The Wily Old Carle

Original Track ID

SA1952.11.B4 (B13)

Original Tape ID

SA1952.011

Summary

The woman from Kelso loves another man more than her husband. She goes to the doctor for medicine to make her husband blind. He advises feeding him ground marrowbones, which she does. Her husband becomes blind, decides to drown himself, and asks her to push him in. She takes a long run, he steps aside, and she falls in. She calls on him to help but he asks how he can when he is blind. She swims to the bank but he pushes her back in, telling her that she thought he was blind but he was not.

Item Notes

Text and music transcribed in School of Scottish Studies. 11 verses. A version of 'Johnny Sands' or 'The Old Woman from Wexford', on the theme of a woman who wants rid of her husband but is outsmarted. For an Irish version and some notes see 'Ceol' (1:4, pp. 8-9).

See also:
Greig-Duncan vol. 2, pp. 445-452
Willie Mathieson's MSS II:181

Recording Location

Language

Scots

Genre

Song

Collection

SoSS

Classification

R183 GD318 LQ2

Source Type

Reel to reel

Audio Quality

Good