I love the ballad genre and find them so peaceful to listen to. Well done! Thank you for sharing your talent...Blessings, Linda

Verybeautiful... Love it

Ooooh, I turn me back for five minutes and all of a sudden lots of lovely FOTMD people come along and say nice things!

Thanks all for your compliments about my playing and singing.

I love old ballads like this, this one is beautiful and you sing wonderfully. Thanks for posting.

Bravo!! What a wonderful ballad....and your voice is really lovely. I'm glad to hear your singing with the dulcimer as its seems to be somewhat infrequent these days.

GOODNESS ! What a treat! Enjoyed the music and your beautiful voice. Lovely.

Wow! That was great! Such a lovely song that I had never heard before (I am a sucker for a good ballad). You really have a wonderful voice that's perfect for ballads, and your playing is beautiful. Also, I love to see into other people's homes (the stuff waiting for the carboot sale just made it look comfy).

I also have a five string dulcimer, so I may ask you questions later on how to best utilize the center two strings. I currently have it down to just the three main strings (removed the doubles) as I am learning to play it.

Thanks, Paul, Tim and Pristine2/Richard.

Tim - there are lots of versions of the song from both sides of theAtlantic. Iknow I sang it at school, but have forgotten that version. Since I got very interested in the relationship between US and GB folk music we have both bought a lot of books. One was published here in the UK in the 1960 by Maud Karpeles based on Cecil Sharp's collected music, and she had created a kind of composite of about 25 songs. Thanks so much for sharing your version. In some versions of the tale the couple kill the parents and elope, but in others (like mine) she pines away....

Pristine2 - I did not spot your comment in May - thanks so much. The Green Man MD was the first one every made by my partner Richard. It is walnut, with a Green Man carved on the back. It has 5 strings (doubled middle string for a fuller sound).

Thank

Beautiful! The Green Man and your voice make beautiful music together. Never stop. I know only of the vocal version of this done in the mountains of North Carolina. These are the lyrics I've learned. I wish I could play the dulcimer well enough to do it justice:

Awake, Awake my own true lover

Awake, Arise, it's almost day

How can you bear those soft soft sleeping

While your true love's goin' away

Oh, who is that, knocking at my window

I pray you, oh tell to me

It's me, It's me, your own true lover

Awake, Arise, come pity me

Go love go and ask your Father

If this night you can be my Bride

If he say's no, then return and tell me

Be the last time, ever bother thee

I can't go and ask my Father

For he's on his bed of rest

And by his side there lies a weapon

To kill the one that I love best

Go love go and ask your Mother

If this night you can be my Bride

If she say's no, then return and tell me

Be the last time, ever bother thee

I can't go and ask my Mother

And tell her of your love so dear

But you may go and love another

And whisper softly in her ear

I will go to some white river

Spend my days, my months and years

Eat nothing but the green growing willow

Also drink from my flowing tears

Come Back, Come Back my own true lover

And stay a little while with me

I will foresake my dear old Mother

And go along by the side of thee