It's not often that I'm stumped by a folk song, but this is one tricky little character. It is also beautiful, graceful and weirdly catchy... and extremely elusive. 

Nonetheless, there's quite a bit to say about land, class and medieval shepherdesses, though surprisingly little about parted lovers. Given the setting and context, romantic heartbreak suddenly doesn't feel like the end of the world.

Somehow we end up in Scotland, though only tentatively, and discover a mystery. But then we get to hear the song itself which, as ever, is balm to the soul.

Music

A clip of Bridget Tunney singing As I Roved Out. See and hear the full version here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOlZhqrVrQU

My Lagan Love (traditional, Donegal)

The Frost is All Over (traditional, Donegal)

L'autrier Jost' Una Sebissa (Marcabru, 1129-1150)

The Airy Bachelor (Traditional, Donegal)

All music performed by Jenny Shaw unless otherwise stated.

References

https://balladindex.org/Ballads/K150.html

David Hammond (1979) Review of “The Irish Song Tradition” by Sean O’Boyle. The Canadian Journal of Irish Stories, 5 (1) pp124-127

Land hunger, unemployment and poverty in pre-Famine Roscommon, Galway & Mayo | Divergent Paths

https://faculty.washington.edu/petersen/lba/marcabru.htm 

Text of Robene and Makyne:  https://ia600308.us.archive.org/29/items/robeneandmakynea00henruoft/robeneandmakynea00henruoft.pdf 

George Collins is a handsome young man with his whole life ahead of him, so why does he die within a few short verses and leave a trail of devastation in his wake? 

Today’s episode takes us back to supernatural legends from medieval Northern Europe, in which brave young men are easily seduced. We also travel across the Atlantic to meet a dying hobo who wandered into this song sometime in the late 19th Century.

In the end, these legends are a legacy of the things we didn’t properly understand. Nonetheless, if you do meet a beautiful maiden by the riverside it’s best just to back away, jump on your horse and ride home as fast as you can.

Music

Verses from two different versions of George Collins as recorded in the Folk Song Society Journey 1909: https://archive.org/details/sim_folk-song-society-journal_1909_3_13/page/300/mode/2up 

Traditional Breton Tune

Faroese Folk Tune  –  Grímur á Miðjanesi

Incidental music – Rosebud in June

The historic American recording, and many others, can be found here: https://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/collins.htm 

Final song: This is the version sung by Shirley Collins on The Sweet Primroses, 1967. I’ve slowed it down and recorded it with a guitar accompaniment which is somewhat inspired by Dolly Collins’ beautiful organ arrangement.

References

Bluegrass Messengers - George Collins- Barbara M. Cra'ster 1910

https://archive.org/details/englishscottishp22chilrich/page/278/mode/2up?view=theater 

https://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/collins.htm 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwerz_an_Aotrou_Nann 

https://balladspot.blogspot.com/2016/03/sir-olof-and-elves.html 

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=xlIJAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA161&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false 

https://archive.org/details/sim_folk-song-society-journal_1909_3_13/page/300/mode/2up 

https://archive.org/details/folksongsofsouth00coxj/page/110/mode/2up 

What a time we had, talking about the bones and the spirit of the Wassail. The Lunatraktors, Carli and Clair, get right to the heart of things with their "Broken Folk" which provides an anchor, a refuge and solace, a shamanic art and a collective experience. They are experts at asking questions of our tradition, and passionate about telling the stories that have been hidden or lost.

The Wassail is about apples and cider and community and collectivism and so much more, and Lunatraktors' embodied approach to folk turns this an intense experience. We explore both the light and the dark of recent history and ask: what will be left when the apocalypse comes? Folk. The answer is folk, and it can be deeply healing.

But in the end you have to laugh. Their music can be dark and tragic but it is also playful and fun and, after we'd unpicked the state of everything, we were all gurning.

Content warning: This episode includes a discussion about suicide

Music

Now The Time

Rigs of the Time

Unquiet

Apple Tree Wassail

Songs are all from Lunatraktors, and if you want more please visit their website: https://www.lunatraktors.space/ or find all the points of connection on linktr.ee/lunatraktors 

After all the festivities of Christmas Day are over, what could be better than to run around the village and hunt a tiny little bird with all your neighbours. This special St Stephen's Day episode explores the strange custom of wren hunting in the British Isles. Hang on to your hats, it's going to be a weird one.

Music
Hunt the Wren, a Manx song
Medieval French tune (known to me as 'Dancing Bears' but YMMV)
The Cutty Wren, to the tune of Green Bushes (thanks A. L. Lloyd!)

References
Many thanks go to two websites: Mainly Norfolk and the Ballad Index, for such detailed information about this song.

Other references include:

Mona Melodies: https://www.manxmusic.com/media/History%20photos/MONA%20MELODIES%202020%20full%20transcription.pdf

Charles Barrow (1820) Mona Melodies https://www.manxmusic.com/media/History%20photos/MONA%20MELODIES%202020%20full%20transcription.pdf 

A W Moore (1891) The Folklore of the Isle of Man

George Waldron (1744) The History and Description of the Isle of Man

Vallancy, Charles (1770) Collectanea de rebus hibernicis. T. Ewing, Dublin https://archive.org/details/collectaneadere09vallgoog/page/n1/mode/2up 

https://mainlynorfolk.info/ian.campbell/songs/thecuttywren.html 

John Aubrey’s Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme https://archive.org/details/remainesgentili01aubrgoog

Muller, S. (1996). The Irish Wren Tales and Ritual. To Pay or Not to Pay the Debt of Nature. Béaloideas, 64/65, 131–169. https://doi.org/10.2307/20522463 

This little Irish love song has quite a back story. To trace its origins, we have to travel back in time to a very subversive harp festival, dig into the Irish harper tradition and follow the fortunes of some proper characters. There’s a tiff between an Irish and an English poet, a moody watcher on a hillside, and what does Judy Garland have to do with it all? 

Find out in our brand new episode!

Music

The Airy Bachelor, tune collected in Donegal by Herbert Hughes 

The Coolin, traditional Irish tune

The Pretty Girl tune as arranged by Edward Bunting in A General Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland, 1796 

Dinogad’s Smock, 12th Century Welsh tune

Eleanor Plunkett, Turlough O’Carolan

Judy Garland sings The Pretty Girl in “Little Nellie Kelly” (1940): Judy Garland: A Pretty Girl Milking Her Cow

Percy Grainger’s version of The Pretty Girl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPpQ4h26lBM

Beethoven, "Sweet Linnet": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zpz94lzCoE 

Song: The Pretty Girl Milking Her Cow / Lament for Owen Roe O’Neill (according to Clannad)

Sources and references

A general collection of the ancient Irish music: containing a variety of admired airs never before published, and also the compositions of Conolan and Carolan. Edward Bunting (1796) https://archive.org/details/generalcollectio00bunt/page/n11/mode/2up

The Song of O'Ruark, Prince of Breffni https://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/eire/thevalle.htm

Thank you to the contributors to the Mudcat Café whose discussions 25 years ago gave me most of the research I needed for this podcast: mudcat.org: Info: Pretty Maid (Girl) Milking a Cow

Thank you to Stones Barn in Cumbria and the Barnstoners who set me on this course and kept me going.

When a Christmas carol is also a folk ballad you know it's not going to be the usual angels/shepherds/kings extravaganza. This one doesn't disappoint, with a lovely garden, a jealous Joseph and a fruit-related miracle.

But, as ever, all is not as it seems. Continuing the theme of weird Christianity from last month's episode, we get to explore medieval mystery plays and alternative gospels, and in 5th Century Syria we discover a scholarly and forthright Mary who doesn't need an angel to fight her battles for her.

Have a wonderful Christmas!

Music
Verse from Jean Richie’s recording of The Cherry Tree Carol, Kentucky 

The Cherry Tree Carol, collected by Maud Karpeles and Patrick Shuldham-Shaw from John Partridge of Cinderford, Gloucestershire (Verse 1) 

Verse from a Jean Richie version, Kentucky, recorded by Joan Baez 

Instrumental: Version arranged by D Gilbert and W Sandys (19th Century) 

Benedicamus Domino (Plainsong, anon) 

The Cherry Tree Carol, version sung by Shirley Collins, 1959 

Orthodox Chant and Ney (flute) from FreeSounds 

References

Royston, Pamela L (1982) "The Cherry-Tree Carol": Its sources and analogues https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/1762/15(1)%201-16.pdf?sequence=1 

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/post-biblical-period/the-origins-of-the-cherry-tree-carol/ 

https://d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/sugano-n-town-plays-banns-proclamation 

https://www.academia.edu/29076122/The_Origins_of_The_Cherry_Tree_Carol_How_a_Christmas_carol_links_the_modern_Middle_East_and_medieval_England 

https://dokumen.pub/mary-and-joseph-and-other-dialogue-poems-on-mary-9781593338398-2011007425-1593338392.html 

https://mainlynorfolk.info/lloyd/songs/thecherrytreecarol.html 

https://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/Notes_On_Carols/cherry_tree_carol-notes.htm 

https://balladindex.org/Ballads/C054.html

This unusual song was a feature of the 60s and 70s folk revival - a real show stopper and something of a curiosity. But underneath it lies a thousand years of European folklore, and a further thousand years of vivid theology.

So, my friends, we're going on a metaphysical journey to the underworld. Have you been charitable in your life? Did you give a cow to the poor, or 'hosen and shoon' to a beggar? Did you judge rightly? Have you been moving your neighbours' boundary stones? Better take stock, because the journey is long and dangerous.

We're going over the thorny moor and the high Gjallarbrui; we're glimpsing heaven and hell and as for the final judgement, we've got a ringside seat. There are angels and ghosts and, surprisingly, gossip.

This is a song that has to be experienced rather than studied, so follow me. We're going to have a weird time.

Music

L’Homme Arme, 15th Century song by Johannes Regis

Sainte Nicholas, 12th Century song by Godric of Finchale

Marglit og Targjei Risvollo, traditional Norwegian song

Draumkvedet, traditional Norwegian ballad

Chiamando, un’astorella, 14th Century Italian song

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence is based on the Cherubic Hymn in the Orthodox Christian tradition and dates back to least 275 AD. The English translation from Greek was made by Gerard Moultie and set to a traditional French tune, Picardy.

The Lyke Wake Dirge (traditional version)

The Lyke Wake Dirge, tune by Harold Boulton, arranged by Malcolm Lawson

The Lyke Wake Dirge, set to the 14th Century song Ad Mortem Festinamus

References

Mainly Norfolk: The Lyke Wake Dirge (Roud 8194; TYG 85) (mainlynorfolk.info)

Draumkvedet in translation: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/draumkvedet-dream-poem.html

Harald Foss - Draumkvedet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k7ne8YMIIs

Gardiner, E. (2021). Visions of Heaven and Hell: A Monastic Literature. The Downside Review, 139(1), 24-43. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0012580621997061#body-ref-fn107-0012580621997061 

Isaacson, Lanae H. “‘Draumkvædet:’ The Structural Study of an Oral Variant.” Jahrbuch Für Volksliedforschung, vol. 25, 1980, pp. 51–66. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/849056. Accessed 31 Oct. 2023

Carlsen, C (2012) Old Norse Visions of the Afterlife (PhD Thesis, University of Oxford) https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:9b3b8518-912e-4425-8748-dea135e695d0/download_file?file_format=application%2Fpdf&safe_filename=THESIS02&type_of_work=Thesis

John Aubrey’s Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme https://archive.org/details/remainesgentili01aubrgoog

Dante’s Divine Comedy: https://www.owleyes.org/text/dantes-inferno/read/canto-13 

The Lyke-Wake Dirge: the revival of an Elizabethan song of the afterlife

https://earlymusicmuse.com/lyke-wake-dirge/

Hurdy Gurdy sample, battle sounds, stormy ambience and various owls from FreeSound

The sheep are all sheared and we’re dancing and drinking in the warm June sun. We’re transported back to simpler and more innocent times with more than a whiff of nostalgia for the loss of our connection to the land. 

And yet nothing is ever quite as straightforward as it seems, and this song is no exception. While delving into its theatrical past I once again get into that most thorny of issues – what is a folk song, and what should we do with them today?

But mostly I have lots of fun singing about sheep.

Music

Instrumental version was collected by John Broadwood in c.1843

The original stage version, The Sheepsheering Song: https://www.vwml.org/search?view=search&q=rn812

Sheep-shearing song, collected by the Hammond brothers: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4434118 

Cecil Sharp – Folk Songs from Somerset: https://archive.org/details/FolkSongsFromSomerset/page/n3/mode/2up (my version takes a few liberties)

The Horses Go Fast: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4434118?read-now=1&seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents 

References

Mainly Norfolk on The Sheep Shearing Song: https://mainlynorfolk.info/steeleye.span/songs/thesheepshearingsong.html 

Eric Saylor: Folksong revival in the early 20th Century https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-music/articles/folksong-revival-in-the-early-20th-century 

https://www.efdss.org/learning/resources/beginners-guides/35-english-folk-collectors/2446-efdss-cecil-sharp 

Shudofsky, M. M. (1943). Charles Johnson and Eighteenth-Century Drama. ELH, 10(2), 131–158. https://doi.org/10.2307/2871662

 John Francmanis (2002) National Music to National Redeemer: The Consolidation of a 'Folk-Song' Construct in Edwardian England. Popular Music 21 (1) 1-25

As always, I’m grateful to the contributions of those who have posted on Mudcat over the years.

It's the first of May and we have a May Mini episode about the song Staines Morris, also known as the Maypole Dance. But did you know it started life in a puritan era farce? It was a joy to find out more about one of my favourite songs, and I hope you'll like it as much as I do.

Thanks as always go to Mudcat Cafe and Mainly Norfolk websites without which I hardly know where I would start my research, and to Stones Barn who gave me the confidence to sing again.

Other references:

Stanes Morris in Playford (including the dance moves): https://playforddances.com/dances/stanes-morris/

Acteon and Diana full text: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A34847.0001.001/1:6?rgn=div1;view=fulltext

Popular Music of the Olden Time by William Chappell: https://archive.org/details/popularmusicofol01chapuoft/page/126/mode/2up 

A chance meeting in a meadow, a false young man and a philosophical ending… it’s that folk favourite the Banks of the Sweet Primroses, beloved of collectors and Broadside publishers alike. In fact it’s part of the history of so many folk song collectors that we’ve taken the opportunity to follow one of them on their collecting expedition.

But what really happened in that meadow and why did the young man get such a dressing down? We’ve got all the theories and a few of our own, and even a potential Civil War origin for the song itself. And while we’re out walking in the morning fields there’s a perfect opportunity for some gratuitous medieval weirdness.

Oh yes, we’re back!

Music

The Banks of the Sweet Primroses (instrumental) was collected from W. Buckland of Buckinghamshire in 1943 by Francis Collinson and is found in the New Penguin Book of English Folk Song.

The Banks of the Sweet Primeroses (sung, first verse only) was collected and arranged by Cecil Sharp. It appears in Cyril Winn, A Selection of Some Less Known Folk-Songs vol.2 pp.64-65

Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy was sung for me by Phil Beer at Shrewsbury Folk Festival 2022.

Maids Looke Well About You can be found here. The tune used is Cold and Raw

Medicines To Cure The Deadly Sins can be found here. The tune used is The Agincourt Carol.

The extract of Peggy Gordon sung by Isobel Anderson has been used with her permission. You can find her albums on bandcamp and they’re highly recommended https://isobelanderson.bandcamp.com/ 

References

The Hammond Brothers:
https://www.williambarnessociety.org.uk/the-hammond-brothers/


https://www.efdss.org/learning/resources/beginners-guides/35-english-folk-collectors/2441-efdss-henry-and-robert-hammond 

Folk Songs from Dorset: https://archive.org/details/folksongsfromdor00hamm 

Purslow, Frank (1968) The Hammond Brothers’ Folk Song Collection. Folk Music Journal 1(4) 236-266

Marina Russell on Tradfolk: https://tradfolk.co/tradfolk-101/female-source-singers/ 

Vaughan Williams' collection of the song:

http://blackmorehistory.blogspot.com/2008/08/vaughan-williams-and-essex.html 

http://www.patrickcomerford.com/2015/03/through-lent-with-vaughan-williams-32.html 

https://carolinedavison.substack.com/p/vaughan-williamss-journey-into-folk-9de

An early broadside version of the Sweet Primroses from the Bodleian Library: http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/10000/06733.gif

The definition of a broken token ballad was written by Chat GTP after some training, and read by Steven Shaw.