Wind and Rain a Four Hundred Year Old Ballad and Fairy Tale

I have some music I found on CD at a garage sale. It was Jerry Garcia and David Grisman, and they did the song "Dreadful Wind and Rain". I liked it, old timey country-folk type music and the other night when it played on my computer on my media player that randomly selected it, I actually listened to the lyrics.

Man, what a messed up story in this ballad. It has a very long history going back to the mid 1600s in Northern Europe and has a number of versions. Jerry Garcia, Billy Strings and a lot of bands have played versions of this song, but those two guys do probably the most common version. Two other versions are known as "Twa Sisters" or "The Two Sisters" and also "The Cruel Sister". They are quite different but definitely the same story.

Here is a summary from Wikipedia . . .

Two sisters go down by a body of water, sometimes a river and sometimes the sea. The older one pushes the younger in and refuses to pull her out again; generally the lyrics explicitly state her intent to drown her younger sister. Her motive, when included in the lyrics, is sexual jealousy – in some variants, the sisters are being two-timed by a suitor; in others, the elder sister's affections are not encouraged by the young man. In a few versions, a third sister is mentioned, but plays no significant role in events. In most versions, the older sister is described as dark, while the younger sister is fair.

When the murdered girl's body floats ashore, someone makes a musical instrument out of it, generally a harp or a fiddle, with a frame of bone and the girl's "long yellow hair" (or "golden hair") for strings. The instrument then plays itself and sings about the murder. In some versions, this occurs after the musician has taken it to the family's household, so that the elder sister is publicly revealed (sometimes at her wedding to the murdered girl's suitor) as the murderess.

The variant titled "The Two Sisters" typically omits the haunted instrument entirely, ending instead with an unrelated person (often a miller) robbing the murdered girl's corpse, sometimes being executed for it, and the elder sister sometimes going unpunished, or sometimes boiled in lead.

Here is a link to a you tube video of this song.

www.youtube.com...

Here are the lyrics of one version with alternate verses included.

“Wind and Rain” - Gillian Welch

There were two sisters of county Clair (or County Clare in Ireland?).
Oh, the wind and rain.
One was dark and the other was fair.
Oh, the dreadful wind and rain.

And they both had a love of the miller's son.
Oh, the wind and rain.
But he was fond of the fairer one.
Oh, the dreadful wind and rain.

************* other version ****************************
Johnny gave the youngest one a gay gold ring.
Oh, the wind and rain.
Didn't give the oldest one anything.
Cryin' oh, the dreadful wind and rain.
**************************************************

So she pushed her into the river to drown.
Oh, the wind and rain.
And watched her as she floated down.
(Cryin') Oh, the dreadful wind and rain.

************* other version ****************************
Sister, oh sister, give me thy hand.
Oh, the wind and rain.
You can have Johnny (Willy) and all his land.
Cryin' oh, the dreadful wind and rain.

Sister, I'll not give you my hand.
Oh, the wind and rain.
And I'll have Johnny (Willy) and all his land.
Cryin' oh, the dreadful wind and rain.
********************************

And she floated till she came to the miller’s pond.
Oh, the wind and the rain.
Dead on the water like a golden swan.
Oh, the dreadful wind and rain.

************* other version ****************************
She floated 'till she came to a miller's pond.
Oh, the wind and rain.
And father, oh father, there swims a swan.
Cryin' oh, the dreadful wind and rain.

The miller pushed her out with a fishing hook.
Oh the wind and rain.
Drew that fair maid from the brook.
Cryin' oh the dreadful wind and rain.
*************************************************

As she came to rest on the riverside.
Oh, the wind and the rain.
And her bones were washed by the rolling tide.
Oh, the dreadful wind and rain.

And along the road came a fiddler fair.
Oh, the wind and rain.
And found her bones just a lying there, cried.
Oh, the dreadful wind and rain.

So he made a fiddle peg of her long finger bone.
Oh, the wind and the rain.
He a made a fiddle peg of her long finger bone, crying.
Oh, the dreadful wind and rain.

And he strung his fiddle bow with her long yellow hair.
Oh, the wind and the rain.
He strung his fiddle bow with her long yellow hair, cried.
Oh, the dreadful wind and rain.

And he made a little fiddle of her little breast bone.
Oh, the wind and rain.
He made a little fiddle of her little breast bone, cried.
Oh, the dreadful wind and rain.

But the only tune that the fiddle could play was.
Oh, the wind and rain.
The only tune that the fiddle would play was.
Oh, the dreadful wind and rain.

There are some other alternative lyrics and you'll notice that the order of some verses are different from the videos. It seems that this was an English fairy tale published in 1890. Obviously the tale is much older if this song was written down in 1656.

Continued . . .

Here is the fairy tale of the story this song was based on published in 1890 (obviously it's a far older story) . . . .

"Binnorie", a fairy tale from England .

Once upon a time there were two king's daughters who lived in a bower near the bonny mill dams of Binnorie. And Sir William came wooing the eldest and won her love, and plighted troth with glove and with ring. But after a time he looked upon the youngest, with her cherry cheeks and golden hair, and his love went out to her until he cared no longer for the eldest one. So she hated her sister for taking away Sir William's love, and day by day her hate grew and grew and she plotted and she planned how to get rid of her.

So one fine morning, fair and clear, she said to her sister, "Let us go and see our father's boats come in at the bonny mill stream of Binnorie." So they went there hand in hand. And when they came to the river's bank the youngest got upon a stone to watch for the beaching of the boats. And her sister, coming behind her, caught her round the waist and dashed her into the rushing mill stream of Binnorie. "Oh sister, sister, reach me your hand!" she cried, as she floated away, "and you shall have half of all I've got or shall get."

"No, sister, I'll reach you no hand of mine, for I am the heir to all your land. Shame on me if I touch her hand that has come 'twixt me and my own heart's love." "Oh sister, oh sister, then reach me your glove!" she cried, as she floated further away, "and you shall have your William again."

"Sink on," cried the cruel princess, "no hand or glove of mine you'll touch. Sweet William will be all mine when you are sunk beneath the bonny mill stream of Binnorie." And she turned and went home to the king's castle.

And the princess floated down the mill stream, sometimes swimming and sometimes sinking, until she came near the mill. Now the miller's daughter was cooking that day, and needed water for her cooking. And as she went to draw it from the stream, she saw something floating towards the mill dam, and she called out, "Father! father! draw your dam. There's something white -- a merrymaid or a milk white swan -- coming down the stream." So the miller hastened to the dam and stopped the heavy cruel mill wheels. And then they took out the princess and laid her on the bank. Fair and beautiful she looked as she lay there. In her golden hair were pearls and precious stones; you could not see her waist for her golden girdle, and the golden fringe of her white dress came down over her lily feet. But she was drowned, drowned!

And as she lay there in her beauty a famous harper passed by the mill dam of Binnorie, and saw her sweet pale face. And though he traveled on far away he never forgot that face, and after many days he came back to the bonny mill stream of Binnorie. But then all he could find of her where they had put her to rest were her bones and her golden hair. So he made a harp out of her breast bone and her hair, and traveled on up the hill from the mill dam of Binnorie, until he came to the castle of the king her father.

That night they were all gathered in the castle hall to hear the great harper: king and queen, their daughter and son, Sir William, and all their court. And first the harper sang to his old harp, making them joy and be glad, or sorrow and weep just as he liked. But while he sang he put the harp he had made that day on a stone in the hall. And presently it began to sing by itself, low and clear, and the harper stopped and all were hushed. And this was what the harp sung:

Oh yonder sits my father, the king,
Binnorie, oh Binnorie;
And yonder sits my mother, the queen;
By the bony mill dams o' Binnorie.
And yonder stands my brother Hugh,
Binnorie, oh Binnorie;
And by him, my William, false and true;
By the bonny mill dams o' Binnorie.

Then they all wondered, and the harper told them how he had seen the princess lying drowned on the bank near the bonny mill dams o' Binnorie, and how he had afterwards made this harp out of her hair and breast bone. Just then the harp began singing again, and this was what it sang out loud and clear:

And there sits my sister who drownèd me
By the bonny mill dams o' Binnorie.

And the harp snapped and broke, and never sang more.

sites.pitt.edu...

The fact that the body was dumped in the sea and then ended up in a mill pond could be due to it being a tide mill pond near the sea shore. Such tide mills were in Ireland and England in the 600s AD.

A tide mill is a water mill driven by tidal rise and fall. A dam with a sluice is created across a suitable tidal inlet, or a section of river estuary is made into a reservoir. As the tide comes in, it enters the mill pond through a one-way gate, and this gate closes automatically when the tide begins to fall. When the tide is low enough, the stored water can be released to turn a water wheel. Tide mills are usually situated in river estuaries, away from the effects of waves but close enough to the sea to have a reasonable tidal range. Cultures that built such mills have existed since the Middle Ages, and some may date back to the Roman period.

en.wikipedia.org...

Continued . . .

I've been looking into the possible origins of this song's story and there is speculation that the main theme, one sister killing another because of jealousy and/or for some personal gain, may go back to pagan Ireland around the 1st century AD with the pagan Irish warrior queen Meave of Connaught (Medb of Cruachan). This is at odds with some that believe the source was from Scotland. We can be certain that there were many versions of this ballad by 1655 through out northern Europe that may have been influenced by a similar Celt myth of a powerful godlike queen. Many of the earlier versions have the sisters as princesses with their parents the king and queen and their suitor a knight.

In one of Medb’s many possible histories, she was known as Medb of Cruachan. In this tale, her first husband was Conchobar Mac Nessa, king of the Ulaid. Her father Eochiad Fedlimid had given her to Conchobar as the prize for killing his father, Fachach Fatnach, former king of Tara. She went on to bear him one son, Glaisne. However, she did not love Conchobar, and after she left him, they became lifelong enemies. Eochaid then offered Conchobar to Medb’s sister Eithene, to replace his other daughter who had abandoned him. Eithene also fell pregnant, but before she was able to give birth, she was assassinated by Medb. Miraculously, the child survived as it was delivered prematurely through a cesarean birth as Eithene lay dying.

symbolsage.com...

One of the most persistent parts of the tale, at least locally, is Medb’s act of sororcide regarding Ethne. In an act of userpation, Medb drowns her sister in the river Inny, (named for Ethne). I have wondered if this part of the story might have survived owing to its similarity to the popular ballad, ‘The Twa (Two) Sisters’. ‘Twa Sister’s’ first appears on a broadside in 1656 as ‘The Miller and the King’s Daughter’. Variants and alternate titles include: ‘The Cruel Sister’, ‘The Bonnie Milldams of Binnorie’, ‘The Bonny Bows o’ London’, ‘Binnorie’. ‘Sister, Dear Sister’ , ‘The Wind and the Rain’ among others. Its popularity has transferred the setting to a wide variety of river side locations, from Edinburgh to London, from the Thames to the Tweed.

storyarchaeology.com...

Once we get to the "Wind and Rain" versions that survived into Canada and the States, we have a miller, his son, a wandering "fiddler" and the two sisters involved. I suspect that some true story was picked up by a medieval European traveling bard and became a popular folk song due to it's similarity with the ancient pagan stories. Some times the miller merely pulls the girl's body from the water, but he also doubles for the fiddler and even helps drown her after the sister gives him jewelry and coins. The miller, the river or brook and the dam seem important even though many of the songs have her getting pushed into the sea while watching for ships arriving back to port and her bones being washed by the tide water. One version has the miller part her out for all kinds of musical accessories including some eyeglasses to boot.

If I were to guess, I'd say that the narrative of this song as we have it today probably came about around the time Christianity took hold in Ireland, after around 300AD or so. If we go with the Ireland first theory, then Scandinavia may have picked up on this after the Vikings were an influence there in early 800AD. The fiddle began as a medieval European bowed, stringed musical instrument. The medieval fiddle emerged around the 10th-century in Europe (900AD) this would have been half way through the Viking era in Ireland making this song possibly as old 1,100 years or a little more.

A link to the lyrics of the first written record of these songs published in 1656.

www.contemplator.com...

My conclusion is that this began as a real story about a woman who murdered her sister over a love triangle. She pushed her sister into a river estuary near a tide mill where she drowned and her body was later recovered by the miller and his daughter who left it on the shore to decompose. The sisters may have been royalty as it may have been from the pre Roman era when there wasn't any written record of the event. Otherwise, the event may have occurred around the mid 1500s after the tide mills were taken from the monasteries and were likely owned by the king or some wealthy lord and run by peasants.

The dissolution of the monasteries, occasionally referred to as the suppression of the monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents, and friaries in England, Wales, and Ireland, expropriated their income, disposed of their assets, and provided for their former personnel and functions

en.wikipedia.org...

Perhaps these sisters had wealthy and important parents and were being courted by a wealthy land owner. He choose one over the other and the older sister lost out on more wealth and status and so she killed the younger one and blamed the "dreadful wind and rain" for the "accidental death". The body floated around until retrieved by the miller who probably took the girls belongings and kept quiet until a traveling bard found the remains and then later composed a song that implicated the sister in the death.

Actually I like this story, the bard can be like an investigative journalist looking for a juicy story to use in a ballad. He finds the body, questions the miller and then hears the story of the dead sister and finds out more when he performs for the local lordship and his family.

Good dig on the tune and its story elements.

I bet those marriage systems involving dowry or other wealth transfer were/are full of all kinds of intrigue, back-stabbing, and double crosses.

From what I've read, most of the aristocratic marriages of the old days were loveless and rooted in politics and other exercises of power. One can imagine attractive younger sisters were seen as dangerous potential rivals.

Cheers

Truly an excellent examination of a tragic tale! In the ancient days of musical entertainment, these kinds of accounts were popularized by minstrels and troubadours that made their way through communities for a living fare. I found many examples of this in the ballads from very early in history.

Thanks for the great thread... this is the kind of content that separates ATS from the pablum-slingers of the mainstream.

Thanks for reading this.

I would like to describe the way things have been coming together lately, this song is a really good example, I won't be going there though as that would be better for the paranormal forum. I will say though that for some strange reason, once I heard the lyrics, this song upset me deeply and got me digging in order to find who and what this story was about. In addition, I got my six string out and learned this song, it's been about three years since I played it. My hand hurt like hell after getting it down and playing it a few times.

I've been continuing my research by finding the location of medieval castles and tide mills in County Clare in Ireland as it seems that these are the main details of the story that could solve this mystery. I'm going with the facts that support the Ireland origin theory as I had found no legend, myth, folk or fairy tale from Scandinavia/Norway that even comes close to this, not a shred of evidence except the quote that was referenced that made the claim by one expert that it was certain this was Scandinavian in origin. The closest I could find was a German fairy tale called "The Singing Bone" in the Grim collection that was based on an ancient Greek legend that had haunted human remains used to make a musical instrument. No indication where that story came from as the brothers Grimm never told us where.

So, I am looking for an old castle in the UK, in County Clare Ireland specifically, that was occupied around mid 1500s or earlier, that was on a hill top near a river estuary that had enough tidal action to have at least one, or likely more, tide mills and a shipping port.

The unnamed sisters are daughters of the lord of a castle near the mills that may have been royalty who lived in "a bower " (room, hall, or building used for housing) near the bonny mill dams of "Binnorie". Bonny is defined as beautiful or handsome and merry or lively so we can assume it was an attractive lively port with some nice mills. "Binnorie" may be a family name as it is not found as a place name and seems to have no Gaelic or English meaning. No luck with that on the genealogy sites. The sisters were involved with one Sir William that may have been a knight and they had a brother named Hugh. There are a whole ton of Sir Williams in UK history, no help there. The river was called a mill stream and a brook, so may have not been a major river, but it had let out near the ocean and had a port, so it had to be sizable. There are a number of rivers in Ireland called mill stream and brook stream though they don't seem to fit the location I'm looking for.

As far as the traveling bard goes, by the 1500s bards were out and Troubadours & Minstrels were in. I believe we are talking a traveling minstrel by the description given below.

Troubadours & Minstrels Replace Bards

Since medieval bards were regulated and subjected to various laws, they were eventually replaced by Troubadours and Minstrels who became famous during the middle ages. Minstrels were mostly servants whose services were obtained primarily as traveling musicians.

Medieval Minstrel
Minstrel Minstrels performed songs that told stories about distant places, historical events, and imaginary events. Most minstrels created their own stories and tales, and they often memorized and embellished the works of other musicians or poets.

www.medievalchronicles.com...

I hadn't thought about when the Vikings may have started using water powered grist mills, but apparently they were using small sized hand cranked mill stones around 1,000AD while the Irish had water powered mills for 400 hundred years before then.

The grains are dropped onto the millstones whilst the women take it in turns to tirelessly grind the mill first one way then the other. The flour is gathered and mixed with water to make bread.

www.bbc.co.uk...

Wind and water mills may have been in use in Scandinavia by the 1500s, however I can't seem to find when they came into that pre industrial revolution just before steam power was in common use. Christianity caught up with them last in Europe so I suspect that so did most of the technical advances of the medieval age.

I've been thinking about this minstrel and that perhaps there was some liberties taken with the story. I doubt that some traveling minstrel that is barely getting by would take a chance on getting in trouble for naming real names or being too exact in the details of his songs. The basic story is likely true but this royal family, castle and knight might be exaggerations meant to hint at something, to act like a clue, but also to hide the real facts of the story. Perhaps this area called the "mill dams of Binnorie" is some fiction that is used to represent some town or area that has some similar characteristics. One detail I'm sure is BS is that the harp playing minstrel is famous and great and makes me believe that the song writer had personal knowledge of this incident and was exaggerating that fact.

And just another detail that I noticed. The older sister was "dark" and the younger one "fair", so knowing that the younger sister was blond and fair skinned, it's likely that the older one was brunette with dark eyes and olive complexion and could have the implication that maybe the eldest sister was a "black Irish" half-sister and had some political meaning I couldn't possibly understand.

Still though, all the details in this story make it stand out as something that really happened. That is a really elaborate tale that could have left out most of those details and still told the story in the ballad. It had to be a good story to survive this long and it did lose details as it went along, so with all that remaining detail, it rings true to me.

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

I had been thinking that the added description of dark and fair may have been an attempt at metaphor. Of course, that might be reading too much into the idea itself, as most of the regions involved in these stories (assuming it's a European tale) held value of beauty in the lighter skinned (or lighter hair colored) folks.

Lacking a definite author, it is unlikely that this can be resolved in fact, and we are ultimately left to suppose one way or another.

But using the term 'dark' as opposed to 'fair' may have been allegorical, regarding the 'intention' of the subjects in question, or their 'nature,' generally.

After thinking about how the instrument went from a harp in the story to become a fiddle in the song would indicate to me that the story may be older than 1,200 years old and the song older than 500 years to date back to as much as 600 or 700 years old.

originally posted by: Maxmars
a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

I had been thinking that the added description of dark and fair may have been an attempt at metaphor. Of course, that might be reading too much into the idea itself, as most of the regions involved in these stories (assuming it's a European tale) held value of beauty in the lighter skinned (or lighter hair colored) folks.

Lacking a definite author, it is unlikely that this can be resolved in fact, and we are ultimately left to suppose one way or another.

But using the term 'dark' as opposed to 'fair' may have been allegorical, regarding the 'intention' of the subjects in question, or their 'nature,' generally.

Yes I had that thought initially, however, I felt it may go farther than that and represent some political aspect that may relate to the story and maybe help identify the people in question. Also, the floating body was described both as a golden swan (hair) and as a white swan (skin) indicating a higher social standing. Then again, the details may just be the details without allegory or metaphor.

Curiously, there is a homestead in Australia named 'Binnorie'.

I wonder if it was named for another location or perhaps from the song.

Farther afield--

There is a castle "Bunratty" in County Clare very close to the coast. Location made smile as it is near Shannon, a location I flew to as a kid back in the days when transatlantic flights refueled enroute from the USA to Europe.

Cheers

originally posted by: F2d5thCavv2
Curiously, there is a homestead in Australia named 'Binnorie'.

I wonder if it was named for another location or perhaps from the song.

Farther afield--

There is a castle "Bunratty" in County Clare very close to the coast. Location made smile as it is near Shannon, a location I flew to as a kid back in the days when transatlantic flights refueled enroute from the USA to Europe.

Cheers

Yes. I was looking for that on the maps as I thought that maybe if this royal family lived in County Clare, then they must have lived in Castle Clare. I found it hard to pin down and concluded it must have been Bunratty on one of the islands around there, a likely spot for a tide mill to operate.

A close second that didn't pan out was the Bonny Mill in Bonnybridge Scotland on the Bonny Water River that was around in the early 1500s. Apparently there is the "Rough Castle" near there that was a Roman fort. There were Barons that ruled that area.

LINK

a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Another (relevant?) tidbit is that the Irish version of Bunratty is Bun na Raite, which could be seen as a bit closer in sound to 'Binnorie'.

According to the web, the castle 'towers over' the River Raite.

Cheers

originally posted by: F2d5thCavv2
a reply to: MichiganSwampBuck

Another (relevant?) tidbit is that the Irish version of Bunratty is Bun na Raite, which could be seen as a bit closer in sound to 'Binnorie'.

According to the web, the castle 'towers over' the River Raite.

Cheers

Wow! Good catch with that one. I was really studying the area with satellite imagery and elevation maps, but couldn't pin down exactly where that castle was and that tidbit is really good in my opinion. Compare when you run that Irish version together - Bunnaraite to Binnorie, looks like it could be pronounced bun nar ee and then mispronounced to bin nor ee.

I think we're getting close. Maybe we can pin down a time by finding if and when a water driven mill was in the area and if there was a port nearby. If a time can be established we might find out who occupied the castle and/or owned the mill. That would get us right over the target.

I was concentrating on the River Fergus and was way off. This area does look really promising.

Have a look at this . . .

www.worldwanderings.net...

OpenTopoMap

The castle's location is the circle with the flag by the river in the town.

Ha, I was just looking at that mill. Seems to have been pond driven. The tide mills seem really ancient from the dates I was seeing.

Cheers

originally posted by: F2d5thCavv2
OpenTopoMap

The castle's location is the circle with the flag by the river in the town.

Ha, I was just looking at that mill. Seems to have been pond driven. The tide mills seem really ancient from the dates I was seeing.

Cheers

Got some links to share?
Also, that mill was built in modern times based on a design from archeological remains that were found somewhere else. There probably was never a mill on the castle grounds.

I believe I may have found the tide mill pond. Have a look at this area down river from the Bunratty castle and notice the feature on the south shore at low tide. When you look at it with Apple maps at high tide that square is filled with water and you can see how it all flows back out. That area looks like it was excavated to do that, and it's right near a dirt road along the river.

LINK

Now that area just below the first bridge (Old Bunratty Rd) that is widened out and may have been the port where boats came in (it still has a boat ramp) and within easy walking distance from the castle, around 250' and it looks like it's an upgrade up to the castle and higher ground to the north. The castle is on the same side as the mill pond that's about a 1/4 mile downstream.

For lack of a better place to dig into, I'm going forward with finding out about the inhabitants of the castle and hints for this story.