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The Mistletoe Bough

from Holly Head by Kate Rusby

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    Are you a Holly Head?

    Obsession can lead an individual down many different paths, but in 2019, it has drawn Kate to her fifth festive long-playing offering. It’s one of the warmest Christmas albums you’ll ever encounter. Winter is supposed to be the season of barrenness, of Jack Frost nipping at your nose and of needing your big coat. It may get dark at four o’clock but Holly Head will illuminate and kindle hearts and hearths.

    Also listen out for the latest instalment of Big Brave Bill!

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lyrics

The Mistletoe Bough
Thomas Haynes Bayly - Arr K. Rusby & D. O’Kane PRS/MCPS

The mistletoe hung in the old castle hall
The holly branch shone on the old oak wall
The Barron’s retainers were blithe and
were gay
A keeping their Christmas holiday
The Barron beheld with a father’s pride
His beautiful child, young Lovell’s bride
She with the bright eyes was destined to be
The star of the goodly company.

Chorus
Oh the mistletoe bough
Oh the mistletoe bough.

I’m weary of dancing, of dancing she cried
Here tarry a moment, I’ll hide I’ll hide
And Lovell be sure you’re the first one
to trace
The clue to my secret hiding place
Away then she ran and their friends all began
Each tower to search and each stairway
to scan
Lovell he cried “oh where does thou hide
I’m lonely without you my own dear bride.”

Chorus

They searched all the night and they
searched the next day
They searched all around ’til a week
went away
The highest and lowest the lonesomest spot
Young Lovell sought wildly but found her not
And as years went by so did grief then at last
Now told as a sorrowful tale long past
When Lovell appears all the children they cry
“See the old man weeps for his fairy bride.”

Chorus

At length an old chest that had long been
lain hid
Was found in the castle, they raised up
the lid
A skeleton form lay a mouldering there
In a bridal wreath of a lady so fair
Oh sad was her fate that in playfullest jest
She hid from her lord in an old chest
That closed with a spring and that new
bridal bloom
Lay withering there in a lonely tomb.

Chorus

credits

from Holly Head, released September 9, 2022

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Kate Rusby image

Kate Rusby England, UK

Forever proud to call herself a folk singer, Kate celebrates her own 50 yrs with her 'Established 1973' tours.

2022 marked 30 yrs as a professional musician with the album 30:Happy Returns

Hand Me Down (2020) was her highest-charting album.

Named in the Top 10 Folk Voices of the Century and a Mercury Prize in 1999

Yorkshire roots the carols in her Christmas tour. ... more

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