Lyke-Wake Dirge

It survives in modern English in the expression lychgate, the roofed gate at the entrance to a churchyard, where, in former times, a dead body was placed before burial, and the lich, an undead monster in fantasy fiction.

[5] Note: ae: one; hosen: stockings; shoon: shoes; whinnes: thorns; bane: bone; brig: bridge The safety and comfort of the soul in faring over the hazards it faces in the afterlife, are in the old ballad made contingent on the dead person's willingness in life to participate in charity.

Bud if o' siller an' gawd thoo nivver ga' neean, Thoo'll doon, doon tumm'l tiwards Hell fleeames,[6] Note: siller: silver; gawd: gold; footho'd: foothold In this version, the Brig o' Dread (Bridge of Dread) is the decisive ordeal that determines whether the soul's destination is Heaven or Hell.

[8][9] He also notes that the expression Aboute the fyre upon flet appears in the mediaeval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and explains that "Fire and fleet and candle-light are a summary of the comforts of the house, which the dead person still enjoys for this ae night, and then goes out into the dark and cold."

Benjamin Britten set it to music as a part of his Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings in 1943, and, in his Cantata on Old English Texts of 1952, Igor Stravinsky uses individual verses as interludes between the longer movements.

Most later renditions of the song use the Richards-Fried melody; these include versions by Steeleye Span, the Mediaeval Baebes (titled 'This Ay Nicht') and Alasdair Roberts.

The annual Spiral Dance in San Francisco has adapted the song to a neopagan context, changing the refrain to "May earth receive thy soul".

We were opening our set at the time with the Lyke Wake Dirge, a grim piece of music from Yorkshire concerning pergatory [sic] and we all dressed in dramatic mummers ribbons with tall hats.

5 gaunt figures in line across the front of the stage, lit from below casting huge shadows, intoning this insistent dirge alarmed some members of the audience whose reality was already tampered with by 1970s substances.