by Albert Jack
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
SWING low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home;
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home.
I looked over Jordan and what did I see,
Coming for to carry me home,
A band of angels coming after me,
Coming for to carry me home.
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home;
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Coming for to carry me home.
This famous song, beloved of England rugby fans, was originally written in 1862 by Wallis Willis, a freed slave of the Choctaw Indians of Oklahoma State. The official story goes that one day, as he was working in the cotton fields at Doaksville, on the banks of the Red River, Willis, homesick for his previous home along the Mississippi, made up the words of ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ off the top of his head and began singing them. He then made up more verses over the years that followed. However, as with Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, this is no straightforward working song.
Some believe that the story of the song is simply based on Wallis’s dream that God would carry him away to heaven, like the prophet Elijah in the Old Testament. Elijah’s dramatic departure from Earth comes immediately after the waters of the river Jordan part, providing him with a path across (I looked over Jordan and what did I see, / Coming for to carry me home), after which a chariot and horses of fire appear and, in a whirlwind, lift the prophet to heaven. (Incidentally, it has been suggested that this is the Old Testament’s alien abduction story: the chariot of fire could easily be an eighth-century bc description of a UFO, but that’s another story.)
Although there are definite references to the story of Elijah, these are being used as a smokescreen to obscure the real message of the song. Willis was not the simple songwriter he pretended to be. His lyrics are couched in the language and style of straightforward spirituals but they’re full of hidden meaning. Another very popular song of his was ‘Steal Away’, which was sung quietly by slaves who intended to break for freedom, in the hope of attracting other workers along with them:
Steal away, steal away,
Steal away to Jesus;
Steal away, steal away,
I ain’t got long to stay here.
Seen in this light, ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ might in fact be a coded message about one of the best-kept secrets of the nineteenth century – the Underground Railroad. This was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by black slaves in the United States to escape to freedom with the aid of the abolitionists who were sympathetic to their cause. It was initially a network of routes from the Deep South to the northern states, but in 1850, after the Fugitive Slave Act allowed owners to pursue and recapture runaway slaves through the northern states of the Union, the Underground Railroad was extended to the Canadian border.
Support came from the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the African Baptist Church, the Scottish Presbyterian movement and the Quakers, who all provided food and shelter along the way, at great risk to themselves. The network was known as a ‘railroad’ because of its use of coded messages based on railway terminology. Individuals were often organized into small, independent groups, with little knowledge of each other beyond sister groups and connecting routes in the vicinity, which helped to maintain secrecy. The resting spots where the runaways could sleep and eat were given the code names ‘stations’ and ‘depots’, which were held by ‘station masters’. There were also the ‘conductors’ who moved the runaways from station to station. These were often freed slaves from the North risking their own safety and liberty.
There are all kinds of colourful stories about how the coded messages were transmitted securely. It was too dangerous to write anything down and, besides, not all of the slaves were literate. Unusual and unexpected methods had to be employed. One theory is that fugitives were given quilts (primarily for bedding) whose designs provided coded maps to help direct them to stations. But an easier way was through song.
Many spirituals and other songs of the time contain information intended to help escaped slaves navigate the Railroad. One famous example is ‘Follow the Drinking Gourd’:
When the sun comes back and the first quail calls,
Follow the Drinkin’ Gourd;
For the old man’s waitin’ for to carry you to freedom
If you follow the Drinkin’ Gourd.
This song’s message was to look to the skies. The constellation known as the Plough in Britain and the Big Dipper in North America was commonly called by its African name, the Drinking Gourd, by the slaves. The Drinking Gourd’s ‘bowl’ points towards the North Star, hence the North and freedom.
‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ therefore tells the story of a slave waiting to be shipped to freedom, calling on the Underground Railroad to carry me home. As if mimicking the way that the movement used the terminology of railways to disguise their actions, the song uses the archaic terminology of the Bible – after all, a chariot is about as near as the Old Testament gets to a railway train. As there are no angels in the story of Elijah, the band of angels… coming for to carry me home could well be describing the religious organizations who were involved in the Railroad or even, as Canada and the North were already commonly referred to as the ‘Promised Land’, everyone who dwelt there already.
Another four verses take the story of the journey further. They hint at the perils of the journey (Sometimes I’m up and sometimes I’m down) and are full of motivating reminders of that new life ahead (my soul feels heavenly bound… Jesus washed my sins away):
Sometimes I’m up and sometimes I’m down,
Coming for to carry me home;
But still my soul feels heavenly bound,
Coming for to carry me home.
The brightest day that I can say,
Coming for to carry me home,
When Jesus washed my sins away,
Coming for to carry me home.
If I get there before you do,
Coming for to carry me home,
I’ll cut a hole and pull you through,
Coming for to carry me home.
If you get there before I do,
Coming for to carry me home,
Tell all my friends I’m coming too,
Coming for to carry me home.
The penultimate verse makes a promise that the singer will physically come back and help those who remain behind (If I get there before you do… I’ll cut a hole and pull you through), as the slave audience would know that most of the ‘conductors’ on the Underground Railroad were former slaves, like Wallis Willis himself. The final verse is all about the importance of spreading the message of hope to all those slaves who weren’t yet on their way to freedom (Tell all my friends I’m coming). The Underground Railroad would make sure they were all eventually freed.
Yankee Doodle Dandy
YANKEE Doodle went to town
A-riding on a pony;
He stuck a feather in his hat
And called it macaroni.
Yankee Doodle, keep it up,
Yankee Doodle dandy;
Mind the music and the step
And with the girls be handy.
Set rather incongruously to the tune of an English rhyme about prostitution (see Lucy Locket), ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’, now the official anthem of Connecticut, was made up by British army officers in the late 1700s to mock their indisciplined and dishevelled Yankee counterparts during the French and Indian War (1754-63; part of the Seven Years’ War between Britain and France). Doodle is a slang word for a simpleton or village idiot, while a macaroni (from the Italian maccherone or ‘boorish fool’) was the term for a fop or man obsessed with fashion. Hence fun is being poked at this simple fellow who thinks he’s the very height of fashion for just sticking a feather in his hat.
The song also made the term Yankee more widely known. Thought to have derived
from the Cherokee Indian word for ‘coward’, eankke, it was originally used to describe Dutch settlers in New England, evolving into a derogatory term for the would-be American citizens during the settlers’ battle for independence from the British Crown in 1775-83.
Sources and Further Reading
Curious Myths of the Middle Ages (1868 and 1870) by Sabine Baring-Gould
Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (2001 edition)
The Origins of English Nonsense (1997) by Noel Malcolm Dictionary of Celtic Mythology (1998) by James MacKillop
The English Year (2005) by Steve Roud
Dickens (1990) and London (2000) by Peter Ackroyd
The Lore of the Land (2004) by Jennifer Westwood and Jacqueline Simpson
The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (1976) by Bruno Bettelheim
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) by Lewis Carroll
A Book of Nonsense and More Nonsense (1862) by Edward Lear
And then, there are various books about nursery rhymes. As I said in the Introduction, I don’t agree with all their arguments but they definitely make for interesting reading…
The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (1951) by Iona and Peter Opie
The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book (1963) by Iona and Peter Opie
Nursery Rhymes and Tales, Their Origin and History (1924) by Henry Bett
The Plague and the Fire (1961) by James Leasor
Heavy Words, Lightly Thrown (2003) by Chris Roberts
Index
abduction stories 266
abolitionists 267
Acts of Uniformity 95
‘Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, The’ (Sherlock Holmes story) 25
‘Adventures of Mother Hubbard and her Dog, The’ 145
African Baptist Church 267
African Methodist Episcopal Church 267
Agincourt, Battle of 38, 58
‘Ah! vous dirai-je, Maman’ 226-7
Aladdin 218
Alaska 126
Albert, Prince 168
Albion Flour Mills 256
alcohol 88
taxes 88
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 167-8, 228
Allerton Castle 52
almshouses 220
Amaethon 201
Amazing Grace 241-4
Anacreontic Society 263
Andersen, Hans Christian 192
Andrew, Duke of York 55
Andrewes, Lancelot 174-5
Anglo-Dutch Wars 56
Anglo-Spanish Wars 169
Anjou, Duke of 42
Apple A Day, An 3
applied mathematics 7
Aprice, John 215
arachnophobia 110
Archaeologica Scotica: Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 12
archery 38
Ariosti, Attilio 223
Armada 36, 169
Arne, Thomas Augustine 245
‘Rule Britannia’ 245
Arthur, legend of 142-3
Arthwys 142-3
As I Was Going by Charing Cross 4-6, 43
As I Was Going to St Ives 7, 86
Assize of Arms 38
Aubrey, John 28
Baa Baa Black Sheep 8-11, 105, 170, 218
Babylon 62
Baker, Tafit 250
Baltimore, Battle of 264
Banbury 178-9
Banbury Cross 178
Bank of England 86
baptism 199
‘Barebones Parliament’ 72
Baring-Gould, Sabine 125
Barnaby Rudge 155
Barry, Major Augustine 13
Bastard, Thomas 10
Beaulieu, Jacques 39
Beaulieu, Palace of 134
bees 171
Beggar’s Opera, The 217
beggars 57
Beghards 57
Belasyse, Bridget 22
Belgium 9
Bellerophon 127
Bessy Bell and Mary Gray 11-14
Bethlehem 253
Bible 174, 215, 245, 268
Big Dipper (constellation) see Ursa Major
Big Over Easy, The 94
Big Ship Sails on the Ally-Ally-Oh, The 15-16
Bishoprick Garland, The 254
Black Death 180, 182
Blackbeard 195-8
Blake, William 128, 255
Milton: A Poem 255
Songs of Innocence and of Experience 128
Blind Men and the Elephant, The 16-21
Bloody Mary see Mary Tudor
Bobby Shafto 21-2
Boleyn, Anne 12, 85, 194-5, 213
bomb disposal experts 122
bonfires 92-3, 175
Bonnie Prince Charlie 33, 97-9, 246, 261
Bonnie, Anne 91
Bononcini, Giovanni Battista 223-5
Boosey & Co. 162
Boudicca 121
Boulton, Sir Harold 261
Bow Church 150
Boy Scouts 37
Boys and Girls Come Out to Play 23-4
Brandon, Richard 5
brandy 102
Bremen 118
bridges 118
Brighton Pavilion 47
Britain, Roman occupation 141
brothels 74
Bryant, Jacob 76
bubonic plague symptoms 180-2
Buckingham Rebellion 68
Buddhists 19
Butterfly Effect 37
buttocks 192
Byrom, John 223-4
candle jumping 92
Canis Minor (constellation) 69-70
Canterbury 251
Archbishop of 105
Caroline of Brunswick 47, 208-9
Carroll, Lewis Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 167-8, 228
Through the Looking Glass 83, 222
Casanova 123
Castillon, Battle of 59
Cat and the Fiddle, The 207
Catesby, Robert 173
Catesby, Sir William 66 207
catfights 123
Catherine of Aragon 35, 84-5, 104, 145, 194, 212
Catherine of Braganza 44
Catherine wheels 92 Catholic Church 134, 144-5, 179, 213
Catholic Mass 250
Catholicism 35, 50, 51, 107, 136, 199
Catholics 95, 135, 202, 214
cats 165-6, 207, 211, 220
Celts 216
Centaurs 127
chain gangs 65
Chambers, Robert Popular Rhymes of Scotland 251
Chaos Theory 37
Charing Cross 4
Charles I 4, 6, 46, 54, 81, 88-9, 101, 203, 204
execution 4, 70
Charles II 43, 73, 105
Charles V (Holy Roman Emperor) 35
child labour 188
Chimera 127
China 125
Choctaw 265
Christianity 243
Christians 124
Christmas 24, 43
Christmas Carol, A 25
Christmas clubs 25
Christmas is Coming 24-5
Church 144
Church of England 50, 195, 213
Church of St Dunstan and All Saints 150
Church of St Mary-le-Bow 150-52
Churchill, Winston 94
Cinderella 113, 218
cinders 113
City Road 161
Civil War, English 4, 80, 101, 179, 255
Clare Market 148
Clement V (pope) 39
Clement VII (pope) 213
Clément, Jacques 39
cloth workers 9
cobwebs 110
Cock Inn 123
cockleshells 135
Cockney rhyming slang 159-60
Coel Godhebog (a.k.a. Coel the Magnificent) 141, 142
Colchester 80, 227
siege 81
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 231
Cologne 253
Columbus, Christopher 211, 254
commedia dell’arte 162
commonsense 7
Commonwealth 58, 70, 105
Company of Mercers 220
Complaynt of Scotland 42
Confessio Amantis 36
Connecticut 270
Constantine the Great 141-2
Convention of Alkmaar 54
Cope, Sir Anthony 179
Coventry 176-8
Cranmer, Thomas 135, 214, 216
Crater (constellation) 70
Crockett, Davy 185
Crockett, Effie 185
Cromwell, Oliver 43, 58, 70, 204, 255
Cromwell, Richard 71-3
Cromwell, Thomas 109, 195
crucifixion 76, 107, 255
crusades 93
Culloden, Battle of 33, 98, 261
Cumberland, Duke of 34, 98-9, 261
curfew 151
Cutty Wren, The 26-8
Dale, Joseph 155
Dark Ages 48
Darnley, Lord 112
Davies, Temporary Lieutenant Robert 122
Dee (river) 257-8
Defoe, Daniel 156-7
Life and Strange and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe 156-7
Depp, Johnny 195
devolution, Wales 201
Dickens, Charles 25, 189
Barnaby Rudge 155
Christmas Carol, A 25
Pickwick Papers, The 148
Dictionary of British Folklore 183
Ding, Dong, Bell 29-30
Dissolution of the Monasteries 55, 106, 139, 194, 214
Divine Right of Kings 203
Doctor Foster 9, 31-2
doctors 3
‘Dolomphious Duck’ 154
Domesday Book 8
double aulos 140
Drake, Sir Francis 169
Drinking Gourd (constellation) see Ursa Major
Duncombe, Anne 22
East Anglia 176
Easter 75, 76
Edinburgh Castle 202, 204
Edmund of England 120-21
Edward I 9, 10, 31
Edward III 11, 38, 59
Edward IV 66 68
Edward VI 134, 214
Effingham, Lord Howard of 36
Elijah (prophet) 266, 268
Elizabeth I 12, 35, 42, 50, 56, 69, 107, 112, 134, 135-6, 165, 169, 178, 206
annual progresses 178
Elsie Marley 32-4, 99, 246, 261
