Cecil James Sharp

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is never a squire in Nottinghamshire
Dare bid bold Arthur stand.
Ritson gives a tune which, however, bears no resemblance to the Somerset air, in the text. Robin Hood is said to have been born in Locksley in Nottinghamshire about 1160, in the reign of Henry II. He was of noble blood, and his real name was Robert Fitzooth, of which Robin Hood is a corruption. He was commonly reputed to have been the Earl of Huntingdon, and it is possible that in the latter years of his life he may have had some right to the title. ”

“ Prior to that date the knowledge that folksongs existed in this country was confined to very few, and it was popularly assumed that the English peasant was the only one of his class in Europe who had failed to express himself spontaneously in song and dance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Miss Broadwood has not reached a definite conclusion, but she inclines to the theory that the Duke of the ballad was William De la Pole, first Duke of Suffolk (1396–1450) . She admits, however, that there is a good deal of evidence in favor of the Duke of Grafton, son of Charles II, an account of whose death was printed on a broadside, licensed in 1690. ”

“ Traditionally, folksongs are sung not only without gesture, but with the greatest restraint in the matter of expression; indeed, the folksinger will usually close his eyes and observe an impassive demeanor throughout his performance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No Somerset variants. Mr. Baring-Gould records a Devon variant, “The Nine Delights,” that is, the joys of Mary.
(10) No variants.
(11) “Eleven and eleven is gone to heaven,” that is, the twelve Apostles without Judas Iscariot.
(12) No variants.
In Notes and Queries for December 26, 1868, there is a version of the words of this song as “sung by the children at Becktngton, Somerset.” It begins as follows:
Sing, sing, what shall we sing ?
Sing all ever one.
One! What is one?
One they do call the righteous Man.
Save poor souls to rest. Amen. ”

“ A good singer, proud of his memory, will often lengthen the song to abnormal proportions by halving the drink-measures, half-pint, half-quart, half-gallon, and so on.
No. 100. One man shall mow my meadow
Althouoh this is a very popular song and very widely known, and I have recently heard soldiers singing it on the march on more than one occasion, I am unable to give a reference to any published version of it. ”

“ They proclaim their identity by calling her “Mother,” curse her for her cruelty to them, and say that they live in heaven, but that she will suffer in hell for her misdeeds.
The earliest published form of the ballad is in Herd’s Scottish Songs (volume ii, p. 237, ed. 1776) . Other Scottish versions are given in Motherwell’s, Kinloch’s, and Buchan’s collections; see also “Lady Anne” in Scott’s Minstrelsy, and “Fine Flowers in the Valley” in Johnson’s Museum (volume iv, ed. 1792) . The tune given in the latter, although quite regular in rhythm, is very similar to the air given here. ”

“ In this latter form, it becomes a nursery nonsense-song, which relates in humorous fashion the ridiculous muddles made by a slovenly and incompetent wife. Its connection with “Ruggleton” or “Sweet Robin” is to be inferred from the title and refrain, “Robin-a-thrush,” which as Miss Gilchrist has pointed out, is probably a corruption of “Robin he thrashes her.”
I have collected another song which has some affinity with “Ruggleton.” Here the husband married his wife on Monday; cut “a twig of holly so green” on Tuesday; “hung it out to dry” on Wednesday ”

“ Although archaic words and expressions have been retained, no attempt has been made to preserve local peculiarities of speech, it being the custom among folksingers to use each his own particular dialect. ”

“ This is very much like the version given in the text, the first two lines of the refrain running:
⁠Oh the briers, prickly briers,
⁠Come prick my heart so sore.
The Rev. S. Baring-Gould, in the appendix to Henderson’s Notes on the Folk-Lore of the Northern Counties of England (p. 333, ed. 1866) , gives a Yorkshire story, “The Golden Ball,” which concludes with verses very similar to those of “The Briery Bush.” A man gives a ball to each of two maidens, with the condition that if either of them loses the ball, she is to be hanged. ”