The Daemon Lover

"The Daemon Lover", also known as "James Harris", "James Herries", or "The House Carpenter" (Roud 14, Child 243) is a popular Scottish ballad^[1] dating to around 1685.^[2] Roud records the title as A warning for married women and identifies the woman in the song as "Mrs. Jane Reynolds (a west-country-Woman) born near Plimouth who having plighted her troth to a Seaman, was afterwards married to a Carpenter, and at last carried away by a Spirit."^[3]

Synopsis[]

A man (usually the Devil) returns to his former lover after a very long absence, and finds her with a husband (usually a carpenter) and a baby. He entices her to leave both behind and come with him, luring her with many ships laden with treasure. They board one of his ships (which in many versions she is surprised to find does not have a crew) and put to sea.^[4]

"But if I should leave my husband dear,
Likewise my little son also,
What have you to maintain me withal,
If I along with you should go?"

"I have seven ships upon the seas,
And one of them brought me to land,
And seventeen mariners to wait on thee,
For to be love at your command."

She soon begins to lament leaving her child, but is heartened by spying a bright hill in the distance. Her lover informs her that the hill is heaven, where they are not bound. Instead he indicates a much darker coast, which he tells her is hell, their destination. He then breaks the ship in half with his bare hands and feet, drowning them both. In other versions, the ship is wrecked by a storm at sea, springing a leak, causing the ship to spin three times and then sink into the cold sea.^[5]

"O what a bright, bright hill is yon,
That shines so clear to see?"
"O it is the hill of heaven," he said,
"Where you shall never be."

"O what a black, dark hill is yon,
"That looks so dark to me?"
"O it is the hill of hell," he said,
"Where you and I shall be."

This ballad was one of 25 traditional works included in Ballads Weird and Wonderful (1912), edited by R. Pearse Chope and illustrated by Vernon Hill. The New York Times review of Hill's illustrations noted those accompanying this ballad as a particular highlight:

... the design of Satan rushing down through the waves with the boat containing the faithless wife, is tremendous. Satan himself has one of the most graceful and beautiful human bodies ever drawn; the rhythm of the whole is thrilling, and the conventionalized waves are splendid.

Tune[]

Roud gives the tune as being the same as The Fair Maid of Bristol, Bateman, and John True.^[6] The Fair Maid of Bristol shares the same theme of a lover who is a sailor who dies at sea, but ends when his lover receives news of his death by letter and resolves to mourn him alone.

In Scotland the tune is synonymous with In Peascod Time^[7] (also known as The Lady's Fall). This tune is shared with, among others, Lady Isabel's Tragedy, The Wandering Jew, and The Bride's Burial.

Traditional recordings[]

The song seems to have been extremely popular in the United States, generally under the title "The House Carpenter".^[8][9] It was collected and recorded many times in the Appalachian Mountains; Clarence Ashley recorded a version with a banjo accompaniment in 1930,^[10] Texas Gladden had two versions recorded in 1932 and 1946,^[11][12] whilst Sarah Ogan Gunning sang a version in 1974.^[13] Jean Ritchie sang her family's version of the ballad twice, one of those times recorded by Alan Lomax,^[14][15] now available online courtesy of the Alan Lomax archive.^[16] The song was also popular elsewhere in the United States; Ozark singer Almeda Riddle sang another traditional version in 1964,^[17] and folklorist Max Hunter recorded several Ozark versions which are available on the online Max Hunter Folk Collection.^{[18][19][20][21]}

Canadian folklorists Edith Fowke, Kenneth Peacock and Helen Creighton each recorded a different "House Carpenter" variant in Canada in the 1950s and 60s.^[22][23][24]

The song appears to have been largely forgotten in Britain and Ireland, but a fragmentary version, sung by Andrew Stewart of Blairgowrie, Perthshire, Scotland and learned from his mother, was recorded by Hamish Henderson in 1955,^[25] and can be heard on the Tobar an Dualchais website.^[26] A variant performed by Frank Browne in Bellanagare, Co. Roscommon, Ireland was also recorded in 1975 by Hugh Shields.

Popular recordings[]

Versions of the song, under its several titles, have been recorded by:

In literature[]

Elizabeth Bowen's 1945 short story "The Demon Lover" uses the ballad's central conceit for a narrative of ghostly return in wartime London.

Shirley Jackson's collection The Lottery and Other Stories includes "The Daemon Lover", a story about a woman searching for her mysterious fiancé named James Harris.

Grady Hendrix’s 2020 novel “The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires”, the main antagonist is a vampire named James Harris as a way to pay ode to the ballad.^{[citation needed]}

In classical music[]

Hamish MacCunn's 1887 concert overture The Ship o' the Fiend is based on the ballad.^[30]

References[]

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External links[]

• James Harris (The Dæmon Lover): Child Ballad 243
• The Tall Man in the Blue Suit: Witchcraft, Folklore, and Reality in Shirley Jackson's The Lottery, or the Adventures of James Harris: A Study of the use of Child ballad 243 in Shirley Jackson's story collection The Lottery by Norwegian scholar Håvard Nørjordet