Mummer/wassail songs from N West/Yorks

Subject: Mummer/wassail songs from N West/Yorks
From: GUEST,BlackAcornUK
Date: 11 Nov 24 - 07:07 PM

Hello,I know it feels early for Christmas but just doing some advance research -

Does anyone know of Wassail or Mummer's songs collected in either the North West or Yorkshire?

I'm especially interested in Lancashire/Greater Manchester (where I'm from) and West Yorkshire (where I now live), but will cheerfully take anything from Cheshire up to Cumbria on the West side of the Pennines, or anything at all from the White Rose county to the East!

Many thanks for any and all pointers/suggestions!

Subject: RE: Mummer/wassail songs from N West/Yorks
From: GUEST,BlackAcornUK
Date: 11 Nov 24 - 07:23 PM

...I should share my own slim pickings thus far -

An obvious place to start is the so-called Yorkshire Wassail song collected by Vaughan Williams (I'm not sure exactly where or when):
https://youtu.be/vVF8kWB6w-A?si=E-PZ8B0T9__nvy1z

By my reckoning, the Yorkshire Garland Group has two mummer's songs, Poor Old Horse and Six Jolly Miners, both from North Yorkshire:
https://www.yorkshirefolksong.net/song.cfm

Calderdale's Long Company Mummers have both a wassail and a calling on song; I'm not sure of the provenance of either, but the latter has the feel of a song that may have been written by Pete Coe. I'll try to ask Johnny Adams tomorrow!
https://youtu.be/yqDqIIOcPiI?si=ZnK97qLCAaAnBhtS

I've found very little West of the Pennines so far - but the Alderley Mummer's Song from Cheshire is a fine specimen:
https://youtu.be/eAcYk6lIU1I?si=IxgldLmxXk3jLrSj

Subject: RE: Mummer/wassail songs from N West/Yorks
From: GUEST,BlackAcornUK
Date: 11 Nov 24 - 07:25 PM

...To be honest, though my main interest is around wassails and mummery, I'll take any seasonal songs from these two regions - but don't worry about Sheffield/Derbyshire carols, as I've got scores of them already

Many thanks again!

Subject: RE: Mummer/wassail songs from N West/Yorks
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 11 Nov 24 - 09:41 PM

Antrobus Soulcakers have a song
https://youtu.be/_N_cgSP3J1Q

Stoke on Trent had one written probably ten years ago by Duncan Bourne (The Penkhull Wassail) which is still sung; but that's possibly not the sort of thing you're after.

Have you already trawled through Duncan Broomhead's Folk Play Research website?
https://folkplay.info/
Is that where the Alderley song came from?

I'm surprised how little comes up for the northwest on the Master Mummers site. :(
wassail
www.mastermummers.org/groupslist.php?oID=&search=wassail

song
www.mastermummers.org/groupslist.php?oID=&search=song

Might be worth asking on Facebook?
www.facebook.com/groups/660575583993994

Subject: RE: Mummer/wassail songs from N West/Yorks
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 12 Nov 24 - 12:35 AM

https://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/yorkshire_wassail.htm Yorkshire Wassail; The notes to that carol state the text completed from another Yorkshire version sung to another tune. This melody and text from singers (names not known) near Hooton Roberts, Yorkshire. For another version of the text with a different tune, see English Country Songs.

St John’s, Hooton Roberts, has musical connections with composers Vaughn Williams and Gustav Holst who were both regular visitors to the rectory next to the church. Vaughan Williams, (1872-1958), composed Linden Lea during one of his stays in the village. Florence and Reginald Gatty had 4 children, one of whom Nicholas (b. 1874) wished to become a composer and trained at the Royal College of Music. There he met and became good friends with Ralph Vaughan Williams, who used to stay at Hooton Roberts occasionally. It was Vaughan Williams who recommended Sharp to go and note the Grenoside dance.

Reginald Gatty had a younger sister Horatia, who lived near Sharp in Hampstead, so introductions were easily made there and Florence Gatty promptly invited Sharp to visit them at Hooton Roberts. The Gattys then drove Sharp in their horse and carriage the twelve miles to Grenoside and the dance was collected on 27 August 1910. Sharp went directly on to Newcastle, where he collected the Swalwell, Earsdon and Winlaton rapper dances but wrote warmly to thank Florence Gatty for her hospitality: ‘I shall never forget your kindness in taking me in and assisting me to collect the Grenoside dance.’ (letter CJS1/8/1/5 dated 2 Sept 1910).

He had first seen Morris Dancing at Christmas 1899 whilst staying with his wife's mother, who was then living at Sandfield Cottage, Headington, about a mile east of Oxford. On Boxing Day, as he was looking out of the window at the snow-covered drive, a strange procession appeared: eight men dressed in white, decorated with ribbons, with pads of small latten-bells strapped to their shins, carrying coloured sticks and white handkerchiefs. Accompanying them was a concertina-player and a man dressed as a 'Fool'. Sharp was amazed at the sight. An obscure world of culture had been revealed to him and he plied the men eagerly with questions. They apologised for being out at Christmas; they knew that Whitsun was the proper time, but work was slack and they thought that there would be no harm in earning an honest penny. These were the Headington Quarry Morris Men.

We can trace the Grenoside Sword Dancers back almost 200 years, though it's possibly much older. Boxing Day, our traditional day of dance. We perform the dance at 11am sharp on Main Street outside the Old Harrow Inn every Boxing Day. Sharp travelled to Grenoside by horse and carriage, the Gattys having arranged for the performance to take place in the barn of Hilltop Farm at the top of Wheel Lane. It made a great impression on Sharp.

Lancashire Pace-Egging Songs by Annie G. Gilchrist, Cecil J. Sharp, Frank Kidson and J. A. Fuller-Maitland
Journal of the Folk-Song Society Vol. 2, No. 9 (1906), pp. 231-236 (6 pages)
8. Beg Your Leave sung by Jolly Boys (pace eggers) from Overton village, Sunderland Point. Collected by Annie G. Gilchrist Easter 1906.

Subject: RE: Mummer/wassail songs from N West/Yorks
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 12 Nov 24 - 12:55 AM

See Mainly Norfolk - The Pace-Egging Song / The Heysham Peace-Egging Song / Beg Your Leave for records of several Eastertime mummers' songs.

Roy Palmer noted in Everyman’s Book of English Country Songs (1979), p. 219:
Pace is from the Latin word for Easter, and pace egging was the practice of collecting eggs and other eatables by touring the houses and farms in one’s locality. Little groups of men would either perform a pace egg play (like other seasonal plays, a semi-ritual enactment of death and rebirth), or would dress as some of the characters and present themselves simply with a song. St George, Admiral Nelson, Lord Collingwood, Mrs Pankhurst: these are just a few of the wide range of possibilities. These practices were largely confined to the north-western counties of Cheshire, Lancashire, Westmorland, Cumberland, and parts of Yorkshire, where some remains of pace egging can still be found. This song comes from Marple in Cheshire, where Mr Arthur Hulme remembered it being sung by children between 1895 and 1900.

Beg Your Leave is a pace-egging song from the live repertoire of both Steeleye Span Mk 2 and the 1973 incarnation of the Albion Band (e.g. at Norwich Folk Festival on 16 June 1973 of which an audience recording by Tony Rees exists; they sing verses 1, 4, 2, 5, 3 and 6) was never released on any of their albums. Ashley Hutchings noted in his songbook A Little Music: I have included this fine pace-egging song—which we used to sing onstage—as representative of that period of the band. It used to be sung by four of us, each one taking a character’s part, virtually unaccompanied. The song itself comes from Overton Village, Sunderland Point, Lancashire, and was sung by the pace-eggers (locally known as “jolly-boys”), the North-Western Easter-time mummers.

Subject: RE: Mummer/wassail songs from N West/Yorks
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Nov 24 - 03:34 AM

You will find the full text of a Lancashire Christmas mummers play in Harland and Wilkinson's "Lancashire Legends". It is virtually the same as the Easter mummers play we used to perform at Abram and Lancaster. I'll post a link when I have time if you are interested

Subject: RE: Mummer/wassail songs from N West/Yorks
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 12 Nov 24 - 03:26 PM

Hunton Calling?-?On Song from Strange Vagaries by The Davenports released August 16, 2024.
From North Yorkshire, this is one of the spookiest calling-on songs in the Sword Dance tradition.
Here the dancers are called into action in the guise of dead heroes.

Hunton Sword Dance (Calling On Song) VWML KARPELES:
Maud Karpeles Papers Music manuscript book Vol 1 April 2 1926 - Sept 20 1929 created 4 Sep 1926

Subject: RE: Mummer/wassail songs from N West/Yorks
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Nov 24 - 07:49 AM

I'll post the link anyway as there is lots f other good stuff in there :-)

Lancashire Legends

Enjoy

Subject: RE: Mummer/wassail songs from N West/Yorks
From: GUEST,BlackAcornUK
Date: 14 Nov 24 - 07:23 AM

Brilliant, many thanks for these links Dave/Henry/Freddy;

It was especially Yuletide ones I was after, and was already across most Pace Egging ones (I live in Hebden Bridge!) plus Antrobus, but great to have these alternative links for them.

Dave, especial thanks for sharing the Harland. Interesting that you'd been part of both Abram and Lancaster groups. Were/are you resident in either? I'm from Wigan, and lived in Lancaster for a good few years too!

Subject: RE: Mummer/wassail songs from N West/Yorks
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 05 Dec 24 - 06:02 AM

The Watersons sang the Earsdon Sword Dance Song on their 1965 LP Frost and Fire. A.L. Lloyd noted on the original album: The present song is proper to the coal miners of Earsdon; it’s sung by the captain of the sword-dancers and with it, he calls on each of his heroes and gives him a fictitious name and character, as a kind of disguise. The curious tune has been used for several songs, including the old sailor ballad of The Ratcliffe Highway.

Rachel Unthank & The Winterset sang The Greatham Calling-On Song in 2005 on their CD Cruel Sister. She noted: The song is taken from the Greatham Mummers Play traditionally performed in the village of Greatham every Boxing Day. It is the only surviving example of a mummers play and long sword dance combined. It was performed by the local village team until 1953 and then in 1967 a group of enthusiastic lads searching for their roots researched and revived the play and dance, after discovering its existence in a book by Norman Peacock. They were the Redcar Sword Dancers, my 18 year old Dad included, who still do it to this day. They perform the play at midday outside the church/alms house, followed by a day’s worth of singing and drinking in the pub. I have seen this play and dance every single Boxing Day of my life, that’s 27 to date; so it feels like part of my heritage too.
Thanks to Mainly Norfolk

The Unthanks have revived Greatham on their new In Winter album, and are performing it on their current tour. They also sing Tar-Barrel in Dale, written by George Unthank, about the Allendale Tar Bar'l Festival celebrated on New Year's Eve. See them if you can!

3 December 2024 Gateshead
4 December 2024 Lytham Saint Annes
5 December 2024 Hull
6 December 2024 Hastings
7 December 2024 Worthing
9 December 2024 Birmingham
10 December 2024 Nottingham
11 December 2024 Norwich
13 December 2024 Saffron Walden
14 December 2024 Harrogate
15 December 2024 Manchester
16 December 2024 Poole
17 December 2024 Exmouth
18 December 2024 Bodmin
19 December 2024 Bristol
20 December 2024 Pontardawe
21 December 2024 London
22 December 2024 Basingstoke

Subject: RE: Mummer/wassail songs from N West/Yorks
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 Dec 24 - 09:51 AM

Hi BlackAcorn - Sorry, only just seen your question. Yes, I was resident with Abram pace egg players and played various roles in their play. We used to perform it on Good Friday in Lancaster as part of the maritime festival while the Lancaster pace eggers performed on Easter Saturday.

I was also, in dwscending order of how often I performed, a musician , dancer and king at the Abram circle dance :-)

The late Eddie Cass used to document our shenanigans quite often but it was more in relation to Pace Egging than mumming. Still, it may be worth you looking at his work as a starting point to help your research. Eddie was a Lancastrian but a lot of his work is held by the University of Sheffield.

Eddie Cass Collection

Good luck with your research and let us know how you get on

Cheers

Dave

Subject: RE: Mummer/wassail songs from N West/Yorks
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 Dec 24 - 10:16 AM

...just looking at that link, the 'resources' section may be very useful :-)