Matty Groves
English folk song
"A lamentable ballad of the little Musgrove". A seventeenth-century broadside held in theBodleian Library.
Catalogue	Child Ballad 81 Roud Folk Song Index 52
Genre	Ballad
Language	English
Performed	First attested in writing in 1613
Published	Earliest surviving broadside dated to before 1675
Also known byseveral other names

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard

"Matty Groves", also known as"Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard" or"Little Musgrave", is a ballad probably originating inNorthern England that describes an adulteroustryst between a young man and a noblewoman that is ended when the woman's husband discovers and kills them. It is listed asChild ballad number 81 and number 52 in theRoud Folk Song Index.^[1][2] This song exists in many textual variants and has several variant names. The song dates to at least 1613, and under the titleLittle Musgrave and Lady Barnard is one of the Child ballads collected by 19th-century American scholarFrancis James Child.

Little Musgrave (or Matty Groves, Little Matthew Grew and other variations) goes to church on a holy day either "the holy word to hear" or "to see fair ladies there". He sees Lord Barnard's wife, the fairest lady there, and realises that she is attracted to him. She invites him to spend the night with her, and he agrees when she tells him her husband is away from home. Herpage overhears the conversation and goes to find Lord Barnard (Arlen, Daniel, Arnold, Donald, Darnell, Darlington) and tells him that Musgrave is in bed with his wife. Lord Barnard promises the page a large reward if he is telling the truth and to hang him if he is lying. Lord Barnard and his men ride to his home, where he surprises the lovers in bed. Lord Barnard tells Musgrave to dress because he doesn't want to be accused of killing a naked man. Musgrave says he dare not because he has no weapon, and Lord Barnard gives him the better of two swords. In the subsequentduel Little Musgrave wounds Lord Barnard, who then kills him. (However, in one version "Magrove" instead runs away, naked but alive.)^[3][4]

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.^[1]

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 (specificallyLittle Musgrave inWestmorland andBarnard Castle inCounty 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 analba, a poetic form in which lovers part after spending a night together.

There are fewbroadside versions. There are three different printings in theBodleian Library's Broadside Ballads Online, all dating from the second half of the seventeenth century. One,The lamentable Ditty of the little Mousgrove, and the Lady Barnet from the collection ofAnthony Wood, has a handwritten note by Wood on the reverse stating that "the protagonists were alive in 1543".^[5][6][7][8]

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,
TheirMattins andMasse to heare,

LittleMusgrave 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 lordBernards wife
The fairest amonst them all;

She cast an eye on littleMusgrave
As bright as the summer sun,
And then bethought this littleMusgrave
This lady's heart have I woonn.^[9][10]

It seems that the ballad had largely died out in the British Isles by the time folklorists began collecting songs. Cecil Sharp collected a version from an Agnes Collins inLondon in 1908, the only known version to have been collected inEngland.^[11][12]James Madison Carpenter recorded someScottish versions, probably in the early 1930s, which can be heard on theVaughan Williams Memorial Library website.^[13][14] The Scottish singerJeannie Robertson was recorded on separate occasions singing a traditional version of the song entitled "Matty Groves" in the late 1950s byAlan Lomax,^[15]Peter Kennedy^[16] andHamish Henderson.^[17] However, according to theTobar an Dualchais website, Robertson may have learned her version from Johnny Wells andSandy Paton, Paton being an American singer and folk song collector.^[18]

Dozens of traditional versions of the ballad were recorded in theAppalachian region.Jean Bell Thomas recorded Green Maggard singing "Lord Daniel" inAshland,Kentucky, in 1934, which was released on the anthology 'Kentucky Mountain Music' Yazoo YA 2200.^[19]Bascom Lamar Lunsford was recorded singing a version called "Lord Daniel's Wife" in 1935.^[20] Samuel Harmon, known as "Uncle" Sam Harmon, was recorded byHerbert Halpert inMaryville,Tennessee, in 1939 singing a traditional version.^[21] The influential Appalachian folk singerJean Ritchie had her family version of the ballad, called "Little Musgrave", recorded byAlan Lomax in 1949,^[22] who made a reel-to-reel recording of it in his apartment inGreenwich Village;^[23] she later released a version on her albumBallads from her Appalachian Family Tradition (1961).^[24] In August 1963,John Cohen recordedDillard Chandler singing "Mathie Groves" inSodom,North Carolina,^[25] whilstNimrod Workman, another Appalachian singer, had a traditional version of the song recorded in 1974.^[26]

The folkloristHelen Hartness Flanders recorded many versions inNew England in the 1930s and 40s,^[27] all of which can be heard online in the Flanders Ballad Collection.^[28]

Canadian folklorists such asHelen Creighton,Kenneth Peacock andEdith Fowke recorded about a dozen versions inCanada, mostly inNova Scotia andNewfoundland.^[29]

A number of songs and tales collected in theCaribbean are based on, or refer to, the ballad.^{[30][31][32][33]}

Some of the versions of the song subsequently recorded differ from Child's catalogued version.^[36] The earliest published version appeared in 1658 (seeLiterature section below). A copy was also printed on a broadside by Henry Gosson, who is said to have printed between 1607 and 1641.^[34] 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 74,Roud253).^[37][38]

Other names for the ballad:

• Based on the lover
  • Little Sir Grove
  • Little Massgrove
  • Matthy Groves
  • Wee Messgrove
  • Little Musgrave
  • Young Musgrave
  • Little Mushiegrove
• Based on the lord
  • Lord Aaron
  • Lord Arlen
  • Lord Arnold
  • Lord Barlibas
  • Lord Barnabas
  • Lord Barnaby
  • Lord Barnard
  • Lord Barnett
  • Lord Bengwill
  • Lord Darlen
  • Lord Darnell
  • Lord Donald
• Based on a combination of names
  • Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard
  • Little Musgrave and Lady Barnet
  • Lord Barnett and Little Munsgrove
  • Lord Vanner’s Wife [and Magrove]^[3][4]

The earliest known reference to the ballad is in Beaumont and Fletcher's 1613 playThe Knight of the Burning Pestle:

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!^[39]

Al Hine's 1961 novelLord Love a Duck opens and closes with excerpts from the ballad, and borrows the names Musgrave and Barnard for two characters.^[40]

Deborah Grabien's third book in theHaunted Ballad series,Matty Groves (2005), puts a different spin on the ballad.^[41]

Versions of some performers could be mentioned as the most notable or successful, including those by Jean Ritchie^[42] orMartin Carthy.^[43]

In the filmSongcatcher (2000), the song is performed byEmmy Rossum andJanet McTeer.

Inseason 5 episode 2, "Gently with Class" (2012), of the British television seriesInspector George Gently, the song is performed by Ebony Buckle, playing the role of singer Ellen Mallam in that episode, singing it as "Matty Groves".

In 1943, the English composerBenjamin Britten used this folk song as the basis of a choral piece entitled "The Ballad of Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard".^[48]

"The Big Musgrave", a parody bythe Kipper Family, appears on their 1988 LPFresh Yesterday. The hero in this version is called Big Fatty Groves.^[49]

Frank Hayes created a talking blues version of Matty Groves called "Like a Lamb to the Slaughter," which won the 1994Pegasus Award for "Best Risqué Song."

"Maggie Gove", a parody by UK comedy folk-bandThe Bar-Steward Sons of Val Doonican, appears on their 2022 albumRugh & Ryf. The anti-hero in this version is Margaret Gove, a folk-singer of traditional broadside ballads.^[50] The song features guest appearances fromDave Pegg andDave Mattacks fromFairport Convention.^{[citation needed]}

The previous and next Child Ballads:

• "The Bonny Birdy"
• "Old Robin of Portingale"

• "Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard". Francis James Child.traditionalmusic.co.uk
• "Matty Groves". Fairport Convention.celtic-lyrics.com.
• "Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard".sacred-texts.com
• "Mattie Groves".contemplator.com

• English folk songs
• 17th-century songs
• Folk ballads
• Fairport Convention songs
• Joan Baez songs
• Child Ballads
• Northumbrian folklore
• Murder ballads
• Fiction about uxoricide

• CS1 interwiki-linked names
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• EngvarB from September 2013
• Use dmy dates from December 2024
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• Articles with unsourced statements from May 2019
• Articles with unsourced statements from March 2023