Hell is dark, hell is deep, hell is full of mice

[tamaranth]

I know I'm on drugs (see previous entry) but why is Hell full of mice? Or can I have misheard the lyrics? (Dives & Lazarus). And can anyone tell me why this tune appears so frequently with different words in the English folk tradition?

Comments

[gummitch.livejournal.com]

No, no, it's not the drugs! I hear that line exactly the same (on that folk compilation MD you did for me a while ago). Weird.

[fishlifter.livejournal.com]

Try http://www.kissthisguy.com (hope that link works) and see if anyone else agrees with you -- or heard something even stranger...

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

No, I'm pretty sure that's the lyric. "Hell is dark and hell is deep and hell is full of mice; it's a pity that any poor sinful soul should depart from our saviour Christ."

This version sticks very closely to Child (Dives & Lazarus is Child 58) apart from that verse, which is totally different. Which is odd to say the least; and I can't find anything much about it on the net.

This article (http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/ballads/early_child/) about Child ballads explains that they mostly only have two structures, so they can all be sung to each others' tunes. (In brief, 4/3/4/3 tunes like "Dives and Lazarus" can all be sung to the theme tune of Gilligan's Island).

An expanation

[(Anonymous)]

Someone who sounded authoritative told me that the word was supposed to be 'mist', pronounced in earlier English like 'mice' with a final 't' sound (or was it that 'Christ' was pronounced 'krihst', more like Latin), and that it meant both mist and smoke.