It's getting toward what would be my late maternal grandmother's ninety-seventh birthday. I guess being in the mountains the other day reminded me that Mamaw's favorite song was a traditional mountain ballad called "The Rosewood Casket," one version of which was recorded by Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt on TRIO (1987):

There's a little rosewood casket
Resting on a marble stand
With a packet of old love letters
Written by my true love's hand

Go and bring them to me, Sister
Read them o'er for me tonight
I have often tried but I could not
For the tears that filled my eyes. . .

In this context, "casket" is not a synonym for "coffin"; it is instead a small box similar to a jewelry box, meant to hold such treasures as old love letters. Rosewood, says Wikipedia, is a smooth, beautiful dark wood, brown with dark veining, native to South and Central America and some parts of Asia. The most prized variety was the endangered Brazilian Rosewood; Wiki notes that this type has a scent, hence the name rosewood. In the Appalachians, boxes of this type would have been highly prized as rarities; most of our things made "for pretty" and for our small treasures would have been made of cedar, another aromatic wood, but native to our region.

In the next verse of the song, the singer refers to the other type of casket:

When I'm dead and in my casket
When I gently fall asleep
Fall asleep to wake in heaven
Dearest Sister, do not weep. . .

A ballad convention: those on their deathbeds in mountain ballads frequently tell their family and friends not to mourn them when they are gone. In British folklore, it's recorded, excessive mourning keeps the dead from resting in peace.

More to the point, it is to this larger sort of casket, made to hold the clay from which Genesis tells us God made us all, that Sharyn McCrumb, the brilliant author of the so-called Mountain Ballad series, set in the mountains of East Tennessee, refers in her novel THE ROSEWOOD CASKET: a story whose main plot involves an old mountain man who saved boards of rosewood for many years, intending his four sons to make his coffin from it.

The ballad goes on:

Take his letters and his locket
Place them gently on my heart
But this golden ring that he gave me
From my finger never part. . .

The locket, unmentioned hitherto, probably rested in the "little rosewood casket" with the love letters; now the singer means both letters and locket to be buried with her. As for the golden ring, one wonders if this was an engagement ring or a wedding ring. In Cades Cove, there's a woman, buried beside her husband, who apparently lived her life out as a widow for sixty-five years. But no; we--and possibly the original balladeer--probably think of a young and lovely woman, bereft by the loss of her lover and now ready to follow him.

The arrangement of this lovely old ballad on TRIO was done by Dolly Parton's mother, the late Avie Lee Parton. Dolly's lead vocal is enhanced by the accompaniment of an autoharp, an instrument not much heard anymore that has a long history in country music nonetheless; both Sara and Maybelle Carter frequently played it.

My mamaw was not musically gifted; Mom inherited her voice, and I inherited mine, from Mom's father's family. Mamaw's voice was thin and reedy and frequently took strolls noticeably away from key, but today it's her voice, and not Miss Dolly's, I hear singing those opening lines, mournful but oddly sweet:

There's a little rosewood casket
Resting on a marble stand
With a packet of old love letters
Written by my true love's hand. . .

To read other versions of this ballad, use the keywords "rosewood casket ballad".

And until next time, fair thee well.

Mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia), occasionally called wild azalea--it's in the same family as azalea--was blooming in the mountains, too. This evergreen, which grows close together and can become impenetrably entangled, is the origin of the expression "laurel hell"--because it's hell to try to cut your way through it. The flowers are incredible though.

In Cades Cove yesterday Willard and I spotted an odd phenomenon in three separate locations: butterflies, in each case by the dozens, spiraling in graceful fluttering circles. We didn't have time to observe long enough to determine if this was something the butterflies were doing deliberately or if it was something to do with the light and variable winds that blew at ground level all day, but it was striking.



Till next time, fair thee well.

The stone that marks the oldest grave of a veteran that I've seen stands in the cemetery of the Primitive Baptist Church in Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park. He was born in 1740, died in, if I recall aright, 1826, and had served with North Carolina troops during the American Revolution.

My dad, who served in peacetime, also has such a stone.

Many have died in defense of our country; many more came home, and continue to come home, damaged both physically and psychologically, some beyond our limited resources to heal. Then there are the most heartbreaking of all, the ones missing in action whose fates are truly known only to God.

As Billy Ray Cyrus would put it, let us remember that "all gave some and some gave all."



Until next time, fair thee well.

On the 1987 Dolly Parton-Emmylou Harris-Linda Ronstadt collaboration TRIO, the incomparable Miss Dolly contributed a lovely song called "Wildflowers." The song's hook is one of my favorites of her lyrics:

When a flower grows wild, it can always survive
Wildflowers don't care where they grow.

In late spring and early summer here in the knobs, there are all sorts of wildflowers blooming: purple vetch, oxeye daisies, privet (aka hedge), honeysuckle, and one that comes in a rare color in nature--the gorgeous blue chicory.



Native to Europe, naturalized in North America by early settlers, chicory has uses in herbal medicine; it has been used in the treatment of gallstones, bowel upsets, and as a balm for cuts and bruises.

In the South, though, we have memories, some bittersweet, of another of chicory's uses: as a coffee substitute. During the Civil War, when coffee was not to be had thanks to the success of the Union blockade of southern ports, the roots of chicory were ground up and boiled and drunk. I'm not a coffee drinker myself, and have never drunk chicory coffee either, but I'm told it has a bitter taste--not so far from black coffee.

It grows in ditches, along fencerows, and not so very far from the house there's a field full of nothing but chicory and several types of non-blooming wild grasses.

In short, it's the essence of Dolly's lyric. It survives in times of rain and of drought, and it can grow just about anywhere--and it's the bluest of all blue flowers. Back when I was doing more artwork than I do nowadays, I painted chicory on a glass candleholder. It sits now on the corner of the mantle, possibly my favorite of all the pieces I ever did.

And on that blue note, fair thee well.