Matty Groves
Posted: January 1, 2026 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a commenthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1it7BP5PckI
A holiday
A holiday
The first one of the year…
Any Helytimes reader will know Shady Grove, but what about the ancestor across the Atlantic?
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
What I love about this song is how it reveals character. Lord Darnell’s wife, Matty, the sniveling servant, Lord Darnell, they all reveal who they are in their actions. Honor, honesty, humor, strength, foolishness, loyalty. It all comes out.
Helytimes 