Cecil James Sharp

“ The folk-carol defies imitation. A skilled musician, saturated in the literature of his country's folk-music might, conceivably, make a folk-song without betraying himself; but it seems impossible that he could imitate a popular carol and escape detection.
There is, then, every reason why we should do all that is possible, while there is yet time, to collect and publish our traditional carols; for in them we have a unique possession, a national heritage of inestimable worth. ”

“ But this is surely to handicap the folksong needlessly and to its detriment. For just as it takes an artist to appraise the value of a picture out of its frame, so its is only the exert who can extract the foll flavor from an unharmonised melody. Musically we live in a harmonic age, where every one, consciously or subconsciously, thinks in chords; when even the man in the street is under the influence—if only he knew it—of the underlying harmonies of the popular air he is whistling. ”

“ A few years later, with the passing of the last survivors of the peasant class, it would have been quite impossible to have recovered anything of real value, and the products of a great peasant art would have been irrevocably lost. It may be thought that, owing to the late hour at which the interest in our folk-music came ultimately to be aroused, it is but a shrunken harvest that has been garnered. ”

“ The Queen of Glory.
2⁠Joseph took Mary
In the orchard wood,
Where there were apples, plums, cherries,
As red as any blood.
3⁠Then bespoke Mary,
So meek and so mild:
Get me some cherries
For my body's bound with child. ”

“ The opponents of this school, however, impressed by the fact that the essential characteristics of the folksong—its freshness, spontaneity, naturalness, and unconventionality—are the very qualities which are conspicuously absent from the popular song-music of the past, maintain that folksongs are the products not of the individual, but of a people or community, and that we are indebted to the process of oral tradition not merely for preserving them, but for moulding, developing, and, in a sense, creating them as well. ”

“ COME ALL YOU TRUE GOOD CHRISTIANS.
1⁠Come all you true good Christians,
That liveth here on earth,
O salutate the morning
Of our Blessed Saviour's birth.
⁠This is the happy morning!
⁠This is the blessed morn!
⁠To save us all from ruin
⁠The Son of God was born. ”

“ Surely, it would be wiser to limit ourselves in our accompaniments to those harmonies which are as independent of “period” as the tunes themselves, for example, those of the diatonic genus, which have formed the basis and been the mainstay of harmonic music throughout its history, and upon which musicians of every age and of every school have, in greater or less degree, depended; and further, seeing that the genuine folk-air never modulates, never wavers from its allegiance to one fixed tonal centre, to avoid modulation, or use it very sparingly. ”

“ The Blessed Virgin Mary
Unto the Lord did pray.
O we wish you the comfort and tidings of joy!⁠
3⁠God bless the ruler of this house,
And long on may he reign,
Many happy Christmases
He live to see again! ”

“ The careful preservation of its folk-music is to a nation a matter of the highest import. Art, like language, is but a method of human expression, due to the development and specialization of qualities that are natural and inborn. ”

“ THE VIRGIN UNSPOTTED.
1⁠The Virgin unspotted the Prophets foretold
Should bring forth a Saviour, which now you behold,
To be our Redeemer, from death, hell and sin,
Which Adam's transgressions involved us in. ”

“ If, therefore, it is to folfil this fonction efficiently, it must never be divorced from, but must always faithfully reflect, those qualities which are peculiar to the nation from which it proceeds. A nation’s music, for instance, must, at every stage of its development, be closely related to those spontaneous musical utterances which are the outcome of a purely natural instinct, and which proceed, it will always be found, from those of the community who are least affected by extraneous educational influences—that is, from the folk. ”

“ The hills and rocks did rend,
⁠The mountains did divide.
10⁠The heavens themselves grew very dark,
⁠The moon forsook her light;
And for three hours in the day
⁠It was a dismal sight.
11⁠The earth did tremble and quake,
⁠And graves did open wide;
Dead men's ghosts walked up and down
⁠In a frightful manner beside. ”

“ For here we have scores of melodies which, although cast in scales long since discarded by the art-musician, nevertheless throb with the pulse of life and make a strong appeal to modern musical taste and feeling. ”

“ Remember Christ our Saviour
Was born on Christmas Day
To save poor souls from Satan's power,
That long have gone astray—
Which brings tidings of comfort and joy,
⁠Joy and joy,
Which brings tidings of comfort and joy. ”

“ One of the best and oldest examples is “A woman’s work is never done,” reproduced in Ashton’s Century of Ballads (p. 20) . I have collected several songs that harp on the same theme, two of which are printed respectively in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society (volume v, p. 65) , and Folk-Songs from Various Counties (No. 10) .
The tune, which is in the Dorian mode, is a fine example of the rollicking folk-air. ”

“ When from sin He set us free
All for to gain our liberty.
3⁠Now sin depart, behold His grace,
Everlasting life comes in its place,
And soon we shall its terror see
And poor and rich must conquered be. ”

“ The tune, which is quite different from the one given here, is clearly the invention of a contemporary composer, but there is no evidence to show whether or not the words were the production of a contemporary writer; they may have been traditional verses which happened to attract the attention of some musician. There is a certain air of reckless abandonment about them which seems to suggest a folk-origin, and they are, at any rate, far less obviously the work of a literary man than are the verses—apart from the refrain—of “I cannot eat.” ”

“ HE term "Carol" is not an easy one to define. The Rev. H. R. Bramley's definition—a kind of popular song appropriated to some special season of the ecclesiastical or natural year—is, perhaps, the best that has been devised; it is, at any rate, wide enough to embrace all the songs in this collection. Formerly there existed carols associated with Easter (e.g. "The Moon shines bright") and other festivals of the Church's year; but the carol of the present day is almost invariably connected with the season of Christmas. ”

“ The “vow” verse occurs in “Bonny Bee Hom,” a well-known Scottish ballad (Child, No. 92) .
The words in the text are virtually as I took them down from the singer. The tune is partly Mixolydian. The word “box” in the third stanza is used in the old sense, that is “to hurry.”
No. 24. The Unquiet Grave, or, Cold Blows the Wind
This ballad, of which I have collected a large number of variants, is widely known and sung by English folksingers. A Scottish version, “Charles Graeme,” is in Buchan’s Ancient Ballads and Songs; while several traditional versions of the words are printed by Child. ”

“ With our wassailing bowl we'll drink to thee.
6⁠Here's to our cow and to her long tail
Pray God send our master he never may fail
A bowl of strong beer; I pray you draw near,
And our jolly wassail it's then you shall hear.
⁠We'll drink to thee, drink to thee,
And our jolly wassail it's then you shall hear. ”

“ Child treats the ballad very exhaustively (English and Scottish Ballads, No, 100) . He gives a version from Motherwell’s MS., in which the curious line, “But a fig for all your land,” occurs. Shakspere uses the same expression, “A fig for Peter” (2 Henry VI, Act ii, Sc. 3) . Five verses of this ballad are given in Notes and Queries (Series 5, volume vii, p. 387) , “as heard sung years ago by a West Country fisherman.” As the late Mr. Hammond noted down more than one version in Dorset, the song has evidently taken root in the West of England, where all my versions were collected. ”

“ Into the pit of discontent,
Where wicked fiends they do torment.
22⁠The righteous need not fear to die
For they shall be with Christ on high;
Although afflicted here on earth,
They will be happy after death. ”

“ It will be noticed that all the Christian forms of the song stop at the number twelve. It has been suggested that the Hebrew version was purposely extended to thirteen, the unlucky number, in order that the Jew might be able to feel that with him thirteen was a holy and, therefore, lucky number.
Like many accumulative songs, “The Ten Commandments” is a most interesting one to listen to. The best folksingers combine their musical phrases in a different manner in each verse, and in so doing display no little ingenuity. ”

“ The younger, while playing, tosses her ball over a park-paling; the ball rolls away over the grass into a house and is seen no more. She is condemned to be hanged, and calls upon her father, mother, etc., for assistance, her lover finally procuring her release by producing the lost ball.
Child quotes a Cornish variant of the same story, communicated to him by Mr. Baring-Gould.
That the ballad is a very ancient one may be inferred from the peculiar form of its construction—sometimes called the “climax of relatives.” ”

“ To cleanse the world and ransom thee.
20⁠Although He died He lives again,
And with His Father now doth reign;
At His right hand He sits on high
And lives to all eternity.
21⁠He'll come again to judge the world ”

“ Suffice it to say that the writer is a stout upholder of the communal theory of origin; that he believes that the nature of the folksong and its history can be satisfactorily explained only on that hypothesis; that the most typical qualities of the folksong have been laboriously acquired during its journey down the ages, in the course of which its individual angles and irregularities have been rubbed and smoothed away, just as the pebble on the seashore has been rounded by the action of the waves ”

“ HE words in the text are given exactly as Mrs. Plumb sang them. I have collected no variants. The tune is a form of the well known "Dives and Lazarus" air (see "Come all you worthy Christian Men," Folk-Songs from Somerset, No. 88) .
Mrs. Plumb's lines, although they tell a complete story, are but a fragment of a very much longer carol, consisting of thirty stanzas, called "The Carnal and the Crane", printed in Sandys's Christmas Carols, Husk's Songs of the Nativity, and elsewhere. ”

“ In these several versions, the hero is variously styled Henry Martin, Robin Hood, Sir Andrew Barton, Andrew Bodee, Andrew Bartin, Henry Burgin, and Roberton.
Child suggests that “the ballad must have sprung from the ashes of ‘Sir Andrew Barton’ (Percy’s Reliques) , of which name ‘Henry Martin’ would be no extraordinary corruption.” The Rev. S. Baring-Gould, in his note to the ballad in Songs of the West, differs from this view and contends that the Percy version is the ballad “as recomposed in the reign of James I, when there was a perfect rage for re-writing the old historical ballads.” ”

“ VIII.⁠THE SINNERS' REDEMPTION.
THE SINNERS' REDEMPTION.
1⁠All you that are unto mirth inclined,
Consider well and do bear in mind
What our great God for us hath done
In sending His beloved Son. ”

“ Songs of the West (p. 12, 2d ed.) ; and English Traditional Songs and Carols (p. 50) . The words of the sixth stanza in the text refer to an ancient belief that a maiden betrothed to a man was pledged to him after his death, and was compelled to follow him into the spirit world unless she was able to perform certain tasks or solve certain riddles that he propounded. In this particular version the position is, of course, reversed, and it is the maiden who lies in the grave. ”

“ For the 18th century musician had other notions, and was little disposed to trouble himself with ethical considerations where the collecting of the people’s music was concerned. Fortunately, the present day collector has set up a very different standard, and has realized that his first and chief obligation is to record just what he hears, no more and no less, and that the aesthetic as well as the scientific value of his work depends wholly upon the truthfulness and accuracy of his transcriptions. ”

“ On Christmas Day all in the morning?
4⁠Christ and His Mother were in those ships,
Christ and His Mother were in those ships,
Christ and His Mother were in those ships
On Christmas Day all in the morning. ”

“ It has been necessary to make but one or two small alterations in the words.
Child (English and Scottish Ballads, volume i, p. 244) prints Buchan’s version and says: “This is a base born cousin of a pretty ballad known all over Southern Europe and elsewhere, and in especially graceful forms in France.”
“The French ballad generally begins with a young man’s announcing that he has won a mistress, and intends to pay her a visit on Sunday, or to give her an aubade. She declines his visit or his music. To avoid him she will turn, e.g. into a rose; then he will turn bee and kiss her. ”

“ These are not traditional or folk-carols but the elementary compositions of simple musicians, very possibly of those who in the old days were members of the Church bands. They are easily distinguished from the popular carol by the formal nature of the music and words, and also by the fact that many of them are written in parts. Some of these compositions are by no means without merit. The melodies, if not inspired, are usually strong and sincere, and, plainly, the expression of genuine feeling. ”

“ The Irish broadside is a Masonic song in nine stanzas beginning thus:
Come all you Craftsmen that do wish
To propagate the grand design,
Come, enter into our high temple
And learn the art that is divine.
The last two stanzas given me at Ham Street are not in the broadside.
This carol is, and has been for many years, annually sung at Christmas in Ham Street and the neighbouring villages by a party of male carol singers. I have not found or heard of it elsewhere; nor can I connect the air, which is a strong one, with any other English folk-tune.
No. 17. THE LITTLE ROOM.
Sung by Mr. ”

“ Artistically, then, it will, I think, be found that the most effective treatment to accord to the folksong is to sing it as simply and as straight-forwardly as possible, and, while paying the closest attention to the clear enunciation of the words and the preservation of an even, pleasant tone, to forbear, as far as may be, from actively and deliberately attempting to improve it by the introduction of frequent changes of time, crescendos, diminuendoes, and other devices of a like character. ”

“ That the mode has always been, and is still, his natural vehicle of melodic expression, and that it should not, therefore, be regarded in any way as evidence of antiquity, is shown by the manner in which the folksinger will frequently translate into on or other of the modes the “composed” songs which he takes into his repertory. The model character of so many folksongs has no doubt brought this question very prominently before musicians. ”

“ And all the bells on earth did ring
For joy our Saviour Christ was born
On Christmas Day in the morning.
AS I SAT BY MY OLD COTTAGE DOOR.
(ALTERNATIVE WORDS TO "AS I SAT ON A SUNNY BANK," SECOND VERSION) . ”

“ Thirteen divine attributes, twelve tribes, eleven stars, ten commandments, nine months preceding child-birth, eight days preceding circumcision, seven days in the week, six books of the Mishnah, five books of the Law, four matrons, three patriarchs, two tables of the covenant; but One is our God, who is over the heavens and the earth. ”