1,99 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 1,99 €
Niedrigster Preis in 30 Tagen: 1,99 €
Mehr erfahren.
- Herausgeber: DigiCat
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Songs of the West offers a vibrant canvas of the rich tapestry of traditional folk music and culture from the western regions of England, superbly captured by S. Baring-Gould, H. Fleetwood Sheppard, and F. W. Bussell. This anthology is a celebration of the diverse spectrum of ballads and songs that have been passed down through generations, reflecting the joys, struggles, and romances of rural life. It explores a variety of literary styles and forms, incorporating both lyrical poetry and narrative depth, while presenting the cultural and historical contexts that shape these enchanting melodies. The collection not only revives timeless pieces but also brings to light lesser-known treasures, rendering a multifaceted insight into the region's folk traditions. The accomplished compilers of Songs of the West bring forth their collective expertise and dedication to preserving this essential aspect of cultural heritage. Drawing from their deep understanding of the folk traditions, they have painstakingly curated works that highlight the nuanced complexities of the western English folk genre. Their meticulous research and commitment to authenticity resonate throughout the collection, offering a window into the socio-cultural and historical melodies that have shaped the identity of the area, aligning with significant folklore movements of the period. Readers are invited to delve into Songs of the West, a compendium that bridges time and tradition, offering both an educational and immersive experience. Through the captivating narratives and diverse voices it presents, this anthology provides an invaluable perspective on the folk zeitgeist and the dynamic interplay of past and present. A must-read for anyone seeking to understand the cultural underpinnings and melodic heritage of western England, this collection promises a journey enriched by varied insights and the enduring dialogue of song.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
Ähnliche
Songs of the West
Table of Contents
PREFACE
IN this Edition of "Songs of the West," some considerable changes have been made. When the first edition was issued, we had to catch the public taste, and to humour it. Accordingly the choruses were arranged in four parts, and some of the Songs were set as duets and quartettes. But now that real interest in Folk airs has been awakened, we have discarded this feature.
Moreover, a good many accompanists complained that the arrangements were too elaborate, except for very skilled pianoforte players. We have now simplified the settings.
Then, we have omitted twenty-two songs, and have supplied their places with others, either because the others are intrinsically better, or that they have earlier and more characteristic melodies, or again because the songs though sung by the people, did not seem to us to have been productions of the folk-muse.
Again, when our first edition was published, modal melodies were not appreciated, and we had regretfully to put many aside and introduce more of the airs of a modern character. Public taste is a little healthier now, and musicians have multiplied who can value these early melodies. Consequently we have not felt the same reserve now that we did in 1889.
INTRODUCTION
DOROTHY OSBORNE, in a letter to Sir William Temple, in 1653, thus describes her daily home life. "The heat of the day is spent in reading or working, and about six or seven o'clock I walk out into a common that lies hard by the house, where a great many young wenches keep sheep or cows, and sit in the shade singing ballads. I go to them and compare their voices and beauties to some ancient shepherdesses that I have read of, and find a vast difference there; but trust me these are as innocent as those could be. I talk to them, and find they want nothing to make them the happiest people in the world but the knowledge that they are so. Most commonly, when we are in the midst of our discourse, one looks about her, and spies her cows going into the corn, and then away they all run as if they had wings to their heels." ("Letters of Dorothy Osborne," London, 1888, p. 103.)
Before that Sir Thomas Overbury, in his "Character of a Milkmaid," had written: "She dares go alone and unfold her sheep in the night, and fears no manner of ill, because she means none: yet, to say truth, she is never alone, she is still accompanied with old songs, honest thoughts, and prayers, but short ones."
During the reign of Queen Mary, the Princess Elizabeth was kept under close guard and restraint, but was suffered to walk in the palace grounds. "In this situation," says Holinshed, "no marvel if she, hearing upon a time, out of her garden at Woodstock, a certain milkmaid singing pleasantlie, wished herself to be a milkmaid as she was; saying that her case was better, and life merrier." So Viola, in Fletcher's play, "The Coxcombe," 1647:
"Would to God, my father Had lived like one of these, and bred me up To milk, and do as they do! Methinks 'tis A life that I would chuse, if I were now To tell my time again, above a prince's."
The milkmaid, and the girls guarding sheep and cows are things of the past, and with them have largely departed their old ballads and songs. Tusser, in his "Points on Huswifry," in 1570, recommends the country housewife to select her maids from those who sing at their work as being usually the most painstaking and the best.
"Such servants are oftenest painsfull and good, That sing at their labours, like birds in a wood."
Nowadays, domestic servants sing nothing but hymns, and the use of ballads and folksongs has died out among farm girls, and these are to be recovered only where there are village industries as basket weaving, glove sewing, and the like.
But the old men sing their ancient ditties, or did so till within the last fifty years. Now they are no longer called on for them, but they remember them, and with a little persuasion can be induced to render them up. When I was a boy, I was wont to ride over and about Dartmoor, and to put up at little village taverns. There I was sure in the evening to hear one or two men sing, and should it be a pay day, sing hour after hour, one song following another with little intermission.
There was an institution at mines and quarries called a fetching. It occurred every fortnight. The men left work early, and went to the changing room; stone jars of ale were brought thither from the nearest public house. Each man filled his mug, and each in turn, before emptying it, was required to sing. On such occasions many a fine old ballad was to be picked up. There was also the farm-supper after harvest, at which the workmen sang. Now the suppers have been discontinued. Ringer's feasts, happily, still remain, and at them a good old ditty may be heard. But most of the old singers with their traditional ballads set to ancient modal melodies have passed away.
In "Poems, etc.," by Henry Incledon Johns, published by subscription, Devonport, 1832, is the following interesting passage. He is describing a night spent in an inn on the borders of Dartmoor; he met farmers and labourers. "One of the party I observed never took any share in the conversation, but appeared to have been invited there for the sole purpose of singing to them. He sang a great number of ballads, making up in loudness for what he lacked in melody. I thought it betrayed rather a want of courtesy that his auditors continued to talk while he sang, and no less remarkable, that they never expressed either applause or disapprobation of his strains. Now and then, one or two of them would join in a line of chorus, but it seemed to be done in a sort of parenthesis, and the thread of the conversation was immediately resumed as vehemently as ever.... I gleaned the following scraps of the border minstrelsy of Dartmoor:
'There was an old man as blind as blind could be, He swore he saw the fox go up a great tree.'
'There was one among them all That's slender, fair and tall, With a black and rolling eye, And a skin of lily dye.'
'A bonny lass I courted full many a long day, And dearly I loved to be in her sweet company.'
(The lover then describes the progress of his suit, which proves unsuccessful, and concludes thus:—)
'Go, dig me a pit, that is long, large, and deep, And I'll lay myself down, and take a long sleep.And that's the way to forget her.'
"The air to the latter was rather plaintive, and from the lips of some siren might have been entitled to an encore, but the voice which now gave it utterance only added another to many previous proofs that the English are not a musical people. The minstrel was in appearance one of the most athletic men I have ever seen, and although seventy-five years of age, would still, as I subsequently learnt, perform a day's work better than most of the young men of the parish. He was a pauper, but in great respect among the neighbouring rustics for his vocal powers. His auditory were moor-farmers with countenances as rugged and weather-beaten as the rocks among which they live."
It is not a little interesting to know that some seventy years after this recorded evening we were able to recover two of the songs which Mr. Johns gives somewhat inaccurately; and both are included in this collection. The first is "The Three Jovial Welshmen," No. 75; and the last is "The False Bride," No. 97.
One of my old singers, James Olver, was the son of very strict Wesleyans. When he was a boy, he was allowed to hear no music save psalm and hymn tunes. But he was wont to creep out of his window at night, and start away to the tavern where the miners congregated, and listen to and heap up in his memory the songs he there heard. As these were forbidden fruit they were all the more dearly prized and surely remembered, and when he was a white-haired old man, he poured them out to us.
Some forty or fifty years ago, it was customary when the corn was cut, for the young men of a parish to agree together, and without telling the farmer of their intention, to invade his harvest field, work all night and stack his corn, whilst he slept. It was allowed to leak out who had done him this favour, and in return, he invited them with their lasses to sup and dance and make merry in a lighted barn. Then famous old songs were sung. But all that good feeling is at an end, and in its place exists a rankling hostility between the tiller of the soil and his employer. Blame assuredly attaches to the farmer for this condition of affairs, in that he has done away with the farmhouse festivities in which workmen and employer took part.
One evening in 1888, I was dining with the late Mr. Daniel Radford, of Mount Tavy, when the conversation turned to old Devonshire songs. Some of those present knew "Widdecombe Fair," others remembered "Arscott of Tetcott"; and all had heard many and various songs sung at Hunt-suppers, at harvest and sheep-shearing feasts. My host turned to me and said: "It is a sad thing that our folk-music should perish. I wish you would set to work and collect it—gather up the fragments that remain before all is lost!"
I undertook the task. I found that it was of little use going to most farmers and yeoman. They sang the compositions of Hooke, Hudson, and Dibden. But I learned that there were two notable old singing men at South Brent, and I was aware that there was one moorland singing farmer at Belstone, I was informed of this by J.D. Prickman, Esq., of Okehampton. This man, Harry Westaway, knew many old songs. Moreover, in my own neighbourhood was a totally illiterate hedger, in fact, he could neither read nor write. He enjoyed no little local celebrity as a song-man. His name was James Parsons, aged seventy-four, and a son of a still more famous singer called "The Singing-machine," and grandson of another of the same fame. In fact, the profession of song-man was hereditary in the family. At every country entertainment, in olden times, at the public-house almost nightly, for more than a century, one of these men of the Parsons' family had not failed to attend, to sing as required for the entertainment of the company. The repertoire of the grandfather had descended to old James. For how many generations before him the profession had been followed I could not learn. James Parsons' ballad tunes were of an early and archaic character. In fact, with few exceptions his melodies were in the Gregorian modes. At one time Parsons and a man named Voysey were working on the fringe of Dartmoor, and met in the evening at the moorland tavern. Parsons boasted of the number of songs he knew, and Voysey promised to give him a glass of ale for every fresh one he sang. Parsons started with "The Outlandish Knight," one song streamed forth after another, one glass after another was emptied, and these men sat up the whole night, till the sun rose, and the song-man's store was not then exhausted, but Voysey's pocket was. I could hardly credit this tale when told me, so I questioned Voysey, who had worked for my father and was working for me. He laughed and confirmed the tale. "I ought to remember it," he said, "for he cleared me clean out."
Many a pleasant evening have I spent with old Parsons, he in the settle, sitting over the hall fire, I taking down the words of his ballads, Mr. Sheppard or Mr. Bussell noting down his melodies.
But one day I heard that an accident had befallen Parsons. In cutting "spears," i.e., pegs for thatching, on his knee he had cut into the joint; and the village doctor told me he feared Parsons at his age would never get over it. I sent for Mr. Bussell, and said to him: "We shall lose our old singer, before we have quite drained him. Come with me, and we will visit his cottage, and see what more we can get from him." We went, and very pleased he was to sing to us from his bed. "Old Wichet," No. 30, was one of the songs we then acquired from him. Happily, the sturdy constitution of the man caused his recovery, and he lived on for three years after this accident.
One day in November, I got a letter from the Vicar of South Brent, in which he informed me that Robert Hard, a crippled stone-breaker there, and one of my song-men, was growing very feeble. Without delay I took the train, and arrived at South Brent Vicarage, just as the party had finished breakfast. "Now," said I to the Vicar, "Lend me your drawing room and the piano, and send for old Hard."
The stone breaker arrived, and I spent almost the whole day, that is, till the dusk of evening fell, taking down his songs and melodies. From him then, I had "The Cuckoo," that I have published in my "Garland of Country Songs." A month later, poor old Hard was found dead in a snowdrift by the roadside.
I had enlisted the services of such excellent musicians as the late Rev. H. Fleetwood Sheppard, of Thurnscoe, Yorkshire, and Mr., now the Rev. Doctor Bussell, Mus. Doc., and Vice-principal of Brazennose College, Oxford, and we worked at collecting, at South Brent, where besides Robert Hard, was John Helmore, a miller, who died in the Ivy Bridge Workhouse in 1900; also at Belstone, and we worked through the length and breadth of Dartmoor. James Coaker,[1] a blind man of 89, in the heart of the moor, very infirm, and able to leave his bed for a few hours of the day only, was unable to sing, but could recite the words of ballads; but Mr. J. Webb, captain of a mine hard by, knew his tunes, and could very sweetly pipe them. On Blackdown, Mary Tavy, lived a mason, Samuel Fone, he died in 1898. He had an almost inexhaustible supply. Further songs were yielded by a singing blacksmith, John Woodrich, of Woolacott Moor, Thrushleton, commonly known as "Ginger Jack"; also by Roger Luxton, of Halwell, by James Olver, Tanner, Launceston, a native of S. Kewe, Cornwall; by John Masters, of Bradstone, aged 83; by William Rice and John Rickards, both of Lamerton; by William Friend, labourer, Lydford; Edmund Fry, thatcher, a native of Lezant, Cornwall; Roger Hannaford, Widdecombe; Will and Roger Huggins, Lydford; W. Bickle, Bridestowe; Matthew Baker, a poor cripple, Lew Down; John Dingle, Coryton; J. Peake, tanner, Liskeard; and Mr. S. Gilbert, the aged innkeeper of the "Falcon," Mawgan, in Pyder. More were obtained from old singers at Two Bridges and Post Bridge on Dartmoor, from others at Chagford, at Holne, and at South Brent. From others again at Menheniot, Cornwall, and at Fowey. Some songs taken down from moor men on Dartmoor, in or about 1868, were sent me by W. Crossing, Esq., who knows Dartmoor better than any man living; others by T.S. Cayzer, Esq., taken down in 1849. Miss Bidder, of Stoke Flemming, most kindly searched her neighbourhood for old women who knew ancient songs, and sent me what she obtained. We had several rare old melodies from Sally Satterley,[2] now dead, of Huccaby Bridge, Dartmoor. She had acquired them from her father, a crippled fiddler.
Of the vast quantities of tunes that we have collected, perhaps a third are very good, a third are good, and the remainder indifferent. The singers are almost invariably illiterate and aged, and when they die the tradition will be lost, for the present generation will have nothing to do with these songs, especially such as are modal, and supplant them with the vulgarest music hall compositions. The melodies are far more precious than the words, and we have been more concerned to rescue these than the words, which are often common-place, and may frequently be found on broadside ballad sheets. The words are less frequently of home growth than the airs, and over and over again we came upon ballads already in print, but not to the tunes to which they are sung elsewhere. There are, in fact, only a few, such as "Cupid's Garden," "Bold General Wolf," "Lord Thomas and the Fair Eleanor," "Barbara Allen," "Outward Bound," "The Mermaid," that retain the melodies to which sung in other parts of England. But, "Tobacco is an Indian Weed," "Joans' Ale is New," "The Fox," and many others have tunes to which sung in Devon and Cornwall that are quite different and local. A remarkable instance is that of "Sweet Nightingale." This appeared in 1761 with music by Dr. Arne. The words travelled down to Cornwall, not so Arne's tune, and they were there set to an entirely independent melody. Then again, when a tune did travel West, and was heard by some of the peasant singers, if it did not commend itself to their taste, they altered it, perhaps quite unconsciously into a form more satisfactory to their minds. I have given a very curious example of this, "Upon a Sunday Morning."
Our folk music is a veritable moraine of rolled and ground fragments from musical strata far away. It contains melodies of all centuries from the days of the minstrels down to the present time, all thrown together in one heap. It must be borne well in mind that to the rustic singer, melody is everything. It was so in the days before Elizabeth. The people then did not want harmony; to them harmony is quite a modern invention and need.
At the present day, we are so accustomed to choral and concerted music that we have come to care little for formal melody, and Wagner has taught us to be content with musical phrases alone. Melody is a musical idea worked out in successive notes of our scale. Modern music is constructed in but two of the seven diatonic modes, in which melodies may be cast, the major and the minor; with the result that the modern ear entertains no appreciation of an air that is not in the Ionian scale, the "tonus lascivus" of the ancients.
The jongleur or minstrel had but the rudest of instruments; the peasant singer had none at all. What interest he can create, what effect he can produce, must be through melody alone. Now, I venture to assert that the folk music of the English peasantry has been surpassingly rich in melodiousness, and that no tune has had a chance of living and being transmitted from generation to generation, unless it have a distinct individuality in it, in a word, contains a melodious idea. Moreover, not having been framed only in the common major or minor key, it is abundantly varied. It has been a well-spring from which hitherto we have not drawn.
In former times, that strongly defined dividing line which separates the cultured from the uncultured did not exist. The music of the peasant was also the music of the court; the ballad was the delight of the cottager and of the noble lady in her bower. But the separation began, in music, in the Elizabethan days; in ballads, in those of James I., when nearly every old ballad was re-written to fresh metres, unsingable to the traditional airs. The skilled musician scorned folk melodies, and revelled in counter-point.
It is a mistake to suppose that all mediæval music was in the Gregorian modes other than our major and minor. Even in the 13th century, the modern major mode was used, so that some of our traditional airs, which seem to be modern may really be old.
M. Tiersot notes that among the melodies extant of three trouvères of the Thirteenth century, a certain number are modern in character. Of twenty-two airs by the Chatelain de Coucy, three are frankly in the major; five others in the 7th or the 8th tone, give the impression of the major. Of nine melodies by the King of Navarre, four are in the major, a fifth in the 7th tone, is of the same nature as those of De Coucy. Of thirty-four chansons by Adam de la Hall, twenty-one are in the major.
The folk airs that we give in our collection may not please at first, certainly will not please all; but when once a relish for them has been acquired, then hearers will turn with weariness from the ordinary concert hall feebleness, as we turn from the twaddle of a vacuous female. We have found it necessary to take down all the variants of the same air that we have come across.
M. Bourgault Ducoudray, in his introduction to "Mélodies populaires de Basse Bretagne," Paris, 1885, says: "When a song has been transmitted from mouth to mouth, without having been fixed by notation, it is exposed to alterations. One is sometimes obliged to collect as many as twenty variants of the same air, before finding one that is good. This is the greatest difficulty to the seeker; it is as hard to lay the hand on the veritable typal form of a melody as it is to meet with an intact specimen among the shells that have been rolled on the sea shore." When a party of singers is assembled, or when one man sings a succession of ballads, the memory becomes troubled; the first few melodies are given correctly, but after that, the airs become deflected and influenced by the airs last sung. At Two Bridges one old singer, G. Kerswell, after giving us "The Bell-ringers," sang us half-a-dozen ballads but the melody of the bells went through them all, and vitiated them all so as to render them worthless. On another occasion, we took down four or five airs all beginning alike, because one singer had impressed this beginning on the minds of the others. At another time, when this impression was worn off, they would sing correctly, and then the beginnings would be different. Experience taught us never to take down too much at one sitting.
In a very few years all this heritage of traditional folk music will be gone; and this is the supreme moment at which such a collection can be made. Already, nearly every one of my old singers from whom these melodies were gathered, is dead. They are passing away everywhere. Few counties of England have been worked. Sussex has been well explored by the late Rev. John Broadwood, and then by Miss Lucy Broadwood[3]; Yorkshire, by Mr. Frank Kidson; Northumberland, by Dr. Collingwood Bruce and Mr. John Stokoe. Mr. Cecil Sharp is now engaged on Somersetshire, and Dr. Vaughan Williams on Essex. Who will undertake Lincolnshire, Dorset, Hampshire, and other counties? The purely agricultural districts are most auriferous. In manufacturing counties modern music has driven out the traditional folk melodies.
With regard to the approximate dates of the airs we give, all that we can say is that such as are in the ancient modes are not later than the reign of James I. How much more ancient they may be, it is impossible to determine. The melodies of the Handel and Arne, and then those of the Hooke and Dibden periods can be at once detected. Some few of the melodies we have taken down were certainly originally in one or other of the ancient modes, but in process of time have been subjected to alteration, to accommodate them to the modern ear.
Although some seventy per cent. of the airs noted from the very old singers are modal, we have not given too many of these, as the popular taste is not sufficiently educated to relish them. But such as can not perceive the beauty of the tunes that go, for instance, to "The Trees they are so high," in the rarely used Phrygian mode, "Flora, the Flower of the West," in F, "Henry Martyn," "On a May morning so early," etc., are indeed to be pitied. We have not been able to give those lengthy ballads, such as, "The Outlandish Knight," "The Brown Girl," "By the Banks of Green Willow," "The Baffled Knight," "William and the Shepherd's Daughter," "Captain Ward," "The Golden Glove," "The Maid and the Box," "The Death of Queen Jane," etc., which are too long to be sung and listened to with patience now-a-days.
In some instances we have set other words to a ballad tune, as XXXVI. One of my old singers said to me concerning this ballad, "When my little sister, now dead, these twenty years, was a child, and went up from Exeter to London with me in a carrier's van, Lor bless'y, afore railways was invented, I mind that she sang this here ballet in the waggon all the way up. We was three days about it. She was then about six years old." The ballet, by the way, is not particularly choice and suitable for a child or a grown-up girl to sing, according to our ideas.
In giving these songs to the public, we have been scrupulous to publish the airs precisely as noted down, choosing among the variants those which commended themselves to us as the soundest. But we have not been so careful with regard to the words. These are sometimes in a fragmentary condition, or are coarse, contain double entendres, or else are mere doggerel. Accordingly, we have re-written the songs wherever it was not possible to present them in their original form. This was done by the Scotch. Many an old ballad is gross, and many a broadside is common-place. Songs that were thought witty in the Caroline and early Georgian epochs, are no longer sufferable; and broadside ballads are in many cases vulgarised versions of earlier ballads that have been lost in their original forms.
What a change has taken place in public feeling with regard to decency may be judged by the way in which Addison speaks of D'Urfey in "The Guardian," 1713, No. 29. "A judicious author, some years since, published a collection of sonnets, which he very successfully called "Laugh and be Fat; or, Pills to purge Melancholy." I can not sufficiently admire the facetious title of these volumes, and must censure the world of ingratitude, while they are so negligent in rewarding the jocose labours of my friend, Mr. D'Urfey, who was so large a contributor to this treatise, and to whose numerous productions so many rural squires in the remotest parts of the island are obliged for the dignity and state which corpulency gives them." And again, in No. 67, "I must heartily recommend to all young ladies, my disciples, the case of my old friend, who has often made their grand-mothers merry, and whose sonnets have perhaps lulled to sleep many a present toast, when she lay in her cradle." Why—D'Urfey's Pills must now-a-days be kept under lock and key. The fun so commended by the pious and grave Addison is filth of the most revolting description. And yet the grand-mothers of the ladies of his day, according to him, were wont to sing them over the cradles of their grand-children!
So when a "Collection of Old Ballads" was published 1723-5, the Editor, after giving a series of historical and serious pieces, in a later volume apologises to the ladies for their gravity, and for their special delectation furnishes an appendix of songs that are simply dirty.
A good many of the ditties in favour with our rural song-men, are, it must be admitted, of the D'Urfey type; and what is more some of the very worst are sung to the daintiest early melodies. Two courses lay open to us. One that adopted Dr. Barrett and Mr. Kidson to print the words exactly as given on the broadsides, with asterisks for the undesirable stanzas. But this would simply have killed the songs. No one would care to warble what was fragmentary. On the other hand, there is that adopted by the Scotch and Irish collectors, which consists in re-writing or modifying where objectionable or common-place. This has been the course we have pursued. It seemed a pity to consign the lovely old melodies to the antiquary's library, by publishing them with words which were fatal to the success of the songs in the drawing room or the concert hall. We resolved where the old words were good, or tolerable, to retain them. Where bad, to re-write, adhering as closely as possible to the original. Where the songs were mere broadside ballads, we have had no scruple in doing this, for we give reference to the press-mark in the British Museum, where the original text may be found. But the broadside itself is often a debased form of a fine early ballad. The broadside publishers were wont to pay a shilling to any ballad mongers who could furnish them with a new ditty. These men were destitute of the poetic faculty and illiterate, and they contented themselves with taking old ballads and recomposing them, so as to give to them a semblance of novelty, sufficient to qualify their authors to claim the usual fee. Here are some lines by one of the fraternity:
"I'm Billy Nuts wot always cutsA dash through all the town, sir, With lit'rary men, my clever penIn grammar gains renown, sir, In song, and catch, and ditty. And then to each, with dying speech I do excite their pity.So all agree to welcome me,With drum and fife and whiols, (sic for viols)A cause my name stands fast in fame,The Bard of Seven Dials."(B.M., 11,621, K. 4)
Our object was not to furnish a volume for consultation by the musical antiquary alone, but to resuscitate, and to popularise the traditional music of the English people. As, however, to the antiquary everything is important, exactly as obtained, uncleansed from rust and unpolished, I have deposited a copy of the songs and ballads with their music exactly as taken down, for reference, in the Municipal Free Library, Plymouth.
The Rev. H.F. Sheppard, who worked with me for twelve years in rescuing these old songs, and in bringing them before the public, is now no more. A new edition has been called for, and in this some exclusions and some additions have been made. We do not think that the pieces we have removed are not good, but that we are able to supply their places with others that are better. Mr. Sheppard entertained a very strong objection to arranging any song he had not himself "pricked down" from the lips of the singers, and as Mr. Bussell had noted down hundreds as well, these, for the most part, had to be laid on one side. Mr. Sheppard was, doubtless, right in his assertion, that unless he had himself heard the song sung, he could not catch its special character, and so render it justly.
Acting on the advice of Mr. Cecil Sharp, of the Conservatoire, Hampstead, who has kindly undertaken the musical editorship of this edition, I have introduced several interesting ballads and songs that, for the reason above given, were excluded from the first. Mr. F. Kidson has kindly afforded us information relative to such songs as he has come across in Yorkshire.
In conclusion I give a few particulars relative to the Rev. H.F. Sheppard, my fellow-worker, and Mr. D. Radford, the instigator of the collection, both of whom have passed away.
Henry Fleetwood Sheppard was a graduate of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and had been appointed Travelling Batchelor to the University. Through the whole of his clerical career he was closely associated with sacred music, especially with Plain-song, of which he was an enthusiastic admirer. As precentor of the Doncaster Choral Union from 1864 to 1884, he became the pioneer of improved church music in that part of Yorkshire. In the year 1868 he was presented to the Rectory of Thurnscoe, which at that time was an agricultural village numbering about 180 inhabitants, where he remained until 1898, when he resigned his living on account of his advancing years which precluded his coping satisfactorily with the population swelling to 3,366 souls, owing to the opening of coal mines in the parish. In 1888, as already intimated, he was associated along with myself in the collection of Devon and Cornish folk songs.
When he resigned the incumbency of Thurnscoe, he retired to Oxford, where, in his declining years, he might, at his leisure, dip into those store houses of classical and musical literature in which his soul delighted.
Three days before Christmas, 1901, a slight stroke of paralysis gave warning of possibly serious mischief. A sudden and fatal collapse ensued on S. John's Day, without further warning. He was laid to rest at Oxford on New Year's Eve. An inscription in the Vestry wall at Thurnscoe, was cut by one who was in Mr. Sheppard's choir for nearly forty years before his death. "Pray for the peace of Henry Fleetwood Sheppard, Rector of this Parish Church, 1868-1898, who went to rest, December 27th, 1901, aged 77 years."
Mr. Daniel Radford, of Mount Tavy, was an enthusiastic lover of all that pertained to his county. He knew that a number of traditional songs and ballads still floated about, and he saw clearly that unless these were at once collected, they would be lost irretrievably, and he pressed on me the advisability of making a collection, and of setting about it at once. I began to do so in 1888, and continued at it, working hard for twelve years, assisted by Mr. Sheppard and Mr. Bussell. Mr. Radford was one for whom I entertained the deepest affection, inspired by his high character; and I knew that what he judged to be advisable should be undertaken in no perfunctory way.
Mr. Radford died January 3rd, 1900, at the age of seventy-two, and was buried in Lydford churchyard. The beautiful rood-screen in the church has been erected by his sons to his memory.
In the collection, the music initialed H.F.S. has the accompaniment arranged for the piano by Mr. Sheppard, that initialed C.J.S. by Mr. C.J. Sharp; that F.W.B. by Dr. Bussell.
No 1 BY CHANCE IT WAS
H.F.S.
[Listen] [XML] [Note]
1
By chance it was I met my love,It did me much surprise, Down by a shady myrtle grove,Just as the sun did rise. The birds they sang right gloriously,And pleasant was the air; And there was none, save she and I,Among the flowers fair.
2
In dewy grass and green we walk'd,She timid was and coy; "How can'st thou choose but pity me,My pretty pearl, my joy? How comes it that thou stroll'st this way?Sweet maiden, tell me true, Before bright Phœbus' glittering rayHas supped the morning dew?"
3
"I go to tend the flocks I loveThe ewes and tender lambs, That pasture by the myrtle grove,That gambol by their dams; There I enjoy a pure contentAt dawning of the day," Then, hand in hand, we lovers wentTo see the flock at play.
4
And as we wended down the road,I said to her, "Sweet Maid, Three years I in my place abodeAnd three more must be stayed. The three that I am bound so fast,O fairest wait for me. And when the weary years are pastThen married we will be."
5
"Three years are long, three times too long,Too lengthy the delay." O then I answered in my song,"Hope wastes them quick away. Where love is fervent, fain and fast,And knoweth not decay. There nimbly fleet the seasons pastAccounted as one day."
No 2 THE HUNTING OF ARSCOTT OF TETCOTT
C.J.S.
[Listen] [XML] [Note]
1
In the month of November, in the year fifty-two, Three jolly Fox-hunters, all Sons of the Blue, They rode from Pencarrow, not fearing a wet coat, To take their diversion with Arscott of Tetcott.Sing fol-de-rol, lol-de-rol, la-de, heigh-ho!Sing fol-de-rol, lol-de-rol, la-de, heigh-ho!
2
The day-light was dawning, right radiant the morn, When Arscott of Tetcott he winded his horn; He blew such a flourish, so loud in the hall, The rafters re-sounded, and danced to the call.Sing fol-de-rol, &c.
3
In the kitchen the servants, in kennel the hounds, In the stable the horses were roused by the sounds, On Black-Bird in saddle sat Arscott, "To day I will show you good sport, lads, Hark! follow, away!"Sing fol-de-rol, &c.
4
They tried in the coppice, from Becket to Thorn, There were Ringwood and Rally, and Princess and Scorn; Then out bounded Reynard, away they all went, With the wind in their tails, on a beautiful scent.Sing fol-de-rol, &c.
5
"Hark, Vulcan!" said Arscott, "The best of good hounds! Heigh Venus!" he shouted, "How nimbly she bounds! And nothing re-echoes so sweet in the valley, As the music of Rattler, of Fill-pot, and Rally."Sing fol-de-rol, &c.
6
They hunted o'er fallow, o'er field and on moor, And never a hound, man or horse would give o'er. Sly Reynard kept distance for many a mile, And no one dismounted for gate or for stile.Sing fol-de-rol, &c.
7
"How far do you make it?" said Simon, the Son, "The day that's declining will shortly be done." "We'll follow till Doom's day," quoth Arscott. Before They hear the Atlantic with menacing roar.Sing fol-de-rol, &c.
8
Thro' Whitstone and Poundstock, St. Gennys they run, As a fireball, red, in the sea set the sun. Then out on Penkenner—a leap, and they go, Full five hundred feet to the ocean be-low.Sing fol-de-rol, &c.
9
When the full moon is shining as clear as the day, John Arscott still hunteth the country, they say; You may see him on Black-Bird, and hear, in full cry The pack from Pencarrow to Dazard go by.Sing fol-de-rol, &c.
10
When the tempest is howling, his horn you may hear, And the bay of his hounds in their headlong career; For Arscott of Tetcott loves hunting so well, That he breaks for the pastime from Heaven—or Hell.Sing fol-de-rol, &c.
No 3 UPON A SUNDAY MORNING
H.F.S.
[Listen] [XML] [Note]
1
Upon a Sunday morning, when Spring was in its prime, Along the Church-lane tripping, I heard the Church-bells chime,And there encountered Reuben, astride upon the stile, He blocked the way, so saucy, upon his lips a smile.
2
Upon a Sunday morning, there came a rush of bells, The wind was music-laden, in changeful fall and swells;He would not let me over, he held, he made me stay, And promise I would meet him again at close of day.
3
Upon a Sunday evening, the ringers in the tower, Were practising their changes, they rang for full an hour;And Reuben by me walking, would never let me go, Until a Yes I answered, he would not take a No.
4
Again a Sunday morning, and Reuben stands by me, Not now in lane, but chancel, where all the folks may see.A golden ring he offers, as to his side I cling, O happy Sunday morning, for us the Church-bells ring.
No 4 THE TREES THEY ARE SO HIGH
C.J.S.
[Listen] [XML] [Note]
1
All the trees they are so high,The leaves they are so green, The day is past and gone, sweet-heart,That you and I have seen.It is cold winter's night,You and I must bide alone:Whilst my pretty lad is youngAnd is growing.
2
In a garden as I walked,I heard them laugh and call; There were four and twenty playing there,They played with bat and ball.O the rain on the roof,Here and I must make my moan:Whilst my pretty lad is youngAnd is growing.
3
I listened in the garden,I looked o'er the wall; Amidst five and twenty gallants thereMy love exceeded all.O the wind on the thatch,Here and I alone must weep:Whilst my pretty lad is youngAnd is growing.
4
O father, father dear,Great wrong to me is done, That I should married be this day,Before the set of sun.At the huffle of the gale,Here I toss and cannot sleep:Whilst my pretty lad is youngAnd is growing.
5[4]
My daughter, daughter dear,If better be, more fit, I'll send him to the court awhile,To point his pretty wit.But the snow, snowflakes fall,O and I am chill as dead:Whilst my pretty lad is youngAnd is growing.
6[5]
To let the lovely ladies knowThey may not touch and taste, I'll bind a bunch of ribbons redAbout his little waist.But the raven hoarsely croaks,And I shiver in my bed;Whilst my pretty lad is youngAnd is growing.
7
I married was, alas,A lady high to be, In court and stall and stately hall,And bower of tapestry,But the bell did only knell,And I shuddered as one cold:When I wed the pretty ladNot done growing.
8
At seventeen he wedded was,A father at eighteen, At nineteen his face was white as milk,And then his grave was green;And the daisies were outspread,And buttercups of gold,O'er my pretty lad so youngNow ceased growing.
No 5 PARSON HOGG
C.J.S.
[Listen] [XML] [Note]
1
Mess Parson Hogg shall now maintain,The burden of my song, Sir, A single life, perforce he led,Of constitution strong, Sir.Sing, tally-ho! sing, tally-ho!Sing, tally-ho! why zounds, Sir,He mounts his mare, to hunt the hare,Sing tally-ho! the hounds, Sir.
2
And every day he goes to Mass,He first draws on the boot, Sir, That should the beagles chance to pass,He might join in pursuit, Sir!Sing tally-ho! &c.
3
That Parson little loveth prayer,And Pater, night and morn, Sir, For bell and book, hath little careBut dearly loves the horn, Sir.Sing tally-ho! &c.
4
S. Stephen's Day, this holy manHe went a pair to wed, Sir, When as the Service he beganPuss by the Church-yard sped, Sir.Sing tally-ho! &c.
5
He shut his book, Come on, he said,I'll pray and bless no more, Sir, He drew his surplice o'er his headAnd started for the door, SirSing tally-ho! &c.
6
In pulpit Parson Hogg was strong,He preached without a book, Sir, And to the point, and never long,And this the text he took, Sir,"O tally-ho! O tally-ho!Dearly beloved—zounds, SirI mount my mare to hunt the hare,Singing tally-ho! the hounds, Sir!"
No 6 “COLD BLOWS THE WIND, SWEET-HEART”
C.J.S.
[Listen] [XML] [Note]
1
"Cold blows the wind of night, sweet-heart,Cold are the drops of rain; The very first love that ever I had,In green-wood he was slain.
2
"I'll do as much for my true-loveAs any fair maiden may; I'll sit and mourn upon his graveA twelvemonth and a day."
3
A twelvemonth and a day being up,The ghost began to speak; "Why sit you here by my grave-sideFrom dusk till dawning break?"
4
"O think upon the garden, love,Where you and I did walk. The fairest flower that blossomed thereIs withered on its stalk."
5
"What is it that you want of me,And will not let me sleep? Your salten tears they trickle downMy winding sheet to steep."
6
"Oh I will now redeem the pledgeThe pledge that once I gave; A kiss from off thy lily white lipsIs all of you I crave."
7
"Cold are my lips in death, sweet-heart,My breath is earthy strong. If you do touch my clay-cold lips,Your time will not be long."
8
Then through the mould he heaved his head,And through the herbage green. There fell a frosted bramble leaf,It came their lips between.
9
"Now if you were not true in word,As now I know you be, I'd tear you as the withered leaves,Are torn from off the tree.
10
"And well for you that bramble-leafBetwixt our lips was flung. The living to the living hold,Dead to the dead belong."
No 7 THE SPRIG OF THYME
C.J.S.
[Listen] [XML] [Note]
1
In my garden grew plenty of Thyme,It would flourish by night and by day; O'er the wall came a lad, he took all that I had,And stole my thyme away.
2
My garden with heartsease was bright,The pansy so pied and so gay; One slipped through the gate, and alas! cruel fate,My heartsease took away.
3
My garden grew self-heal and balm,And speedwell that's blue for an hour, Then blossoms again, O grievous my pain!I'm plundered of each flower.
4
There grows in my garden the rue,And Love-lies-a-bleeding droops there, The hyssop and myrrh, the teazle and burr,In place of blossoms fair.
5
The willow with branches that weep,The thorn and the cypress tree, O why were the seeds of such dolorous weeds,Thus scattered there by thee?
