in love for the first time, and parental restraints suddenly no longer have force. Like Shakespeare’s lovers, they are both of relatively high social standing. Willie’s £90 horse is the luxury SUV of the auld Scottish Borders, while Maggie’s farm exudes prosperity. But there’s no implication that these are scions of two warring clans. It’s just that their respective mothers have not adapted to the circumstance that, as the young Dylan put it: “Your sons and your daughters / Are beyond your command / Your old road is rapidly agein’.”
Willie’s state of mind is made clear from the start: “And he’s doubting on fair Margaret’s love / And his heart began to bleed.” This “doubting” isn’t in the three Child variants of the ballad, but it provides a good motive for the irrational act of his sudden departure on a rotten night weatherwise. In Child 216C, the primary source of Nic Jones’s version, it’s Willie’s nose that begins to bleed, a nosebleed being a bad omen in the Scottish Lowlands. But Jones was right to change “nose” to “heart,” as the superstition won’t register with a contemporary audience. Willie has only known “May” (i.e., Maid) Margaret a short time, fears that she doesn’t reciprocate his passion, so must immediately check out what she’s feeling. Yes, he’s impetuous, but he can’t help it. First love like this is a kind of madness.
Willie’s mother tries to detain him with bribery, promising him a delicious supper if he stays. He’s barely more than a boy, this “little William” as he calls himself, and before he met Maggie, he’d have yielded to Ma’s blandishments. But not any more: in his romantic agitation he cares not a pin for prime chicken. Mother is alarmed; she’s suddenly lost her influence over her son, and like mothers at all times everywhere, she is profoundly shocked at having suddenly been replaced as the most important woman in her son’s life. In 216C she actually curses Willie, and indeed Child entitles this ballad “The Mother’s Malison” (i.e., Malediction). But the mother in Jones’s version doesn’t curse him exactly. Rather, she guilts him by foretelling disaster if he doesn’t yield to her psychological pressure: “If you go to fair Margaret’s bower / Without the leave of me, / In the deepest part of the Clyde water / Then drowned you shall be.”
Piers Cawley tells us that he fell in love with Nic Jones’s rendition of this ballad, and on Isolation Session #3 (2020) Cawley has a reasonably good unaccompanied crack at it. But he continues: “I think that Willy’s an impetuous young fool and his mum is terrified that he’s going to come to grief in the Clyde, so she’s forcefully trying to convince him to stay at home on a horrid night. The boy is clearly an idiot.” He’s wrong. Nic Jones’s version on Penguin Eggs* makes it clear who’s to blame for this tragic debacle, just as Child 216C does.
It’s Mother, or rather mothers, in this ballad who are responsible for the deaths of their children, not the River Clyde. Folklore is full of bad mothers, because negative role models are crucial to establishing what good mothers are, the mother-child relationship being universally acknowledged as the most important in anyone’s upbringing. In this case, a good mother is one prepared to relax her control over her children – and be truthful with them – when the moment of romantic rebellion occurs. In this scenario, both mothers in different ways fail the test posed by their adolescent children.
When Willie gets to Maggie’s door he tirls on the pin** and hears a woman’s voice: “Oh who is this at my bower door, / A-calling May Margaret’s name?” As his is a very recent love, Willie doesn’t recognize that it’s not Margaret but her mother who’s speaking. And Maggie’s mother is thoughtlessly deceitful, pretending that she’s her daughter and that she’s too busy entertaining a crowd of gentlemen to see him at the moment. 216C explains his reaction: his original doubts were justified, his love is “fause” (i.e., false), and now he’s doomed. But Jones’s version is stronger for not spelling it all out. We can only imagine Willie’s torment as he faces what he believes to be Maggie’s blunt rejection, and remembers his mother’s dark prophecy.
The way Willie slips slowly from his horse trying to recapture his cane and hat may seem at first darkly comic, until we realize that these are the reactions of someone who has lost the will to live. At the moment he falls into the deepest part of the Clyde, Maggie awakens and asks her mother to “read” (i.e., interpret) her dream. This simultaneity suggests that these lovers had the potential to be profoundly in tune with one another, so Maggie’s “I dreamed my lover was at our gates / And nobody let him in” adds a tragic dimension to the narrative.
Margaret’s mother, ashamed of her deception, tells her that Willie’s only been gone a short while, so Maggie runs out of her house and down to the Clyde. She steps in the swollen river and, realizing that she’s too late, embraces her fate as the water closes over her head. Maggie’s transition in her final words from pluperfect to future tense says it all: “You have had a cruel mother, Willie, / And I have had another. / And now we’ll sleep in Clyde water / Like sister and like brother.” The river bed is where their love is unconsummated. And Willie never learns in this world that Maggie did love him so much that she drowned herself to be with him. It’s an abrupt, harsh, but appropriate ending.
Though the prominence of the River Clyde indicates that this is clearly a ballad with a Scottish provenance, there’s no need to emphasize this by goin’ a’ Glesga on it. Ewan MacColl (né James Miller in Salford, Lancashire) does an a cappella version (“Clyde’s Water,” The English and Scottish Popular Ballads IV, 1956) which seems more about his determination to prove that he can sing with a thick Glasgow accent than to convey empathy for the doomed lovers. Martin Carthy’s “Clyde’s Water” (Skin and Bone, 1992) makes it clearer that it’s not Margaret but her deceitful mother who doesn’t let Willie in, though Jones’s version is better for the ambiguity. Still, Carthy does get the ballad’s spirit: “an astonishing song of iron parental control … I don’t think I have ever heard a song so relentless or so pared down.” Kate Rusby on Hourglass (1997) reprises Jones’s version as sensitively as always. But as Willie has 26 lines of direct speech, Maggie only 12, this is a ballad more suited to a young male voice. So for me, Nic Jones’s psychologically acute version on Penguin Eggs just about steals it.
Nicolas Paul Jones (born 1947 in Kent) started playing solo professional folk gigs in 1969. He developed a percussive guitar-playing style much influenced by Martin Carthy. He released five albums and made many guest appearances on recordings by Shirley Collins, Richard Thompson, June Tabor, and other folk luminaries. Penguin Eggs (1980), his masterpiece, was sadly his last major work. He was severely injured in a road traffic accident in February 1982 that left him with brain damage and an inability to coordinate his fingers well enough to play guitar as well as before, or fiddle at all.
Penguin Eggs (rereleased in the UK in 1991 and 2010 and in the USA in 1994) is universally considered one of the greatest albums of the British folk revival. Kate Rusby has called it her all-time favourite album. For more information about Nic Jones’s oeuvre, see Alan Murray, “The Time of Nic” in fRoots Magazine, reproduced on Jones’s own website. There also a BBC documentary, The Enigma of Nic Jones (88 mins; 2013) that celebrates Jones’s influence on his fellow folk artists.
*The title is a phrase from “The Little Pot Stove,” one of the whaling songs on the album.
**To tirl on a door-pin is “to turn, twist, twiddle or move to and fro some moveable fitting on (a door), e.g. a latch, ring … so as to produce a sharp rattling, tapping noise by way of arousing those within” (Scottish National Dictionary). See also “Jack Orion.”
PS. There are two more versions of this ballad, both entitled “Clyde Water,” on later albums by Nic Jones. Both are apparently live recordings made in the 1970s, so they almost certainly predate the one on Penguin Eggs. In both Jones is accompanied only by his guitar. The first is Track 24 on the double CD Unearthed (2001); the second is Track 6 on the album Game Set Match (2006). In both these versions the lyrics are slightly abridged, omitting Willie’s mother’s offer to cook him the finest fowl she owns, and jumping straight to her curse. Both performances are extended by guitar breaks, in the case of Unearthed as a long coda. Though the sound quality in both is at least equal to that on Penguin Eggs, this 1980 recording is in my view definitely preferable, not just because it has fuller lyrics. There’s always the potential with Nic Jones for the lyrics and the guitar accompaniment to inhabit two different spheres, and that’s what happens in the live recordings. The Penguin Eggs version is much more musically coherent, shaped by its two backing musicians.
Holmström Ruddick 