Archie o Cawfield, also known as "The Bold Archer", "The Bold Prisoner", or "The Escape of Old John Webb"", is an Anglo-Scottish
border ballad
Border ballads are a group of songs in the long tradition of balladry collected from the Anglo-Scottish border. Like all traditional ballads, they were traditionally sung unaccompanied. There may be a repeating motif, but there is no "chorus" as ...
,
[''The English and Scottish Popular Ballads''; Vol. 3; by Francis James Child. Courier Dover Publications, 2003, , ; p. 484] number 188 of the
Child ballads
The Child Ballads are 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century. Their lyrics and Child's studies of them were published as ''T ...
.
Synopsis
Two brothers lament that their third brother is to be hanged. A proposal of force is met by the more cunning brother with the suggestion that they bring only a handful of men. They get horses, have them shod, and set out. Once they sneak into the prison, the captive brother says he is carrying too heavy a load of chain to escape. They carry him off anyway and cross a river that their pursuers can not. The former captor asks for the chains back. The captive says that he will use them to shoe horses.
Irish rock band,
U2, closed several pub concerts with this ballad during early U.S. tours in the early 1980s.
Bono
Paul David Hewson (born 10 May 1960), known by his stage name Bono (), is an Irish singer-songwriter, activist, and philanthropist. He is the lead vocalist and primary lyricist of the rock band U2.
Born and raised in Dublin, he attended M ...
was quoted in ''
Rolling Stone
''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first kno ...
'' magazine as saying the ballad was deeply moving since he felt a strong connection to the ballad's protagonist.
See also
*
Jock o the Side
References
External links
''Archie of Cawfield''
an American variant with commentary
Child Ballads
Scottish outlaws
Border ballads
Year of song unknown
Songwriter unknown
{{Folk-song-stub