Ballads: 'The Wife of Usher's Well'
Walter Scott collected ballads at the beginning of his literary career. He travelled around the Scottish Border, listening to songs and stories, and recorded them in Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. In 2018, Steve Byrne produced an album, Scott's Sangs, which revisted this collection. One of the ballads is 'The Wife of Usher's Well,' a supernatural tale in which three deceased young men come home to visit their mother. This lesson is based on the ballad and can be done in conjunction with the recording of 'The Wife of Usher's Well' from Steve Byrne's album, which can be found here.
Click here for the lesson plan of 'The Wife of Usher's Well'
Click here for Scott's version of 'The Wife of Usher's Well'
Click here for a different version of the ballad
We would be grateful if you could fill in this evaluation form after using this resource.
This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council Grant Number AH/V011111/1.
It is part of The Edinburgh Edition of Walter Scott's Poetry: Engaging New Audiences. It was developed by Dr Anna Fancett as part of the Walter Scott Research Centre at the University of Aberdeen with the support of Abbotsford, Scott's home in the Scottish Borders and The Association for Scottish Literature.
