Uploaded January 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This song by Aldous Harding was on the closing credits of the latest episode of Brokenwood Mysteries that we are up to (Series 5).
Here is the original version:
youtube.com/watch?v=B3Wds4gDGRc
I love that New Zealand TV supports local artists.
No spoiler, but the victim in the episode was Ophelia, and she drowned.
Thumbnail is Friedrich Wilhelm Theodor Heyser's Ophelia.
Purchase my music:
ozfolklounge.bandcamp.com
Website (Lyrics and Chords):
folklounge.org/lyrics-and-chords
This song by Aldous Harding was on the closing credits of the latest episode of Brokenwood Mysteries that we are up to (Series 5).
Here is the original version:
youtube.com/watch?v=B3Wds4gDGRc
I love that New Zealand TV supports local artists.
No spoiler, but the victim in the episode was Ophelia, and she drowned.
Thumbnail is Friedrich Wilhelm Theodor Heyser's Ophelia.
Purchase my music:
ozfolklounge.bandcamp.com
Website (Lyrics and Chords):
folklounge.org/lyrics-and-chords
![The Bonnie Banks o Fordie [ Child Ballad No. 14 ]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/RRpwsvfm0EI/mqdefault.jpg "The Bonnie Banks o Fordie [ Child Ballad No. 14 ]
Back to my efforts to get Volume 1 of the Francis Child collection recorded this year.
This is variant E in Child:
https://archive.org/details/englishandscotti01chiluoft
As published in George Kinloch:
https://archive.org/details/ancientscottishb01kinl
(with an interesting addtion about the death of Ragnar Lodbrog)
Loudon (not clear why that make him a Robber) is from Lothian, named after the #Arthurian King Lot:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lothian
The photo of the Karna church is by Håkan Svensson Xauxa, from the Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%B6res_d%C3%B6ttrar_i_W%C3%A4nge
The church is related to the Swedish folk song, which is probably the origin of the one collected in the UK.
Woodblock illustration is by Charles Hodge Mackie.
#ChildBallads
Purchase my music:
https://ozfolklounge.bandcamp.com/
Website (Lyrics and Chords):
https://www.folklounge.org/lyrics-and-chords/")
![St Stephen and Herod [ Child Ballad No. 22 ]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/T5_-M1ZcSH0/mqdefault.jpg "St Stephen and Herod [ Child Ballad No. 22 ]
Obviously some confusion between this story of a servant in Herods court vs the Martyr St. Stephen (who wasnt yet born):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Stephen
Of course, they may well have both existed and being stoned, especially with all that ryche wede around.
Entry in Child:
https://archive.org/details/englishandscotti01chiluoft/page/n253/mode/2up
Painting is Herods Banquet by Filippo Lippi.
Attempt at making this singable in English is my own:
Saint Stephen was a servant in king Herod’s hall,
And served at his table, good meat and bread all.
He came from the kitchen with the head of a boar,
When up in the night sky, a bright star he saw,
He cast done the boars head, and ran to the hall,
I forsake king Herod, and his evil deeds all,
I forsake king Herod, a man of great sin,
For Bethlehem’s Child, will new world begin,
What aileth thee Stephen, and what befalls thee,
Have you lacked meat or drink in the hall here with me?
I lacked no meat or drink in the hall of the King,
But a child has been born who will change everything’
What aileth thee Stephen, hast though lost your mine,
Do you lack gold or wages, or spices so fine,
I lack not gold or wages, I’ve spices indeed,
But Bethlehem’s child will give what we need,
If that is true Stephen, and if it be so,
The cock in my dish, will arise now and crow,
He’d no sooner spoken, that word in the hall,
The cock crew Christ’s come now unto the lords all,
Rise up now my soldiers by two and by one,
And lead Stephen out at the set of the sun,
And stone him, and stone him until he be dead,
Now Christmas Day echoes what Saint Stephen said,
My second album of Child Balalds is out:
https://ozfolklounge.bandcamp.com/album/cruel-mothers")
