page_title: Cruel Sister (Rachel Unthank and the Winterset album)
section_title: Songs
hierarchical_section_title: Cruel Sister (Rachel Unthank and the Winterset album) / Songs
caption_attribution_description: English: Fair Rosamund Italiano: La bella Rosamunda
context_page_description: Cruel Sister, the first album by English folk group Rachel Unthank and the Winterset was released on 11 May 2005 and launched at Holmfirth Festival of Folk. Described by BBC Music as "an outstanding debut", it received support from a number of DJs on BBC Radio 2 and was subsequently awarded Folk Album of the Year by MOJO.
context_section_description: Most of the tracks on the album are traditional folk songs.
  "Cruel Sister", the song which provides the title for the album, is a traditional murder ballad (known in some versions as "The Twa Sisters"). It tells the story of the violent rivalry between two sisters for the love of a knight. One of the sisters murders her sibling, whose bones and hair are turned into a harp by a passing musician. The ballad was collected by Francis J. Child (Child 10) and is also listed in the Roud Folk Song Index.
  "Fair Rosamund" is about Rosamund Clifford, a mistress of King Henry II of England. "The Greatham Calling on Song" is from the mummers play which is performed in Greatham, County Durham every Boxing Day. "Raven Girl" is a traditional folk song with an additional verse written by Ester Watson of Hexham, Northumberland. "Bonny at Morn" was collected in the 19th century and published in 1882 in the Northumbrian Minstrelsy.  "John Dead"  is a sea shanty from the Windward Islands, collected by Roger D. Abrahams.
  The album also includes an acclaimed cover version, sung by Becky Unthank, of Nick Drake's song "River Man".
caption: 1917 Fair Rosamund (Rosamund Clifford), pictured in a 1917 oil painting  by John William Waterhouse
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