Seven Curses - Tom Russell

Old Reilly stole a stallion

But they caught him and they brought him back

And they laid him down on the jailhouse ground

With an iron chain around his neck.

Old Reilly’s daughter got a message

That her father was goin' to hang.

She rode by night and came by morning

With gold and silver in her hand.

When the judge he saw Reilly’s daughter

His old eyes deepened in his head,

Sayin', «Gold will never free your father,

The price, my dear, is you instead.»

«Oh I’m as good as dead,"cried Reilly,

«It's only you that he does crave

And my skin will surely crawl if he touches you at all.

Get on your horse and ride away.»

«Oh father you will surely die

If I don’t take the chance to try

And pay the price and not take your advice.

For that reason I will have to stay.»

The gallows shadows shook the evening,

In the night a hound dog bayed,

In the night the grounds were groanin',

In the night the price was paid.

The next mornin' she had awoken

To know that the judge had never spoken.

She saw that hangin' branch a-bendin',

She saw her father’s body broken.

These be seven curses on a judge so cruel:

That one doctor will not save him,

That two healers will not heal him,

That three eyes will not see him.

That four ears will not hear him,

That five walls will not hide him,

That six diggers will not bury him

And that seven deaths shall never kill him