And I heard her, too. A whirring sound, like someone rolling their tongue. A little snap, like twigs or small bones breaking. I heard it, and I looked right at him, and smiled and was just me. I kept on being just me.

Just Polly.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

Molly Bawn (Roud 166)

Also known as Molly Bán, Molly Bond, Molly Vaughan, Molly Van, Polly Vaughn, Polly Vaughan, Polly Von, The Shooting of His Dear, The Shooting of His Deer, As Jimmie Went A-Hunting, or The Fowler.

Molly Bán, or Maílí Bhán in Irish Gaelic, translates as ‘Fair Mary’. Probably originating in the seventeenth century, it was found in many nineteenth-century broadsides, and is most likely of Irish origin, with other versions existing in Scotland, England, America, Canada and Australia. In some versions, Molly (or Polly) is turned into a deer rather than a swan, which is likely simply a mishearing of ‘dear’. She does not always appear to Jimmie, or Johnnie Randell, Randall, Randle, or Reynolds, in court.

The ballad retains elements of more ancient supernatural beliefs and is thought to have its roots in the Swan Maiden myth, which is found in stories from Africa to Russia. The Norse Valkyrie could take the form of a swan and travel rida lopt ok log – ‘through air and water’. The ballad has been likened to the classical myth of the death of Procris, and to Nepheles’s killing of his lover in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

I came across a lesser-known version of this story when visiting Loch Sunart in the West Highlands. In ‘The Salen Swan’, the mother of Jimmie is so jealous of Molly that she turns her into a swan. As he shoots her, she falls out of her enchantment and he sees he has killed his lover. He wanders the loch distraught and thinks he can hear her calling to him, so throws himself into the water. And that, they say, is why there are no swans on Loch Sunart.

Recommended recordings:

Anne Briggs, ‘Polly Vaughan’

Packie Manus Byrne, ‘Molly Bawn’

Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick, ‘The Fowler’

Shirley Collins, ‘Polly Vaughan’

Alison Krauss, ‘Molly Ban’

A. L. Lloyd, ‘The Shooting of His Deer/Lord Bateman’

Mishaped Pearls, ‘Jimmy’

The Furrow Collective, ‘Polly Vaughan’

You Are Wolf aka Kerry Andrew, ‘swansong’

Packie Manus Byrne sings ‘Molly Bawn’

Come all you young fowlers that handle a gun

Beware of night rambling by the setting of the sun,

And beware of an accident that happened of late

To young Molly Bawn and sad was her fate.

She was going to her uncle’s when a shower came on,

She went under a green bush the shower to shun.

With her white apron round her, he took her for a swan,

But a hush and a sigh, it was his own Molly Bawn.

He ran home to his father’s with his gun in his hand,

Saying ‘Father, dear Father, I have shot Molly Bawn.

‘I have shot the fair damsel, I have taken the life