Matty Groves

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Matty Groves is an English folk ballad, believed to have originated no later than the early 17th century, in which the wife of a nobleman, Lord Arlen (Lord Daniel in some versions) entices Matty Groves, a servant or retainer of her husband, into an adulterous affair. Lord Arlen receives word of the betrayal and returns home, where he surprises the lovers in bed and kills Matty Groves in a duel. When his wife spurns him and expresses a preference for her lover, even in death, over her husband, he stabs her through the heart. The song, which is also known as "Mattie Groves" or "Little Musgrave", was included by Francis James Child in his English and Scottish Popular Ballads, though some of the versions of the song subsequently recorded differ from Child's catalogued version. The earliest published version appeared in 1658, but there is an allusion to the ballad in Beaumont and Fletcher's play The Knight of the Burning Pestle (1613).

Some versions of the ballad include elements of an aubade, a poetic form in which lovers part after spending a night together.

[edit] Artists who have recorded the ballad include:

• Fairport Convention
• Joan Baez
• Norman Blake and his wife, Nancy Blake
• Doc Watson
• Planxty
• The McKrells
• Visitations
• Kadril

[edit] Migration

The tune crossed the Atlantic and appeared in a less graphic form as Shady Grove, which has itself become a tradition.

[edit] External links

• Lyrics (F.J.Child)
• Lyrics (Fairport Convention)

Also a book by Deborah Grabien (3rd in the Haunted Ballad series); the book puts a different spin on the ballad.