Introductory talk San Diego, Nov 26, 1980:
“People always ask be about old songs and new songs. [crowd cheering]
This is a real old song. I used to sing this before I even wrote any songs.
One of them old southern mountain ballads. I guess everybody used to do them.
Last time we played it – I think it was in Tucson – there was a . . . You know how the. . . There was a review in the newspaper that I’d like to get straight. The man who did the show and reviewed it didn’t know where all these songs came from. Anyway, this one here he said was about Jesus being born in the manger, well that’s not entirely true about this song, it’s just an old southern mountain ballad [little giggle], that’s all there is, about someone dying in the snowstorm. But, anyway. . . it’s calle Mary of the wild moor.”

Bob Dylan – Mary Of The Wild Moor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6S475zfQ9E

Bob Dylan /Mary Of The Wild Moor

MARY OF THE WILD MOORE
(Traditional – credited in 1845 to Joseph W. Turner)
Bob Dylan (with Regina McCrary, vocals/autoharp, Fred Tackett, mandolin)
It was on a cold and windy nite,
When the wind blow across the wild moor.
When Mary came wandering home with her child,
Till she came to her own fathers door.
Father dear father she cried,
Come down and open the door.
For the child in my arms [“rams” in “Isis”, No. 45 — TYPO?] will perish and die
From the winds that blow across the wild moor.

Why did I leave this fair spot,
Where once I was happy and free,
I am now forced to roam without friends or a home,
And no one to take pity on me

But her father was deaf to her cries,
Not a sound of her voice did he hear.
So the watchdog did howl, and the village bells tolled,
And the wind blew..

Oh how the old man must’ve felt,
When he came to the next morn,
And he found Mary dead but the child still alive,
Closely grasped in his dead mothers arms.

As rage he tore his grey hair.
And his tears down his cheeks they did pour.
When he saw how that nite she had perished and died.
From the wind that blew across the wild moor.

In grief the old man pined away,
And the child to its mother went soon.
And no one they say how lived still.
And the cottage to ruin has gone.

But the villagers point out the spot,
Where the willow pours over the door..
Saying there Mary did once a gay village find,
From the wind that blew across the wild moor.