Archie o Cawfield is an Anglo-Scottish border ballad

Border ballad

The English/Scottish border has a long and bloody history of conquest and reconquest, raid and counter-raid . It also has a stellar tradition of balladry, such that a whole group of songs exists that are often called "border ballads", because they were collected in that region.Border ballads, like...

, number 188 of the Child ballads

Child Ballads

The Child Ballads are a collection of 305 ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, collected by Francis James Child in the late nineteenth century...

.

Synopsis

Two brothers lament that their third brother is to be hanged. A proposal of force is met by the more cunning brother with the suggestion that they bring only a handful of men. They get horses, have them shod, and set out. Once they sneak into the prison, the captive brother says he is carrying too heavy a load of chain to escape. They carry him off anyway and cross a river that their pursuers can not. The former captor asks for the chains back. The captive says that he will use them to shoe horses.

Irish rock band, U2

U2

U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...

, closed several pub concerts with this ballad during early U.S tours in the early 1980s. Bono

Bono

Paul David Hewson , most commonly known by his stage name Bono , is an Irish singer, musician, and humanitarian best known for being the main vocalist of the Dublin-based rock band U2. Bono was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, and attended Mount Temple Comprehensive School where he met his...

 was quoted in Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

magazine as saying the ballad was deeply moving since he felt a strong connection to the ballad's protagonist.

External links

• Archie of Cawfield
• Bold Dickie an American variant with commentary