"Weela Weela Walya",[1][2] also called "Weila Waile", "Wella Wallia" or "The River Saile", is an Irish schoolyard song that tells the story of an infanticide in a light-hearted way. It was popularised in the 1960s by Irish folk bands the Dubliners and the Clancy Brothers.
Origin
The song is a variation of a murder ballad called "The Cruel Mother" or "The Greenwood Side" (Child 20, Roud 9), but in an up-tempo version sung by children in the schoolyard.[2] As in several versions of "The Cruel Mother", the woman stabs the baby in the heart using "a penknife long and sharp," but whereas in "The Cruel Mother" the woman is visited by the ghosts of the children she killed, in "Weela Weela Walya" it is "two policeman and a man" (two uniformed police and a detective, or possibly a psychiatrist), who come to her door and arrest her for the murder.[2] Neither this version nor any adult Irish version is found in Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads,[3] but it is listed in the Roud Folk Song Index.[1] The song was popular with Irish Traveller children.[2] A similar song, "Old Mother Lee", is sung in playgrounds in Liverpool.[4]
The name "Saile" comes from the Irish word "salach" meaning dirty. It's an alternate name for the river Poddle which runs from the Dublin hills to join the river Liffey. Historically it was used for industry and also an open sewer and was very dirty (Salach).
There are some old stories about a child's body being found in the river. The name Saile may also come from the Irish “sáile” which means salt-water or seawater.
There was an old woman and she lived in the woods Weela Weela Walya
There was an old woman and she lived in the woods Down by the river Saile.[n 1][11]
She had a baby three months old Weela Weela Walya
She had a baby three months old Down by the river Saile.
She had a penknife long and sharp Weela Weela Walya
She had a penknife long and sharp Down by the river Saile.
She stuck the penknife in the baby's heart Weela Weela Walya
She stuck the penknife in the baby's heart Down by the river Saile.
Three loud knocks came a'knocking on the door Weela Weela Walya
Three loud knocks came a'knocking on the door Down by the river Saile.
Two policemen and a man Weela Weela Walya
Two policemen and a man Down by the river Saile.
"Are you the woman that killed the child?" Weela Weela Walya
"Are you the woman that killed the child?" Down by the river Saile.
"I am the woman that killed the child" Weela Weela Walya
"I am the woman that killed the child" Down by the river Saile.
They took her away and they put her in jail Weela Weela Walya
They took her away and they put her in jail Down by the river Saile.
Alternate Ending:
They took her up and strung her by the neck Weela Weela Walya
They took her up and strung her by the neck Down by the river Saile.
And that was the end of the woman in the woods Weela Weela Walya
And that was the end of the woman in the woods Down by the river Saile.