Does anyone know the full lyrics to Cornwall Forever?   You can hear it here and maybe make out more of the words than I can. I hope you know some more verses too because it's a darn good song, another spin on a marching cry of "shall Trelawny die, shall Trelawny die, then twenty thousand Cornishmen will know the reason why."

I know, that's not quite how it appears in the better known Song of the Western Men (or Trelawny) which according to Brycchan Carey, was "extrapolated" by the Rev. R.S. Hawker around 1835 from this "well known Cornish proverb." But that's how I first met it, as a marching cry for the "men of the west," in the pages of a history book. It seems that in 1688 James II had imprisoned the Archbishop of Canterbury and six bishops (including Trelawny), and threatened them with beheading for refusing to proclaim from the pulpit his Declaration of Indulgence (it allowed Catholics to hold public office). Cornwall, at this time, was staunchly Protestant, and the men of the west were said to be "rising"--maybe marching on London?--with this rousing sentiment on their lips. Wow, I thought. You could SING those words.

Postscript to both songs: the rebellion never materialized, as the bishops were tried and (amid great public rejoicing) acquitted. But James wasn't off the hook; in the same year, after his Catholic second wife gave birth to a son (the future "bonny prince Charlie") and Parliament invited William of Orange, the "Protestant hero of Europe" (and the king's son-in-law) to come to England's aid . . . well, James fled the country. We call it the "Glorious Revolution"--a wonderfully bloodless model, I think, for regime change. . .

I'm not suggesting the either SONG goes back that far, but their dramatic core does. And call it what you will, marching cry or proverb, those rousing traditional words are clearly English ones. They're not a translation of any original Cornish words; on the contrary, the Cornish verses to Trelawny that Peter Kennedy lists before the traditional English ones in his Folksongs of Britain and Ireland were only fitted to the song in 1966 (as I learn from notes at the end of the chapter)! It's a confusing way to present the song and conveys to the casual reader a false impression only perpetuated in the Digital Tradition (where Trelawny is listed, I think, as "gaelic-cornish")   

Of course, Cornwall Forever isn't listed at all in the DT; if it were, I woudn't have started this polemical post.   Because, honest, all I wanted was the rest of the words to a song.

Link fixed. You had "cornfever/ram" where you should have had "cornfever.ram". --JoeClone, 27-Nov-06.