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"Matty Groves", also known as "Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard" or "Little Musgrave", is a ballad probably originating in Northern England that describes an adulterous between a young man and a noblewoman that is ended when the woman's husband discovers and kills them. It is listed as Child ballad number 81 and number 52 in the Roud Folk Song Index. This song exists in many textual variants and has several variant names. The song dates to at least 1613, and under the title Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard is one of the Child ballads collected by 19th-century American scholar Francis James Child.
Lord Barnard then asks his wife whether she still prefers Little Musgrave to him and when she says she would prefer a kiss from the dead man's lips to her husband and all his kin, he kills her. He then says he regrets what he has done and orders the lovers to be buried in a single grave, with the lady at the top because "she came of the better kin". In some versions Barnard is hanged, or kills himself, or finds his own infant son dead in his wife's body. Many versions omit one or more parts of the story.
It has been speculated that the original names of the characters, Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard, come from place names in the north of England (specifically Little Musgrave in Westmorland and Barnard Castle in County Durham). The place name "Bucklesfordbury", found in both English and American versions of the song, is of uncertain origin.
Some versions of the ballad include elements of an alba, a poetic form in which lovers part after spending a night together.
Below are the first four verses as written in a version published in 1658.
As it fell one holy-day, hay downe, As many be in the yeare, When young men and maids Together did goe, Their Mattins and Masse to heare, Little Musgrave came to the church dore, The Preist was at private Masse But he had more minde of the faire women; Then he had of our lady grace
The one of them was clad in green Another was clad in pale, And then came in my lord Bernards wife The fairest amonst them all;
She cast an eye on little Musgrave As bright as the summer sun, And then bethought this little Musgrave This lady's heart have I woonn.
Dozens of traditional versions of the ballad were recorded in the Appalachian region. Jean Bell Thomas recorded Green Maggard singing "Lord Daniel" in Ashland, Kentucky, in 1934, which was released on the anthology 'Kentucky Mountain Music' Yazoo YA 2200. Bascom Lamar Lunsford was recorded singing a version called "Lord Daniel's Wife" in 1935. Samuel Harmon, known as "Uncle" Sam Harmon, was recorded by Herbert Halpert in Maryville, Tennessee, in 1939 singing a traditional version. The influential Appalachian folk singer Jean Ritchie had her family version of the ballad, called "Little Musgrave", recorded by Alan Lomax in 1949, who made a reel-to-reel recording of it in his apartment in Greenwich Village; she later released a version on her album Ballads from her Appalachian Family Tradition (1961). In August 1963, John Cohen recorded Dillard Chandler singing "Mathie Groves" in Sodom, North Carolina, whilst Nimrod Workman, another Appalachian singer, had a traditional version of the song recorded in 1974.
The folklorist Helen Hartness Flanders recorded many versions in New England in the 1930s and 40s, all of which can be heard online in the Flanders Ballad Collection.
Canadian folklorists such as Helen Creighton, Kenneth Peacock and Edith Fowke recorded about a dozen versions in Canada, mostly in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.
A number of songs and tales collected in the Caribbean are based on, or refer to, the ballad.
| This version has the foot-page |
Some of the versions of the song subsequently recorded differ from Child's catalogued version. The earliest published version appeared in 1658 (see Literature section below). A copy was also printed on a broadside by Henry Gosson, who is said to have printed between 1607 and 1641. Some variation occurs in where Matty is first seen; sometimes at church, sometimes playing ball.
Matty Groves also shares some mid-song stanzas with the ballad "Fair Margaret and Sweet William" (Child ballad 74, Roud 253).
Other names for the ballad:
And some they whistled, and some they sung, Hey, down, down! And some did loudly say, Ever as the Lord Barnet's horn blew, Away, Musgrave, away!
Al Hine's 1961 novel Lord Love a Duck opens and closes with excerpts from the ballad, and borrows the names Musgrave and Barnard for two characters.
Deborah Grabien's third book in the Haunted Ballad series, Matty Groves (2005), puts a different spin on the ballad.
| Set to the tune of the otherwise unrelated Appalachian song "Shady Grove"; this hybrid version has therefore entered other performers' repertoires over time (the frequency of this as well as the similarity of the names has led to the erroneous assumption that "Shady Grove" is directly descended from "Matty Groves"). Several live recordings also. | |
| Set to a tune Andy Irvine learnt from Nic Jones | |
| Done as a parody talking blues version | |
| (In Finnish) | |
| Acapella Appalachian.Smithsonian Folkways – SFW 40170 | |
| Reggae version, featuring Dave Swarbrick & Brownman Ali | |
| (In Russian) | |
| Mathey Groves | |
| YouTube video recorded to explain the band's name | |
| Scots folklore variant written in Scottish English | |
| (In Czech) | |
"The Big Musgrave", a parody by the Kipper Family, appears on their 1988 LP Fresh Yesterday. The hero in this version is called Big Fatty Groves.
Frank Hayes created a talking blues version of Matty Groves called "Like a Lamb to the Slaughter," which won the 1994 Pegasus Award for "Best Risqué Song."
"Maggie Gove", a parody by UK comedy folk-band The Bar-Steward Sons of Val Doonican, appears on their 2022 album Rugh & Ryf. The anti-hero in this version is Margaret Gove, a folk-singer of traditional broadside ballads. The song features guest appearances from Dave Pegg and Dave Mattacks from Fairport Convention.
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