Analyses
The song was first recorded by John Aubrey in 1686, though he reported it was already old in his day. It is written in an old Northern English dialect.
The first word of the title of the song is Lyke which means corpse, from the Old English Lic. The second word Wake comes from Old English, Wacu, which means a vigil. The two words together make līcwacu, (Corpse-Wake), which was an Anglo-Saxon tradition where people sat vigil over a dead body the night before burial. The final word Dirge come from Norman French and means funeral song.
In essence, Lyke Wake Dirge (Corpse, Vigil, Song) is a song sung to a corpse during a vigil before it's burial. Lyke wake dirges continued especially in northern England until th 19th century.
Lyke Wake Dirge is the oldest surving of these dirges, but how far back does it go? The trickly question being.... is this a Christian period song or a christianised song from an earlier pagan time?
A Lyke Wake Dirge is sung to a corpse for a very important reason, the lyrics of the song give a newly diseased spirit the directions to go in the afterlife. The afterlife in this case being purgatory, which doesn't really make sense in a Christian context, as souls don't have to make their way through an assault course to get to purgatory and usually don't get lost on th way never making it there.
In paganism though it was different, if a warrior died with a sword in his hand, directions were not a problem as a Wæloeæ would swoop down and take him straight to Woden's hall herself. But for the rest who died peacfully, they had to make their own way to the Hel and in Germanic Paganism the journey to Hel was long journey through a desolation and a soul could get lost or stuck on the way.
In the Lyke Wake Dirge, the soul is warned about the long hazardous journey it will make, the places it will encounter on the journey, precautions to take, what clothes to wear to protect it from nature, the directions to go and the pplaces it will encounter All information not needed by a dead christian.
Also how hard the journey will be is determined by how much gift giving the person did in their lives. Gift giving being one of the most important running themes throughout Germanic literature.
At one point the soul is told to cross the bridge of Dread, this again has no Christian association, as bridge crossing is not part of the Christian afterlife nor something associate with Purgatory. However in Germanic paganism, crossing a bridge to get into the otherworld is a consistant theme.
Its also worth mentioning the song has a refrain, And Christ receive they saule, which is most likely a much later addition, as Anglo-Saxon songs and poems, with one single exception (Deor), don't have refrains.
The idea that the dead must travel a road or path to the afterlife is widespread throughout the Germanic world. Old Norse literature frequently describes journeys to Hel, while Anglo-Saxon burial customs often equipped the dead with possessions for the road ahead. The Lyke Wake Dirge fits comfortably within this broader tradition of the afterlife as a journey rather than an instantaneous arrival.
The Bridge of Dread has close parallels elsewhere in medieval Europe. In Norse mythology the living cross the rainbow bridge, Bifröst, to reach Ásgarðr, while the dead pass over Gjallarbrú, the bridge spanning the river Gjöll on the road to Hel. Similar bridge-crossing traditions also appear in Celtic and Persian beliefs, suggesting that the image of a bridge to the land of the dead is far older than medieval Christianity.
The gift of shoes is also notable. Shoes are of little use to the dead unless they are expected to travel. Across in pagan Germanic burials the dead were often buried with footwear or supplied with items thought necessary for their journey, lending further support to the idea that the song describes an actual voyage through the afterlife.
The Lyke wait Dirge is one of the oldest songs in the English language and may even be the oldest, if it was originally pagan.