Chapter X: Part II: C.j.s (4)

45. THE MOLE CATCHER. Taken down from J. Hockin, South Brent, by H. Fleetwood Sheppard in 1888. The original words were very gross, and I did not note them. In the British Museum is an early Garland, and in the list of contents on the cover is "The Mole Catcher," but the song has been torn out, probably for the same reason that prevented me from taking it down. All I copied was the beginning of the song. I have supplemented this with fresh words.

46. THE KEENLY LODE. Mr. Bussell and I spent a week in 1894 at the Lugger Inn, Fowey, collecting songs. We met there one day an old miner, who asked us if we knew "The Keenly Lode," and on our saying that we did not, he gave us a long song on mining, that, however, lacked point. I have therefore re-composed the song. The air is that employed for "The Crocodile," an extravagant ballad, which has been published by Miss Broadwood in her "County Songs." Her tune is practically the same as ours, but there are some differences. "The Crocodile" is a very popular ballad among old song-men, but no one would care to sing it in a drawing-room or at a concert, because it is vastly silly.

"A Keenly Lode" is a lode that promises well. A "Bâll" is a mine in Cornish. In Cornwall every old man is termed "Uncle."

We have taken down "The Meat Pie" to the same air.

47. MAY DAY CAROL. Melody and words noted down a good many years ago by J.S. Cayzer, Esq. It was sung, till of late years, in my neighbourhood, where a bunch of flowers at the end of a stick was carried about by children. It was customary in England for a lover on May morning to take a green bough to the house of the beloved. If she opened the door and took it in, this was a token of acceptance. At the Puritan epoch this custom was altered, and the song was converted into a carol with a moral to it, see "Notes and Queries," Third Series, ix. p. 380; Hone's "Every Day Book," 1826, i. p. 567; Chambers' "Book of Days," i. p. 578. Herrick refers to the custom of youths bringing their May bushes to the maids of their choice:--

"A deale of youth ere this is come
Back, and with white thorn laden home,
Some have dispatched their cakes and cream,
Before that we have left to dream."

The melody is a very early one in the Dorian mode, and resembles that of the carol, "The Moon shines bright," Broadwood's "County Songs," p. 108. The carol is still sung in Cornwall.

48. THE LOVERS' TASKS. This very curious song belongs, as I was told, in Cornwall, to a sort of play that was wont to be performed in farmhouses at Christmas. One performer, a male, left the room, and entered again singing the first part. A girl, seated on a chair, responded with the second part. The story was this. She had been engaged to a young man who died. His ghost returned to claim her. She demurred to this, and he said that he would waive his claim if she could perform a series of tasks he set her. To this she responded that he must, in the first place, accomplish a set of impossible tasks she would set him. Thus was he baffled.

"In all stories of this kind," says Professor Child, "the person upon whom a task is imposed stands acquitted if another of no less difficulty is devised which must be performed first."

This ballad and dramatic scene corresponds with that in "Cold blows the wind" (No. 6). There, in the original, the ghost desires to draw the girl underground, when she is seated on his grave. She objects, and he sets her a task--

"Go fetch me a light from dungeon deep,
Wring water from a stone,
And likewise milk from a maiden's breast,
That never babe had none."

She answers the requirement--

"She stroke a light from out a flint,
An icebell squeezed she,
And likewise milk from a Johnnis' wort,
And so she did all three."

Icebell is icicle. By this means she was quit. In the version I have given I have altered this to suit the song for modern singing.

In "The Elfin Knight," Child's "British Ballads," No. 2, an elf appears to the damsel and sets her tasks. If she cannot accomplish these, she must accompany him to the elf world. Here we have a substitution of a fairy for a ghost.

In an Ulster Broadside in the British Museum (1162, k 5) we have a later substitution. A low-born gamekeeper gets a damsel of high degree into his power, and will not release her unless she can solve a series of riddles. This she does, and so makes her escape.

Of the Northumbrian ballad, "Lay the Bent to the Bonny Broom," Child, No. 1, there are two versions. In one given by Miss Mason, "Nursery Rhymes and Country Songs," a stranger comes to the door of a house where are three sisters, and demands that one shall follow him or answer a series of riddles. Then ensues a contest of wit, and the girl escapes the obligation of following the mysterious stranger. Who he is is not ascertained. In the other version it is different; he is a knight, and he offers to marry the girl who can solve his riddles. The youngest sister effects this, so he marries her. It is the same in the corresponding Cornish ballad of "Genefer Gentle and Rosemarie," originally given by Gilbert in his "Cornish Christmas Carols," 2nd ed., p. 65, and reprinted by Child.

To the same category belongs the song, "Go no more a-rushing, Maids, in May," that we have taken down from several singers, and which is given as well by Miss Mason, and by Chappell, i. p. 158, where the task is to solve riddles--

"I'll give you a chicken that has no bone,
I'll give you a cherry without a stone,
I'll give you a ring that has no rim,
I'll give you an oak that has no limb."

The solution is--

"When the chicken is in the egg it has no bone,
When the cherry is in bloom it has no stone,
When the ring is a-melting it has no rim,
When the oak is in the acorn it has no limb."

But the story about the setting of the puzzle has fallen away.

We did obtain a ballad in Cornwall about the ghost visiting the damsel and demanding that she should keep her engagement, but the metre was not the same as that of the "Lovers' Tasks."

Apparently at some remote period a maiden who was pledged to a man was held to belong to him after he was dead, and to be obliged to follow her lover into the world of spirits, unless she could evade the obligation by some clever contrivance. When this idea fell away, either an elf was substituted or a man of low birth, or else the whole story was dropped; or, again, it was so altered that a knight was put in the place of the ghost, and it became the privilege of the shrewd girl who could answer the riddles to be taken as his wife.

The setting of hard tasks occurs in German folk-tales, as in "Rumpelstiltskin," where the girl has to spin straw into gold.

In the "Gesta Romanorum," ed. Osterley, p. 374, one of the most popular collections of stories in the Middle Ages, is a corrupt reminiscence of the tale. A king delayed to take a wife till he could find one sagacious enough to make him a shirt without seam out of a scrap of linen three inches square. She retorts that she will do this when he sends her a vessel in which she can do the work. Jacques de Voragine wrote his "Golden Legend" in or about 1260. In that he tells this tale. A bishop was about to succumb to the blandishments of the devil in female form, when a pilgrim arrived. Either the damsel or the palmer must leave, and which it should be was to be determined by the solution of riddles. The pilgrim solved two. Then the fiend in female form asked: "How far is it from heaven to earth?" "That you know best, for you fell the whole distance," replied the palmer, and the fiend vanished. Then the pilgrim revealed himself as St. Andrew, to whom the bishop had a special devotion.

The classic tale of [OE]dipus and the Sphinx will be remembered in connection with delivery from death by solving riddles. In Norse mythology we have the contest in conundrums between Odin and the giant Vafthrudnir. The Rabbis tell of the Queen of Sheba proving Solomon with hard questions, which are riddles.

The historians of Tyre, as Josephus informs us, recorded that an interchange of riddles went on constantly between Solomon and Hiram, each being under an engagement to pay a forfeit of money for every riddle that he could not solve. Solomon got the best of Hiram, till Hiram set a Tyrian boy to work, who both solved the riddles of Solomon, and set others which Solomon could not answer. We have a later version of this story in the ballad of King John and the Abbot of Canterbury, who, unable to solve the king's riddles, set his cowherd to do this, and he accomplished it successfully.

We took down the ballad and air from Philip Symonds of Jacobstow, Cornwall, also from John Hext, Two Bridges, and from James Dyer of Mawgan. The burden, "And every grove rings with a merry antine," is curious; _antine_ is antienne--anthem. In "Gammer Gurton's Garland," 1783, the burden is "Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme." In one of Motherwell's MSS. it stands, "Every rose grows merry wi' thyme." These are attempts made to give sense where the meaning of the original word was lost.

In _Folk-Song Journal_, vol. i. p. 83, is a version from Sussex: "Sing Ivy, Sing Ivy."

49. LULLABY. Noted by me from recollection, as sung by a nurse, Anne Bickle of Bratton Clovelly, about 1842. James Olver of Launceston also knew the tune. The words I have re-composed to the best of my ability.

50. THE GIPSY COUNTESS. The melody of the first part from James Parsons, that of the second from John Woodrich. Versions also from Peter Cheriton, shoemaker, Oakford, near Tiverton; William Setter and George Kerswell, Two Bridges, Dartmoor. Robert Browning composed on this theme his poem, "The Flight of the Duchess," having heard a beggar woman sing the ballad. Mrs. Gibbons told me she heard the whole ballad sung by her nurse in Cornwall, about 1830.

The Scottish version of the ballad is that of "Johnny Faa," in Allan Ramsay's "Tea-Table Miscellany," 1724, from which it passed into all collections of Scottish songs. Allan Ramsay's version turns on a story--utterly unhistorical--that Lady Jean Hamilton, married to the grim Covenanter, John, Earl of Cassilis, fell in love with, and eloped with, Sir John Faa of Dunbar, who came to the castle disguised as a gipsy along with some others. She was pursued, and Faa and his companions were hung. No such an event took place. The Scotch are wont to take an old ballad, give it local habitation and name, and so make it out to be purely Scottish. My impression is that this was an old English ballad dealt with by Ramsay. It may have been so adapted for political purposes, as a libel on Lady Cassilis, who was the mother of Bishop Burnet's wife. An Irish form of the ballad in the British Museum (1162, k 6). For a full account of the "Johnny Faa" ballad, see Child's "English and Scottish Ballads," No. 200. He is of opinion that the English ballad is taken from the Scottish. I think the reverse is the case. Parsons sang right through without division of parts. I have made the division, so as to allow of the use of both airs; but actually the second is a modern corruption of the first, and is interesting as showing how completely a melody may undergo transformation. Mr. Sharp has given a Somersetshire version of the ballad in his "Folk Songs from Somerset," No. 9.

51. THE GREY MARE. The melody and a fragment of the song were taken down from J. Hockin, South Brent, and again from James Olver. Neither could recall all the words. There are two forms of the ballad on Broadsides. Both are printed by Mr. Kidson in his "Traditional Tunes." Mr. Sheppard recast the words.

52. THE WRECK OFF SCILLY. Words and melody from James Parsons. The ballad as sung consisted of seven verses. Broadside by Catnach. The last verse in this is nonsense, and I have re-written this verse. Under the title "The Rocks of Scilly," it occurs, in twenty-two verses, in "The Sailor's Tragedy," Glasgow, 1802.

53. HENRY MARTYN. Words and melody from Roger Luxton, Halwell. Again, from Matthew Baker, James Parsons, and from a shepherd on Dartmoor. The versions slightly differed, as far as words went. In one, Henry Martyn receives his death-wound; in another, it is the king's ship that is sunk by the pirate.

Mr. Kidson has printed two versions of the song in his "Traditional Tunes," from Yorkshire sources. Miss Broadwood has also collected it, _Folk-Song Journal_, vol. i. p. 162, in Sussex.

Henry Martyn is a corruption of Andrew Barton. In 1476, a Portuguese squadron seized a richly laden ship, commanded by John Barton, in consequence of which letters of reprisal were granted by James IV. to the three sons, Andrew, Robert, and John, and these were renewed in 1506. Hall, in his "Chronicle," under 1511, says that King Henry VIII. being at Leicester, tidings reached him that Andrew Barton so stopped the king's ports that the merchant vessels could not pass out, and he seized their goods, pretending that they were Portuguese. Sir Edward Howard, Lord High Admiral, and Sir Thomas Howard were sent against him. Their two ships were separated, but a fight ensued, in which Andrew was wounded, and his vessel, the _Lion_, was taken. He died of his wounds.

The ballad was re-composed in the reign of James I., and this is published in Percy's "Relicks" and in Evans' "Old Ballads." For an account of Sir Andrew Barton, see Child's "English and Scottish Ballads," No. 167. The ballad in full in Percy's MS. book is in sixty-four stanzas. Our form of the ballad is probably earlier, but it is incomplete. I have added the last verse to give a finish to the story. The tune is in the Æolian mode.

54. PLYMOUTH SOUND. Melody taken down from Roger Luxton to a song of this name. There are three songs that go by the title of "Plymouth Sound" on Broadsides, by Keys, of Devonport, and by Such; but all are coarse and undesirable. I have therefore written fresh words to this delicious air.

55. THE FOX. In the early part of last century this song was sung at all harvest suppers in the West of England. It is known elsewhere, but not to the same tune. A version of "The Fox" in the tenth volume of "Notes and Queries," 1854, is spoken of as "an old Cornish Song." In "Gammer Gurton's Garland," _circ._ 1783, is one verse of the song. It occurs in "The Opera, or Cabinet of Song," Edinburgh, 1832. Halliwell, in his "Nursery Rhymes," Percy Soc., 1842, gives a fuller version than ours. He begins--

"The fox and his wife they had a great strife,
They never eat mustard in all their life;
They eat their meat without fork or knife,
And loved to be picking a bone, e-no!"

In a collection of songs in the British Museum is the ballad on a Broadside by Harkness of Birmingham. It begins--

"The fox went out of a moon-shiny night,
When the moon and the stars they shined so bright;
I hope, said the Fox, we'll have a good night,
When we go to yonder town, O!
Mogga, mogga, Reynard.
The wheel it goes round, and we'll tally-ho th' hounds,
And I wish I was through the town, O!"

The tune we give was taken down from James Parsons. There were two other airs to which it was sung in other parts of England. These I give--

[Music: The Fox, II.]

[Music: III.]

56. FURZE BLOOM. The melody from Roger Luxton to the words of the ballad, "Gosport Beach," which could not possibly be inserted here. I have accordingly written fresh words to it, embodying the folk-saying in Devon and Cornwall--

"When the Furze is out of bloom,
Then Love is out of tune."

57. THE OXEN PLOUGHING. This song was known throughout Devon and Cornwall at the beginning of the 19th century. It went out of use along with the oxen at the plough. We found every old singer had heard it in his boyhood, but none could recall more than snatches of the tune and some of the words. We were for three years on its traces, always disappointed. Then we heard that there was an old man at Liskeard who could sing the song through. Mr. Sheppard and I hastened thither, to find that he had been speechless for three days, and that his death was hourly expected. One day I found an old white-headed and white-bearded man cutting ferns in the hedges at Trebartha in Cornwall. His name was Adam Landry. We got into conversation. I had heard he was a singer, and I asked after this especial song. He knew it. I sat down among the cut fern and learned it from him, singing it over and over till I had it by heart, and then drove home eighteen miles, warbling it the whole way, and went to my piano and fixed it. Later we found a labouring man, Joseph Dyer, at Mawgan-in-Pyder, who could sing the song through.

Mr. Sharp has also taken this down note for note in North Devon from an old farmer, Mr. Lake of Worlington, who remembered the use of oxen ploughing.

A very similar folk-song is found in France, with its refrain, naming the oxen--

"Aronda, Vironda,
Charbonné, Maréchaô,
Motet et Roget,
Mortaigne et Chollet,
Ho! ho! ho! ho! ho! mon mignon,
He! he! he! he! he! he! mon valet."

See George Sand's account of the song in "Le mare au diable," c. 2; Tiersot, _op. cit._, p. 157.

58. FLORA, THE LILY OF THE WEST. Two melodies have been noted down to this ballad, one from Matthew Baker, the old cripple on Lew Down, the other from Samuel Fone. The first is identical with one obtained in Yorkshire by Mr. Kidson.

The words are on Broadsheets by Such, Fortey, Barr of Leeds, etc.

In the original the lover betrayed by Flora stabs to the heart the "lord of high degree" who has supplanted him--

"I walked up to my rival with a dagger in my hand,
And seized him from my false love, and bid him boldly stand;
Then, mad with desperation, I swore I'd pierce his breast,
And I was betrayed by Flora, the Lily of the West."

He is tried for murder, but "a flaw was in the indictment found," and he escapes the gallows. And the ballad winds up--

"Although she swore my life away, she still disturbs my rest,
I must ramble for my Flora, the Lily of the West."

I have thought it well to cut out the murder and the trial.

The ballad has clearly an Irish origin, what air is used for it in Ireland I am unable to say. It has been generally accepted that the ending of a phrase on the same three notes is characteristic of Irish music. It is not more so than of English folk airs. "Flora, the Lily of the West" was wont to be sung annually at the Revel at St. Breward's on the Bodmin Moors, and can be traced back there to 1839. There Henry Hawken, sexton at Michaelstow, hard by, acquired it, and from him the first melody was taken down as well by the Rev. W.J. Wyon, vicar of St. Issey, in 1899.

59. THE SIMPLE PLOUGHBOY. This charming ballad was taken down, words and music, from J. Masters, Bradstone. The Broadside versions that were published by Fortey, Hodges, Taylor of Spitalfields, Ringham of Lincoln, and Pratt of Birmingham, are all very corrupt. The version of old Masters is given exactly as he sang it, and it is but one instance out of many of the superiority of the ballads handed down traditionally in the country by unlettered men, to those picked up from the ballad-mongers employed by the Broadside publishers.

A version of the song, "It's of a Pretty Ploughboy," is given in the _Folk-Song Journal_, vol. i. p. 132, as taken down in Sussex. The words are very corrupt, and they closely resemble those on Broadsides.

60. FAIR LADY PITY ME. Taken down from a labouring man at Exbourne. The melody is ancient and dates from the Tudor period. The words are a fragment from "The Noble Lord's Cruelty," "Roxburgh Ballads," ed. Ebsworth, vi. 681-3. Its date is before 1624. But that was to be sung to the tune, "Dainty come Thou to Me," which is in Chappell, ii. p. 517. A ballad, "The Four Wonders of the Land," printed by P. Brocksby, 1672-95, was set to the tune, "Dear Love Regard My Grief," which are the initial words of this song, and shows that already the long ballad had been broken up.

This song has already been given, arranged by Dr. Bussell, who took it down, in "English Minstrelsie," iv. p. 84.

61. THE PAINFUL PLOUGH. Words and melody from Roger Huggins, mason, Lydford. It is in reality a much longer song. Under the title of "The Ploughman's Glory" it runs to 25 verses. Bell gives 9 in his "Ballads of the English Peasantry." It is found on Broadsides. In the original it consists of a contention between a ploughman and a gardener as to which exercises the noblest profession. Our air is not the same as that to which the song is sung in the Midlands and south-east of England. Dr. Barrett gives the song in his "English Folk-Songs," No. 3, to a North Country air.

62. AT THE SETTING OF THE SUN. This very curious ballad has been taken down twice, from Samuel Fone by Mr. Sheppard, and again by Mr. Cecil Sharp from the singing of Louie Hooper and Lucy White at Hambridge, Somerset, to a different air. Fone had forgotten portions of the song. The man who mistakes his true love for a swan because she had thrown her apron over her head as a protection from the rain is tried at the assizes for the murder--

"In six weeks' time when the 'sizes came on,
Young Polly appeared in the form of a swan,
Crying Jimmy, young Jimmy, young Jimmy is clear,
He never shall be hung for the shooting of his dear."

And he is, of course, acquitted.

In Fone's version she appears in dream to her lover as a swan, and comforts him, but the sequel of the story he could not recall.

The ballad is found in a fragmentary condition in Kent--

"O cursed be my uncle for lendin' of a gun.
For I've bin' and shot my true love in the room of a swan."

And the apparition of the girl says--

"With my apron tied over me, I 'peared like unto a swan,
And underneath the green tree while the showers did come on."

This was heard in 1884, sung by a very old man at a harvest supper at Haverstall Doddington, near Faversham.

The transformation of the damsel into a swan stalking into the Court is an early feature, and possibly the ballad may be a degraded form of a very ancient piece.

This ballad, arranged as a song with accompaniment by Mr. Ferris Tozer, has been published by Messrs. Weeks.

Mr. Sharp has given the song to a different air in his "Folk-Songs from Somerset," No. 16.

63. ALL JOLLY FELLOWS THAT FOLLOW THE PLOUGH. This song is very generally known. We have picked up four variants of the tune. Miss Broadwood gives one from Oxfordshire and one from Hampshire, but hers lack the chorus. Mr. C. Sharp has also gathered three. He says: "I find that almost every singer knows it, the bad singers often know but little else. Perhaps it is for this reason that the tune is very corrupt, the words are almost always the same."

In the second verse we have the breakfast described as consisting of bread and cheese and stingo. In Miss Broadwood's version the breakfast consists of cold beef and pork; the drink is not specified.

64. THE GOLDEN VANITY. Taken down, words and air, from James Oliver. The ballad was printed as "Sir Walter Raleigh sailing in the Lowlands, showing how the famous ship called the _Sweet Trinity_ was taken by a false galley; and how it was recovered by the craft of a little sea-boy, who sunk the galley," by Coles, Wright, Vere, and Conyers (1648-80). In this it is said that the ballad is to be sung "to the tune of The Lowlands of Holland," and in it there is ingratitude shown to the poor sea-boy of a severe character. In this version there are fourteen verses. It begins--

"Sir Walter Raleigh has built a ship,
In the Netherlands.
And it is called the _Sweet Trinity_,
And was taken by the false Gallaly,
Sailing in the Lowlands."

It has been reprinted in Child, No. 286, as also the earliest form of the ballad from the Pepys Collection. By writing some of the words as "awa'" and "couldna'," it has been turned into a Scottish ballad. Under the form of "The Goulden Vanity," it is given with an air (of no value) in Mrs. Gordon's "Memoirs of Christopher North," 1862, ii. p. 317, as sung at a convivial meeting at Lord Robertson's, by Mr. P. Fraser of Edinburgh.

We obtained the same ballad at Chagford as "The Yellow Golden Tree." "Sir Walter Raleigh," says Mr. Ebsworth, in his introduction to the ballad in the "Roxburgh Ballads" (v. p. 418), "never secured the popularity, the natural affection which were frankly given to Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex. Raleigh was deemed arrogant, selfish, with the airs of an upstart, insolent to superiors, unconciliating with equals, and heartlessly indifferent to those in a lower position. The subject of the ballad is fictitious--sheer invention, of course. The selfishness and ingratitude displayed by Raleigh agreed with the current estimate. He certainly had a daughter."

In the ballad in the Pepys Collection the _Sweet Trinity_, a ship built by Sir Walter Raleigh, has been taken by a galley of a nationality not specified. He asks whether any seaman will take the galley and redeem his ship: the reward shall be a golden fee and his daughter. A ship-boy volunteers and with his auger bores fifteen holes in the galley and sinks her, and releases the _Sweet Trinity_. Then he swims back to his ship and demands his pay. The master will give golden fee but not his daughter. The ship-boy says, Farewell, since you are not so good as your word.

In the stall copy of the ballad, the master refuses to take the boy on board after he had sunk the galley, and threatens to shoot him, and the boy is drowned. Then he is picked up, is sewed in a cow-hide and thrown overboard.

Mr. Kidson has obtained no less than four different versions from sailors.

A version from Sussex is in _Folk-Song Journal_, vol. i. p. 104. Another in Miss Broadwood's "English County Songs." It is also in Ferris Tozer's "Sailors' Songs and Chanties." The black letter ballad of "Sir Walter Raleigh Sailing in the Lowlands low ... or the _Sweet Trinity_" was priced in Russell Smith's catalogue, £1, 5s.

65. THE BOLD DRAGOON. Words and melody taken down by W. Crossing, Esq., many years ago, from a labouring man on Dartmoor, now dead. The words were very corrupt. We took down the words and tune from Moses Cleve at Huckaby Bridge, Dartmoor. An early version of the words as "The Jolly Trooper," in "The Lover's Garland," N.D., but of the beginning of the 18th century. The original is too coarse for reproduction and is lengthy. I have condensed the ballad and softened it down. The press mark in the British Museum is 11,621, c 5.

66. TRINITY SUNDAY. Melody noted down by T.S. Cayzer, Esq., in 1849, at Post Bridge, from a moor man. The original words were unsuitable, a Broadside ballad of a murder.[32] I have written fresh words.

[Footnote 32: Printed on Broadside by Catnach as "Oxford City."]

In connection with this charming air, I will give Mr. Cayzer's account of taking it down in 1849, which he has kindly extracted for me from his diary:--"This air, together with 'As Johnny walked out' (No. 11), I got from Dartmoor; nor shall I soon forget the occasion. The scene was a lonely one (I think Two Bridges, but it may have been Post Bridge). It had been raining all day. There was not a book in the house, nor musical instrument of any kind, except two hungry pigs and a baby that was being weaned. Towards nightfall there dropped in several miners and shepherds, and I well remember how the appearance of these Gentiles cheered us. We soon got up a glorious fire--such a fire as peat only can make, and drew the benches and settles round. By the friendly aid of sundry quarts of cyder I, before long, gained the confidence of the whole circle, and got a song from each in turn; and noted down two that were quite new to me: no easy matter, considering that they were performed in a strange mixture of double bass and falsetto. The action with which they accompanied the singing was extremely appropriate. They always sing standing."

Many a similar evening have Mr. Sheppard, Mr. Bussell, and I spent in like manner over the peat fire with the burly, red-faced moor men and shepherds, standing to sing their quaint old songs, and very happy evenings they have been.

The same melody was taken down by Miss Wyatt Edgell from an old woman near Exeter, in 1891. The words sung to it related to the same Oxford Tragedy, but were a version different from the stall copy.

67. THE BLUE FLAME. Melody taken down by Mr. W. Crossing, from an old moor man, to "Rosemary Lane." Roger Luxton and James Parsons also sang "Rosemary Lane" to the same air. The words are objectionable. Moreover, in other parts of England, this Broadside song is always sung to one particular air. We therefore thought it well to put to our melody entirely fresh words.

It was a common belief in the West of England that a soul after death appeared as a blue flame; and that a flame came from the churchyard to the house of one doomed to die, and hovered on the doorstep till the death-doomed expired, when the soul of the deceased was seen returning with the other flame, also as a flame, to the churchyard.

68. STRAWBERRY FAIR. Melody taken down from James Masters. This is a very old song. It is found with music in "Songs and Madrigals of the 15th Century," published by the Old English Plain-Song Society, 1891. The ballad was recast "Kytt has lost her Key," which is given by Dr. Rimbault in his "Little Book of Songs and Ballads gathered from Ancient Music Books," 1851, p. 49. We have been forced to re-write the words, which were very indelicate. The air was used, in or about 1835, by Beuler, a comic song writer, for "The Devil and the Hackney Coachman"--

"Ben was a Hackney coachman sure,
Jarvey! Jarvey!--Here I am, your honour."

I have never found a singer who had any knowledge of Beuler's song, but all have heard "Strawberry Fair," and some men of seventy or eighty years of age say they learned it from their fathers.

69. THE COUNTRY FARMER'S SON. Taken down from James Woolrich, a labourer, at Broadwood Widger. The original ballad, "The Constant Farmer's Son," is found on a Broadside by Ross of Newcastle. I have re-written the song. The fine, robust tune belongs to the end of the 18th century. See _Folk-Song Journal_, i. p. 160.

70. THE HOSTESS' DAUGHTER. Taken down from J. Masters, Bradstone. The coarseness of the original words obliged me to re-write the song.

71. THE JOLLY GOSS-HAWK. Melody taken down from H. Westaway to "The Nawden Song," which begins--

"I went to my lady the first of May,
A jolly Goss-hawk and his wings were grey,
Come let us see who'll win my fair ladye--you or me."

To the 2nd of May is "a two twitty bird," then "a dushy cock," a "four-legged pig," "five steers," "six boars," "seven cows calving," "eight bulls roaring," "nine cocks crowing," "ten carpenters yawing," "eleven shepherds sawing," "twelve old women scolding." Mr. C. Sharp has taken it down in Somersetshire. A Scottish version in Chambers' "Popular Rhymes of Scotland," 1842; as "The Yule Days," a Northumbrian version; "The XII. days of Christmas," with air not like ours, in "Northumbrian Minstrelsy," Newcastle, 1882, p. 129.

A Breton version, "Gousper ou ar Ranad" in "Chansons Populaires de la Basse Bretagne," by Luzel, 1890, p. 94. The West of England song has got mixed up with the "Goss Hawk," another song. See "The Fond Mother's Garland," B.M. (11,621, c 5). A companion song to this is "The Bonny Bird," given further on in this collection, No. 106. The song, in Devonshire, goes by the name of "The Nawden Song."

72. THE SONG OF THE MOOR. The melody was taken down at Merrivale Bridge, Dartmoor, from a quarryman named Nankivel, commonly known as "Old Capul." To this air he sang a farcical ballad, "The Infant," quite unworthy of it. I have, accordingly, written fresh words to a really good swinging tune.

The original began as follows--

"O when I was an Infant, to London I did go,
Among the French and Spaniards my gallantry to show.
And when I reached the Eastern shore, I let my head hang down,
I tripped over Baganells (?) and never touched the ground.
Fal-de-ral-de, etc.

"So when I reached the Eastern shore, I met a giant high,
He lookèd down upon me, and bade me pass him by.
He challenged me to dance and sing, to whistle and to run,
I beat him out of all his wits, and kill'd him when I'd done.

"The people in amazement stood, to see what I had done,
They gave me silver plate, about a fifty ton.
I made myself a little box, about three acres square,
I filled it to the very top, with my bright silver ware."

And so on through a string of absurdities. It is apparently a modernised version of "The Jovial Broomman," by R. Climsall, published by R. Harper, 1635-1642. "Roxburgh ballads," ed. Chappell, i. p. 500.

73. ON A MAY MORNING SO EARLY. This melody belongs to the ballad "I'm Seventeen on Sunday." This begins--

"As I walked out one May morning,
One May morning so early,
O there I spied a fair pretty maid
All on the dew so pearly.
With a fa-la-la, with a fa-la-la,
All on the dew so pearly.

"O where are you going my fair pretty maid?
O where are you going my lambie?
Then cheerfully she answered me,
On an errand for my mammie.

"How old are you, my fair pretty maid?
How old are you, my honey?
Then cheerfully she answered me,
I'm seventeen on Sunday."

For good reasons we could not give the words as taken down, so Mr. Sheppard wrote fresh words to the tune. The ballad was obtained from Roger Huggins, Lydford, and from William Bickle, Bridestowe, but it is known and sung throughout Devon and Cornwall. The original ballad was altered by Burns to "The Waukrife Mammy" for Johnson's "Museum," iv. p. 210, and Allan Cuningham also arranged a song on the same theme, as the original was objectionable. Lyle gives it in his "Ballads," 1827, saying: "This ballad, in its original dress, at one time, from my recollection, was not only extremely popular, but a great favourite among the young peasantry of the West of Scotland. To suit the times, however, we have been necessitated to throw out the intermediate stanzas, as their freedom would not bear transcription, whilst the second and third have been slightly altered from the recited copy." An Irish version (re-written) to the Irish air, by Joyce, "Ancient Irish Music," 1873, No. 17. He says: "I cannot tell when I learned the air and words of this song, for I have known them as long as my memory can reach back. For several reasons [the original words] could not be presented to the reader."

Burns, when forwarding the ditty to Johnson, said of it: "I picked up this old song and tune from a country girl in Nithsdale; I never met with it elsewhere in Scotland." The words may be found on Broadsheets, printed by Such and by Bebbington, Manchester. Mr. Kidson has recovered several versions in Yorkshire, and one is given in the _Folk-Song Journal_, vol. i. p. 92, as taken down in Sussex, and two were in vol. ii. p. 9 noted down by Mr. Sharp in Somerset. Our tune is in the Dorian mode.

74. THE SPOTTED COW. Words and air from James Parsons, J. Helmore, H. Smith, and J. Woodrich. Mr. Sharp has also taken it down in N. Devon and in Somerset.

The earliest form of the words is found in a garland printed by Angus of Newcastle, B.M. (11,621, c 4). There are later Broadside versions. The words also in Fairburne's "Everlasting Songster," _circ._ 1825. Mr. Kidson gives the song in his "Traditional Tunes," p. 70, but to a melody different from ours. About 1760 Dr. Berg set the song, recast in a Scotch form: "As Jamie gang'd blithe his way along the banks of Tweed," to be sung at Ranelagh. As sung, the ballad consists of four lines in a stanza, and the two last are repeated; and it is in seven stanzas. To shorten the ballad I have made each stanza consist of six lines. Our tune is not that of Dr. Berg. But it is redolent of the art-music of the 18th or early 19th century, and hardly possesses the character of folk-made song. Still, it is very freely sung by old people in Devon and Somerset.

75. THREE JOVIAL WELSHMEN. Taken down from "Old Capul," Nankivel, Merrivale Bridge. The song is given in Halliwell's "Nursery Rhymes of England," 290. It is probably a very old ballad, for in a ballad, "Choice of Inventions," printed by F. Coles, 1646-74, in the Roxburgh Collection (ed. Chappell, i. p. 105), is given a pot-pourri of scraps, "several sorts of the figure three," and it begins--

"There were three men of Gotham, as I've heard say,
That needs would ride a hunting upon St. David's Day.
Through all the day they hunting were, yet no sport could they see,
Untill they spide an Owle as she sate on a tree.
The first man said 'twas a Goose, the second man said Nay,
The third man said 'twas a Hawke, but his Bells were falne away."

The tune to which it was to be sung was "Rock the Cradle, sweet John," for which, see Chappell, i. p. 189.

Another, and more modern version, is that of "The Three Jovial Huntsmen"--

"It's of three jovial huntsmen an' a hunting they did go;
An' they hunted, an' they hallo'd, an' they blew their horns also,"

which has been illustrated by Caldecott.

The original ballad is in "The Woody Chorister," B.M. (1162, e 2).

This is one of the ballads Mr. Incledon Johns heard sung on the outskirts of Dartmoor in 1830, mentioned in his book, already noticed, published in 1832.

A version, "Six Jovial Welshmen," is given in vol. i. p. 128, _Folk-Song Journal_, from Sussex. It runs--

"It's of six jovial Welshmen, six jovial men were they,
And they would all a hunting ride, upon St. David's Day.
Then fill each glass and let it pass, no sign of care betray,
We'll drink and sing, 'Long live the King!' upon St. David's Day."

"When crook-back'd Richard wore the crown, as regent of the land,
No policy could pull him down, nor his proud foe withstand.
A tribute he from them did seek, which they refused to pay,
And in their caps they wore a leek, upon St. David's Day.
Then fill each glass, and let it pass, etc."

This is probably a re-edition of the older song.

76. WELL MET, WELL MET, MY OWN TRUE LOVE. The words are a cento from the lengthy ballad of the "Carpenter's Wife," which, as we have taken it down, consists of twenty verses. The black letter Broadside, "The Carpenter's Wife," is a peculiarly interesting ballad. It is the story of one Jane Reynolds of Plymouth, who had plighted her troth to a seaman. As they were about to be married, he was pressed and carried off to sea. Three years later, news arrived that he was dead, and then she married a carpenter, and lived with him for five years, and bore him three children. At the end of seven years an evil spirit assumed the likeness of her dead lover, and appeared to her, and induced her to leave with him. He carried her off, and she was never seen again. The husband, in despair, hung himself. Such is the theme of a lengthy ballad in the Roxburgh Collection, ed. Chappell, iii. p. 200. There are copies as well in the Pepys and Ewing Collections. It was printed by F. Coles (1646-1674), Gilbertson (1654-1663), Vere (1640-1680), and W. Oney (1650-1702). It was a sorry composition.

Now, the traditional ballad, as compared with the printed ballad, is superior at every point. It begins abruptly with the address of the sailor to the carpenter's wife, without the long story that precedes his attempt to cajole her to elope. Moreover, there is in it no intimation that the tempter is an evil spirit in the form of the dead lover, and when she has eloped, she pines not for three, but for her one babe, whom she has deserted.

Thirteen of the verses of the traditional ballad are found in "The Rambler's Garland," B.M. (1162, c 2). A form closely resembling our Devon ballad is in Buchan's "Ballads of the North of Scotland," i. p. 214, but is longer, consisting of twenty-six stanzas. Kinloch, Motherwell, and Laidlaw have also portions of it. Laidlaw, in a letter to Scott, January 3, 1803, says of the ballad, as sung to him by Walter Grieve: "He likewise sung part of a very beautiful ballad which I think you will not have seen.... The tune is very solemn and melancholy, and the effect is mixed with a considerable proportion of horror." See Child, No. 243.

The printed ballad that is in the Roxburgh Collection is, I feel convinced, a clumsy re-writing of the earlier ballad, so as to convey a moral, as its title implies, "A Warning to Married Women." James Harris is the demon lover. In the traditional ballad, when the carpenter's wife has eloped, she falls into deep depression--

"I do not weep for your gold, she said,
Nor do I weep for your fee,
But by the masthead stands my baby dead,
And I weep, I weep for my dead babie....

"She had not a-been upon the seas
But six days of the week,
Before that she lay as cold as clay
And never a word, one word did speak.

"They had not a-been upon the seas
Of weeks but three and four,
But down to the bottom the ship did swim
And never was heard of, heard of more."

There is another ballad running on somewhat similar lines, "The Undutiful Daughter," who is in like manner enticed away; but the ship will not proceed, and lots are cast who is to be thrown overboard. The lot falls on the girl, and she is cast into the sea, but the body swims before the ship and reaches land first. This ballad we have taken down several times.

The last verse (six) I have added to make some sort of conclusion to the song.

What the air is to which the ballad is sung in Scotland I do not know.

77. POOR OLD HORSE. Words and melody from Matthew Baker. The song is given in Bell's "Ballads of the English Peasantry," p. 184, as sung by the mummers in the neighbourhood of Richmond, Yorkshire. He says: "The rustic actor who sings this song is dressed as an old horse, and at the end of every verse the jaws are snapped in chorus. It is a fine composition, and is now (1864) printed for the first time." This is not so; it has long existed on Broadside by Hodges of Seven Dials, and Such, etc. The Midland air of the song in Mason's "Nursery Rhymes and Country Songs," 1877. Mr. Kidston has obtained several versions of the song in Yorkshire and Lancashire. A fine setting was sung at the Folk-Song Competition at Kendal in 1903. It is given in _Folk-Song Journal_, vol. i. pp. 75 and 260.

In "Sailors' Songs and Chanties," Boosey & Co., the song is given under the title of "The Dead Horse." In Derbyshire, at Christmas, boys and young men were wont, and may be still are wont, to go about, one dressed as a horse, with a horse's skull in his hands or affixed to his head; then this song was sung by the attendants and money asked for the feeding of the beast, and the head was made to snap its jaws. The song is also given in Topcliff's "Melodies of the Tyne and Wear," N.D., but _circ._ 1815, and is also found on Broadsides by Such.

Mr. Sharp has given a version in his "Folk-Songs from Somerset," No. 27.

78. THE DILLY SONG. An almost endless number of versions of this song have been taken down, and have been sent to us. It is known throughout Cornwall, and is, indeed, still sung in the chapels. When a party of amateurs performed the "Songs of the West" in Cornwall, 1890, the Dilly Song always provoked laughter among the good folk at the back of the halls. This puzzled the performers, till they learned that folk laughed because this was their familiar chapel hymn. In the text I have given the version of the words with least of the religious element in them. Here are some of the other versions--

2. "God's own Son, or Christ's Natures"; or "The strangers o'er the wide world rangers"; or "The lily-white maids."

3. "Three is all eternity"; "Three are the Thrones." The strangers are probably the Wise Men from the East.

4. "The Gospel Preachers"; "The Evangelists."

5. "The Ferryman in the Boat"; "The Nimble Waiters."

6. "The Cherubim Watchers"; "The Crucifix"; "The Cherrybird Waiters."

7. "The Crown of Heaven"; "The Seven Stars."

8. "The Great Archangel"; "The Angels"; "The Daybreak."

9. "The Nine Delights," _i.e._ the Joys of Mary; "The Moonshine."

10. "The Commandments"; "Begin Again."

11. "The Eleven Disciples"; "They that go to Heaven."

There are similar verses in German and Flemish; a Scottish version in Chambers' "Popular Rhymes," 1842, p. 50. Also found in Brittany: Luzel, "Chansons Populaires," 1890, p. 88. There is a Mediæval Latin form, beginning "Unus est Deus." A Hebrew form is printed in Mendez: "Service for the First Night of the Passover," London, 1862; a Moravian form in Wenzig: "Slavischer Märchen-Schatz," 1857, p. 295. It is also sung in the Eifel, Schmitz: "Sitten u. Bräuche des Eifler Volkes," Trier, 1856, p. 113. A Greek form is in Sanders: "Volksleben der Neugriechen." See also: Coussemaker, "Chants populaires des Flamands," Gand, 1850; Villemarqué, Barzas Breis, 1846, and later editions.

The lily-white boys are probably the Gemini, or sign for Spring. In the "Queen-like Closet, or Rich Cabinet," 1681, are instructions for embroidering emblems of the months. "May is to be clothed in a robe of _white and green_, and his sign must be Gemini."

"The Ferryman in the Boat" is perhaps Charon. In other versions Five is the Dilly-bird, or the Dilly-hour, "when blooms the dilly-flower."

Some are obviously merely adopted as rhymes, as "six the crucifix."

In Cornwall and Devon the song goes by the name of "The Dilly Song." What the meaning of "Dilly" is must remain uncertain. Possibly it signifies the Festal Song (Welsh, _dillyn_, pretty, gay).

The song used to be sung by Eton boys. It was introduced by Sir Arthur Sullivan into "The Yeomen of the Guard"; he, I believe, heard it sung by a sailor. His melody bears a certain relationship to ours. The song requires to be sung by at least two persons, a questioner and the responder.

79. COUNTRY DANCE. This dance tune, called "The Mallard," because of some silly words that go to it relative to the gobbling up of a mallard. It begins--

"Oh, what have I ate, and what have I ate?
I have eaten the toe of a mallard.
Toe and toe, nevins and all,
And I have been to ballery allery,
And so good meat was the mallard."

The singer proceeds to eat the foot, then the leg, the thigh, the rump, the wing, the back, the breast, the neck, the head; and then the dance was concluded. A Breton version in Luzel, p. 80. I have written fresh words to the tune.

This tune is in the Dorian mode. As sung by J. Masters, the E was sharpened in the 3rd bar but flattened on the repetition of the same phase in the penultimate bar. Mr. Sheppard, when arranging the song, flattened the E throughout. It must be one thing or the other. Flattened throughout, it makes a charming melody, but the last flattened E was probably due to the singer's memory failing him in the latter part of the air, but serving him at the beginning of the tune. Mr. Sharp has accordingly retained the E natural throughout. The opening phrase is similar to the Plain-Song Easter Carol, "_O Filii et Filiæ_." This was a melody used in French folk-song for the welcoming in of spring. In fact, a May song. It forced its way into the service of the Church, and was adopted and used for the Easter Sequence. See Tiersot, _op. cit._, pp. 361, 391. It is certainly curious finding the same in Devonshire folk-music. Neither Mr. Sheppard nor I observed it; it was pointed out by Mr. Sharp.

80. CONSTANT JOHNNY. Words and melody taken down from Roger Luxton. It was a dialogue, and so Mr. Sheppard had arranged it. Such lover dialogues are and were very commonly sung in farmhouses. Ravenscroft gives one in broad Devonshire in his "Brief Discourse," 1614, entitled, "Hodge Trellindle and his Zweethart Malkyn." Our ballad seems to be based on "Doubtful Robin and Constant Nanny," _circ._ 1680, in the "Roxburgh Ballads."

These dialogue songs between a lover and his lass were very popular. Addison, in _The Guardian_ of 1713, gives snatches of a West Country ballad of this kind, and shows how vastly superior it is to the pastorals of Dresden china shepherds and shepherdesses of Pope and Philips.

81. THE DUKE'S HUNT. Words and melody taken from James Olver, again at Stoke Gabriel, again at Mary Tavy, again at Menheniot. This is a mere cento from a long ballad, entitled "The Fox Chase," narrating a hunt by Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham, in the reign of Charles II. It is in the Roxburgh Collection, and was printed by W. Oury, _circ._ 1650. The ballad is there said to be sung "to an excellent tune, much in request." We suspect that the melody we give is the original tune handed down traditionally, and never before published. Mr. Sharp has noted down the same song and melody from a singer at East Harptree, Somerset.

82. THE BELL RINGING. Words and air from William George Kerswell, Two Bridges, Dartmoor; sung also by James Down, blacksmith, Broadwood Widger. Broadbury Down is the highest ridge of land between Dartmoor and the Atlantic.