The veil is thin and I am listening to haunting ballads, and pairing them with Cheese Shop delicacies for your enjoyment this Hallows’ Eve. Last year I paired two murder ballads and a sad love song with wine, and you can find that here.
To begin, some loose definitions: a ballad, is generally a folk song that tells a story, passed down by oral tradition. The ones I mostly have researched come from Scottish, English, and Irish traditions, and their counterparts when the songs traveled across the Atlantic and had new lives and traditions in Appalachia and Newfoundland. Murder Ballads, a sub-genre, tell the story of murders. Sometimes folklore with fairies and ghosts and curses, sometimes tales of real murders (with shifting storylines depending who’s telling it), these songs come in all flavors. Here are three classic ballads that I love, and their tasty counterparts.
The Bloody Gardener
In this ballad, a rich noble boy falls in love with a shepherd’s daughter. His mother, disapproving of the cross-class love, sends a letter to the girl pretending to be her son and asking her to meet in the garden, but hires a gardener to meet the girl instead, and ultimately kill her. The gardener talks to the girl and promises to leave flowers on her grave before he takes out his knife to “cut the single thread of life”.
After the girl is buried, her lover arrives to the garden looking for her, and a milk white dove flies to the fresh grave of his lover, droops her wings and bleeds from her “milk white breast”. The boy returns to his mother accusing her of killing his love, and promises to “soon take flight” and join his darling. Listen to Martin Carthy for a traditional version of this ballad, and Rachel Newton for a slightly easier listen.
Often when songs cross the Atlantic from England, Scotland, or Ireland to Newfoundland and Appalachia they lose some of their supernatural elements, but this song breaks that pattern and retains the magical dove who tells of the murder. The best line I found about this song in my research comes from A.L. Llyod who says, “Perhaps it was the contrast between the gardener’s gentle profession and his murderous nature that gave the ballad such a firm hold on the popular imagination.”
I am pairing this song with Ossau-Iraty, a French sheep’s cheese, to honor the shepherds daughter. This cheese has ancient origins like the ballad and is still made with traditional methods passed down over generations in the French Pyrénées. It is rich and delicious.
Banks of the Ohio
Unlike the other two ballads here, this one is relatively new — we can only trace it back to the 19th century — but even so there are many similar older ballads, mostly coming from England in the 18th century.
The story told in this song is a classic one in the murder ballad tradition: the unfortunate story of the narrator killing his lover because she refuses his hand in marriage. In most versions the cruel scorned lover both stabs his love and then throws her into the river. Depending on the version there is more or less explanation for this, and more or less remorse afterwards.
Listen to Carter Family with Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton (framed through a visit to the murderer in a prison cell), and The Kossoy Sisters (with their hallucination-inducing cover for a musically gorgeous album).
This song pairs well with Street Ched, an Ohio version of an English-style Clothbound Cheddar (much like the American version of this old English ballad). It’s earthy, sharp, savory, and totally addicting, just like the song.
The Butcher Boy / Go Dig My Grave
The Butcher Boy is a classic traditional ballad with many versions and uncountable influences. Often it is considered to be a more American ballad that borrowed lines and stanzas from many older English and Irish ballads. The story told in this song is of a heartbroken lover who is abandoned by a butcher boy (sometimes a railroad boy, farmer, or sailor) and in her grief takes her own life. She leaves a note saying “go dig my grave, both wide and deep / place a marble stone at my head and feet / and on my breast a turtle dove / to show the world I died for love”
In some versions of the song, like The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem sing, she is pregnant when she dies and the song is full of her regret for falling for the butcher boy’s courting, she laments that “a maid again I’ll never be // Till cherries grow on an apple tree”
Listen to Jean Ritchie and Doc Watson perform a classic Appalachian version of this song, or Lankum sing a haunting version with minutes of droning to really drive the message home. And if you’re in the mood for this song as punk ballad, Cordelia’s Dad can deliver.
The obvious pairing with this song is something from the butcher boy and I’ve chosen a Pork Chop that we source from our favorite neighboring family farm. They’re butchered in-house by our butcher boys (although, not of the heartbreaking kind) and decadent, rich, and delicious.
Until next year (presumably on Ballads and Breads…) I leave you with good wishes for a haunting Hallows’ Eve amidst these old stories, songs, and cheese.
