The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #112266 Message #2389342
Posted By: Jim Carroll
15-Jul-08 - 03:43 AM
Thread Name: Welsh songs mystery
Subject: RE: Welsh songs mystery
Not what you are looking for, but I wonder if the blackbird reference links the second song to this one which was recorded by the BBC in 1954 and can be found in The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library at C# House. Good luck, Jim Carroll
CAN YR ABERYN DU (The song of the blackbird) Singer: Tom Edwards. Bryneglwys, Corwen, Denbighshire. 9.11.54 (P.K.) 'Y deryn du sy'n rhodio'r gwledydd/Ti a wyr yr hen a'r newydd' ('Blackbird that roamest the countries, /Thou knowest the old and the new...'). Ballad in the form of a conversation between a love-sick swain and the blackbird. The bird offers the young man the rich widow, the daughter of the inn-keeper and the sempstress. He rejects them all in turn, but joyfully accepts the farmer's daughter. A good rendering of one of the variants of the 'Deryn Du' (Blackbird) songs which became very popular throughout the whole of North and South Wales, but which are sung to different tunes in different districts. These songs have beautiful tunes and lyrics. See: Journal of the Welsh Folk Song Society Vol. I, Part 3, pp. 123-5.