The well of incest
Lots of e-mails about last week's "Lord Baker" posting. Seems that people want to know more about John Reilly (1926-69). But given his short, hard life, very little is know about him, apart from what is revealed by the 36 songs he bequeathed to us. Still, they do reveal rather a lot. Among his treasury was an eerie holdover from the Middle Ages filled with incestuous overtones: "The Well Below the Valley". Early Scandinavian forms of the song tell of an encounter between Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene in which she protests her virginity. He divulges, however, that she has had children by her father, her brother and the local cleric. Mary Magdalene asks for forgiveness; Christ sends her to do penance in the wilderness and when they meet again he promises her salvation.
By one of those miracles of happenstance, the song that had been long regarded as lost to the English-speaking world turned up in Ireland in 1966 in the mouth of John Reilly. Although he sang it to a bright, breezy tune, "The Well Below the Valley" is extraordinarily bleak, which is not surprising as it's a story of sexual abuse and, moreover, one where the victim is blamed, which makes it sound very contemporary, indeed. Trapped between her brutal family and the cold-hearted "man of noble fame", the woman has no hope in this life and very little in the next.
The Well Below the ValleyA gentleman was passing by
He asked for a drink as he got dry
"My cup is full up to the brim
If I were to stoop I might fall in"
"If your true lover was passing by
You'd fill him a drink as he got dry"
She swore by grass, she swore by corn
That her true love had never been born
"Young maid you're swearing wrong
For six young children you had born"
"If you be a man of noble fame
You'll tell to me the father of them"
"There's two of them by your Uncle Dan
Another two by your brother John
Another two by your father dear"
"If you be a man of noble 'steem
You'll tell me what did happen to them"
"There's two buried 'neath the stable door
Another two 'neath the kitchen door
Another two buried beneath the wall"
"If you be a man of noble fame
You'll tell me what will happen myself"
"You'll be seven years a-ringing the bell
You'll be seven more burning in hell"
Christy Moore, who met John Reilly in 1963, recognized the value of "The Well Below the Valley" and he recorded this very powerful and disturbing song on the second Planxty album in 1973.
