Until a Bob Dylan bootleg version turned up on YouTube recently, the song “Polly Vaughn” (as he sings it) had somehow passed me by. It was as “Molly Bawn” the Dubliners sang it, for example. But some Irish versions are more specific about the identity of the protagonists, including the tragic heroine, who is also given the surname “Lavery”. Indeed, the tale of Molly Bawn could be an update on the Greek tragedy of Pocris, who ends up on the wrong side of an arrow fired by her hunter husband. But as with another tragic heroine of Irish folk history, Colleen Bawn, there may well have been a real-life tragedy involved.

Source: The Irish Times May 21, 2021 18:00 UTC