3265)  STEPMOTHER'S CRUELTY  Some searching through Child and the Bodleian reveals that this is properly called (The) Lady Isabella's Tragedy, or, The Stepmother's Cruelty.  This one is a bit of a problem.  It's a broadside text, not a song collected from tradition, and it is often quite impossible to determine to what tune (if any!) such things were sung.  As it happens, there are two broadside copies at the Bodleian Library which specify tunes; one names "Fair Rosamond, or Chevy Chase", the other "The Ladies Fall".  Some poking around at Bruce Olson's website turns up two "Chevy Chase" tunes, and a cross-reference from "Lady's Fall" to "In Peascod Time".  A reference to another broadside specifies its tune as "Chevy Chase, or the Lady Isabell's Tragedy", so a "Chevy Chase" tune, of which there are many variants, looks on balance like the best bet.  The two Bruce has are (B063) from an MS and (B064) from the Percy Collection: of these, and this is a purely subjective judgement, the first seems to have more the kind of flavour that goes with murder, cannibalism and getting boiled in lead, so I have made a midi from it.  In order to fit the broadside text to it, it has been necessary to modify the tune slightly; specifically, the final quarter-note in bar 2 has been split into 2 eighth-notes of the same pitch, and the final note of each of the two lines, given in Bruce's abc file as one three-quarter note and a half-note of the same pitch have been replaced in each case by one whole note and a quarter rest.  I have also transposed the tune down by one octave to bring it into what I hope is an easier range.  While this makes a singable piece, I must emphasise that it's only an approximate guess at what might have been; I wouldn't want anyone at any point to think that this is THE TUNE; just a possibility.

3562)  UP IN THE NORTH  This is the version collected by John Baldwin from Freda Palmer of Witney, Oxfordshire, in 1969; a recording by Linda Adams of this version is the source of the DT text.  Midi made from the notation in The Folk Music Journal, volume 1 number 4 (1969).  Baldwin transposed Mrs. Palmer's tune from A Flat to G; I have retained this.  The song has different numbers of lines from verse to verse; these are accommodated by repeating or omitting phrases as required.

NOTE: The text in the DT is laid out in a confused, almost random way that completely fails to reflect this; almost every verse is broken in the wrong place, and some lines are divided into two for no apparant reason.  Perhaps this layout was copied from sleevenotes; at all events it would make it extremely difficult for anyone who hasn't seen notation and text together, or heard it sung, to tell which bit of melody should go with which line.   To be precise: verse 1 is lines 1 to 7; verse 2 is lines 8 to 15; verse 3 is lines 16 to 21; verse 4 is lines 22 to 28; verse 5 is lines 29 to 36; verse 6 is lines 37 to 44.  MJ, who posted the words, says: "The tune is a bit complicated, because there are verses with 3,4,5 and 6 lines, each sung to a slightly different tune."  Although there are no 3- or 4-line verses, there are verses of 5, 6, 7 and 8 lines: in the end I just made a midi of the entire song, incorporating all the variations indicated.  It won't precisely fit the text as Linda Adams sang it, because, although she was pretty careful to learn the tune as Mrs. Palmer sang it, she was not quite so careful with the words, and left some out.  Here, you get the authentic traditional version rather than the Revival Cover of it, and I hope I don't ever lumber myself with something that takes this long again!

Malcolm