The House Carpenter

The House Carpenter

The song by the name of The House Carpenter originated from a scottish ballad of a few different names, such as The Daemon Lover and James Harris.  All of these songs depict a similar story of two lovers running away together and meeting their demise.  The story starts out with a young sailor coming back to town to see his old true love, of which he had not seen for a quarter of a year. When the young sailor appears at the house of his old true love she asks him  to sit down and stay awhile .  The young sailor replies saying he cannot stay because he doesn’t have time, and talks of how she is married and has a child with a house carpenter.  Despite the fact she is married the sailor asks his true love run away with him and tells her how the they will be so happy together.  The woman accepts the sailors offer. She picks up her baby and kisses it, then proceeds to run away with the sailor. Before the break of day the two lovers make it to the banks of the sea, where the sailor has his ship. About two weeks after the two depart on the ship the woman begins to cry. The sailor asks his love if she is crying for joy of her new life. The woman tells the sailor that infact she cries because she misses her child and her house carpenter, and curses the sailor for taking her away from her family.  About one week after she cursed the sailor, the ship sank and killed them both.

In a lot of  representations of this story the man is actually satan.  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.