Darling Kore - Or, Discovering Greek Myth In A Folk Song

Many of my favourite musicians were signed to Chris Blackwell's Island label. Among several I will mention the Incredible String Band and Nick Drake. Chris Blackwell was a visionary in promoting singer-songwriters at the time this musical movement was flourishing. The Beatles had popularised the idea that pop artists should write their own songs; Bob Dylan had shown that pop song could be a kind of lyrical poetry informed by folk tradition and pervaded with political and visionary meaning. Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and a thousand others then brought intimate acoustic music to a mass audience. One of the best of Island's acts in the early 1970s happens to have been my uncle Bryn Haworth, a fine guitarist and a slide guitar virtuoso who combined a solo career with a busy second strand as an in-demand session-man.

As a result I was lucky to hear some fine music as a young boy and also gained a lifelong love for the mandolin which Bryn occasionally played when not wailing the blues. One song I'm sure I liked at a young age was Bryn's countryish version of the traditional song Darling Cory, arranged in a gutsy country/folk stomp with low-strung guitars, banjo and Fairport Convention as the backing band! (Dave Mattacks' drums are particularly recognisable). Hearing this song again 30 years later I was struck by something I have observed over and over again with durable songs, particularly folk songs that stick in the imagination, as if one had always known them. As that wonderful information resource Wikipedia says, Darling Cory "is a well-known song about love, loss and moonshine". It exists in various versions. The final verse, in Bryn's version, goes

"Dig a hole, dig a hole in the meadow

Dig a hole down in the ground

Gonna take my darlin' Cory

Gonna lay her body down

Now she roams in the mountains

And the valley down below

The devil took my darlin' Cory

And he will not let her go

I hear him singing...singing

Students of Greek mythology will know why I almost fell over listening to this again. There is an ancient story, versions of which appear in many old tales, of a young girl who is abducted by the Lord of the Underworld. In other words, she dies. The story was already ancient by the time of ancient Greece, but in the most famous Greek version of the tale, Perspephone, the daughter of the Earth Mother Demeter, is abducted by Hades or Pluto who comes up into the meadow through a cleft in the ground and steals here away. Demeter grieves and thus the Earth stops producing food. Although Persephone was later rescued, she ate pomegranate in the Underworld which meant she had partaken of its substance. The result is that it was decreed she must spend half the year above ground and half the year below. This is why the Earth has seasons of growth and withering, birth and death.

Persephone's other name is Kore meaning Maiden. Kore is pronounced much like Cory, and attributes of Hades the Lord of the Underworld were transferred to the later Christian conception of the devil (which did not really exist in Judaism in the same way). Translating ancient Greek myth into country idiom, the Devil really did take Darling Kore away!

The story of a process of corruption which leads to a beautiful young girl being snatched away whether the Greek Kore or Darling Cory in the 20th Century folk song will not cease to haunt the imagination. Another famous example from Greek myth is that of Orpheus and Eurydice. Orpheus was the great musician of Ancient Greece, the original singer-songwriter guitarist, the lyre player whose music so enchanted listeners that stones moved and animals became mild. Orpheus' bride Eurydice danced through a meadow on their wedding day, but she died after stepping on a serpent. (You will remember that the serpent and the woman's foot are also linked in the Bible). Orpheus descended to the very Underworld, charmed and moved even its grim rulers and almost brought Eurydice back to life. There are multiple versions of the legend, but in the one made famous by Virgil, Orpheus made the mistake of looking back to check Eurydice was behind him, on the very brink of the return to the Underworld, and so she slipped away and this time forever.

Some early Christians were also devotees of Orpheus and there is iconography why shows the composite Orpheus-Christ motif, appropriate to the beautiful singer and mover of hearts who descended to the Underworld.

My uncle Bryn has been a born-again Christian for his entire solo career which doubtless has meant that people judge his music on these grounds. Being a Christian is not necessarily a 'career move' in the world of rock and roll! But music is a spiritual calling with its own laws. To judge the Spirit with the mind is folly, for 'the heart has reasons which the reason does not understand' - and this goes for all forms of prejudice which close the ears and the heart to the single letters of the Word revealed throughout the World. Song has its own logic which comes directly from the Spirit. Never trust an angry wordsman over one whose voice rings true. New truth comes to light with time but there are also stories that have always been told, will always be told. The journey through the Underworld through death and rebirth is one, and I will describe another song about this in a future blog, called The Cruel Mother.

The Song is Eternal and Everywhere. But do we know the Singer?