Origins: Rose-Briar Motif

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 03:49 PM

SJ Lepak, Dr. David C. Fowler was one of my professors in the English Literature department at the University of Washington. He has done a number of scholarly works, especially on older English literature, including both "The Venerable Bede" and "The Popular Ballad." Not one of the "biggies" like Sharp or Child, perhaps, but a recognized authority in the field.

And no, I don't think he was reading too much into it. If one looks up the Language of Flowers, the rose generally means true love, with various colors or configurations of roses (e.g., pink rose bud meaning young love, red rose meaning true love, etc.), "fine tuning" what kind of love is being talked about.

The briar, with its thorny or prickly stem, generally doesn't make it in most books of "language of the flowers," not being a flower as such, but in some of the older ones, it signifies rejection, or at best, ambiguous love or conditional love.

So that interpretation makes very good sense in the context of Barbara Allen.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 04:30 PM

Susan, you seem to have got the idea that I have been criticising the conjectural meanings of the plant symbols of the pretty near universal motif that terminates many ballads. This has been dealt with thoroughly by Child and other scholars and I'm pretty happy to accept their findings, particularly those Don and Jon mention.

My scorn was being poured on the suggestions that LL was somehow an Irish-French ballad and some versions had been appropriated for political purposes.

Jim,
Child's antipathy towards broadsides is perfectly understandable given his background. I have a love-hate relationship with them myself. I would have loved to have seen an exclusive version of Child as opposed to his inclusive set, but I fear it would have all fitted into a single volume!

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 05:40 PM

Hellhole? Lighter! My advice to you is to view the dog and pony show we call the news with a coldly critical eye (now the US is allied with Putin in the war on terror? Nice...) don't let it grow any tentacles in your brain -and get a golden retriever! In my neck of the woods -literally- it's a beautiful world for me and Teddy.

Don, I respect your professor's analysis of the motif as it pertains to Barbara Allan. The motif was obviously applied to Barbara Allen in a way that made sense to the ballad and your teacher's assessment reflects that, however, the motif did not originate at the end of the Scottish ballad Barbara Allan, nor any other Scottish ballad.

Aye they grew and aye they threw! I just love that!

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Jilted? Hmmmmmm...no. Barbara Allan jilted Sweet William, Sweet William jilted Fair Margaret and Lord Thomas jilted Fair Annett. Other story lines include a poisoning, a burning, a drowning, a forced marriage and a slaughter involving 7 brethren. Lord Lovel 75E had an urgent mission to visit the King of Scotland and Lord Levett is one of those men who craves adventure on the high seas. He means to return. You could call that abandonment if you like, but not a jilting.

Lord Lovel is a JACOBITE ballad Steve. The white rose. And yes the rose means true love. But the briar protects the rose precisely because it's hidden underneath so that when you try to pluck the rose...OUCH! Of course, that didn't stop the Black Douglas:

But bye and rade the Black Douglas,
And wow but he was rough!
For he pulld up the bonny brier,
And flang't in St. Mary's Loch.

Bwhahahahahahahahahah! (That's my impression of the Black Douglas' insanely evil laugh :-)

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 07:46 PM

SJ Lepak, let us be clear about the fact that it was not just my professor's analysis. He didn't pick it up out of thin air. He found it cited in several different prior sources, but he agreed that the assessment made perfect sense.

Once again, let me point out that whether or not the rose and briar motif was connected with "Barbara Allen" when the ballad came into existence in the first place, it got added in some variants as the ballad moved through the folk process, in the same way that other "floater verses" ("Who will shoe my pretty little foot," for example, as cited above) attached themselves to various other songs and ballads.

That's the nature of folklore and the folk process.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 08:32 PM

The whole idea of a true lovers knot is togetherness in death. It is not to identify the personalities involved as either like a rose or a briar. Persons who can't imagine these plants laughing or having midnight rendezvous will certainly lack the imagination it takes to view a briar in anything other than a negative light.

The circumstances surrounding the deaths of the lovers as well as other incidentals such as burial sites are inconsequential. Child and others are hardly infallible. In fact I cringed when Child gave such high praise to Lord Thomas and Fair Annett as such a BEAUTIFUL ballad. What? Jealousy over fair skin and a double. Child's point of view is heavily influenced by racism. Why wouldn't the brown girl be happy in her own skin?

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Apr 13 - 08:34 PM

Double murder that is...

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 01:28 AM

"incidentals such as burial sites are inconsequential"
.,,.
Not always so, Susan. In that very ballad you quote, as well as others like 'Little·Musgrave/Matty·Groves', burial sites are in many versions indicative of social precedence; with instructions for burial in one grave combined with such an injunction as to bury one of them in a superior position "for she came of the nobler kin".

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 04:01 AM

"Child's antipathy towards broadsides is perfectly understandable given his background."
Again a red herring Steve – we are not discussing 'why' Child described broadsides as "veritable dunghills", just that he did – you will remember, of course that you cited him as one of your referees!
"These scholars! I don't know! They don't know nuffin! That Professor Child, who was he anyway!"
You really can't rely on these character witnesses, can you?
This is from a paper I gave at one of the several conferences I attended in the 1980s when I was desperately trying to improve the fact that I was "somewhat out of touch with current thinking. About a century behind."
It was published along with other papers in Ian Russell's 'Singer, Song and Scholar in 1986 and it describes our meeting Mikeen McCarthy, a Travelling man who became one of our closest friends and who we recorded over thirty years up to his death in 2005.
We recorded much more on ballad selling and on the passing on of songs up to the 1950s in rural S.W. Ireland – he fill well over 100 tapes in all with songs, stories and information.
I have also included the transcript of the track from our Travellers double CD, 'From Puck To Appleby', where he talks about the act of selling 'The Ballads'.
Sorry about the space taken up by this.
Jim Carroll

One evening, after a long period of doing very little recording, we were drinking in a pub to the west of London when one of the travelers pointed out a man engaged (we thought) in conversation with several other men. We approached the group and found that in fact he was singing to them. We introduced ourselves and asked if he would be prepared to sing for us. He agreed and the following evening we began working with Mikeen McCarthy, work we have not yet completed after eight years.
Mikeen (Little Michael) McCarthy was born fifty years ago in Cahirciveen, a small town on the Inveragh Peninsula in County Kerry in the south west of Ireland. His parents followed the traditional travelling trades: tin-smithing, horse dealing, hawking, chimney sweeping and, like a number of travelling families, spent eight months of the year on the road and rented a house for the winter, thus enabling Mikeen and his four sisters to get a little education. In addition to these trades, Michael McCarthy, senior, spent some time abroad as a soldier in the First World War and as a miner and bare-fist prizefighter in South Wales. Both of Mikeen's parents were singers, his father being in great demand as one, among travellers and in the settled community in Kerry. His mother was an Ullagoner, one of the women who were called on to keen or lament at funerals.
Mikeen took up tin-smithing as his first trade but later became skilled as a caravan builder. Some of the beautiful barrel-topped vans that are now used to haul holidaymakers around the roads in the south west of Ireland were built by him.
During his youth, he worked with his mother at the fairs and markets selling 'the ballads', the song sheets that were still being sold in rural Ireland right into the fifties. These sheets, measuring about 12 inches by 5 inches, were printed on coloured paper and contained the words of one song. The trade was carried on almost exclusively by travellers. The songs appearing on the sheets were by no means all traditional. titles mentioned to us were 'Little Grey Home in the West', 'Smiling Through', 'Home Sweet Home', and 'No Place Like Home', as well as 'Rocks of Bawn', Sailor's Life', 'Betsy of Ballentown Brae', and 'Willie
Reilly and his Colleen Bawn'.
Mikeen was able to describe to us in great detail how these ballads were primed and distributed. Although, as I have mentioned, he had received some education, his writing ability was somewhat limited; his mother is still unable to read and write. They would go into a town or village where a market was to take place and approach a local printer.
The words of a selected song would be recited to the printer who would take them down and an order would be placed for the required number.
In Kerry, where the McCarthys traded, the sheets were illustrated with a picture that related to the song: 'A man's song would have the picture of a man at the top, a woman's would have a woman's head'. This does not appear to have been the case throughout Ireland; in County Clare we have been told that the sheets contained the words only, with no illustration.
When they were printed they were taken around the fairs, usually to the bars, and sold at a penny each, though sometimes, towards the end of the day, they would be sold for less. A seller had to be able to supply tunes for the songs on sale; quite often a transaction depended on this.
Mikeen described how, at a fair in Tralee, a customer was so anxious to learn a song that he pushed a pound note into Mikeen's top pocket every time he sang the song through: 'I went home with eleven pounds that time'.
Attitudes to ballad selling appeared to have differed among travellers.
Athough it was carried out almost exclusively by them, by many it was regarded as no better than begging: 'They thought it was a low trade, but I didn't, I was glad to do it. I still would if I had the chance.' Even Mikeen's parents disagreed about it: 'My mother thought it was okay, but my father didn't like the idea of his songs going on them; if he found out there'd be trouble.'
The songs that were selected for the sheets would depend on where they were to be sold: 'Some would sell well in one place and some in another... If you could get a song that nobody knew in that place, you had a winner.' Quite often Mikeen would be asked if he had any of his father's songs for sale. Such a request would be complied with the next time that place was visited.
The practice of ballad selling appears to have died out some time in the late fifties. One of the last songs to have appeared on a ballad was 'Bar With No Stout – (parody on The Pub with No Beer)'. These ballad sheets, along with the song page in the weekly magazine, Ireland's Own, have exerted a very strong influence, for good or ill, on the singing tradition in Ireland over the last fifty years. We have yet to meet an Irish traditional singer who has not learned songs from them.
We were interested to find that a song entered in the Stationers Register in 1675 was still being sold on a ballad sheet right into the 1950s. Moreover, it is still popular among Irish Travellers today as in example 1 (The Blind Beggar), which was recorded in 1975.   

Selling the Ballads (The Blind Beggar)   Mikeen McCarthy
Well er, around where my father came from like, he was very well known as being a singer, not a singer now for his living like, but a fireside singer, we'll call it, and what we call céilidhing now, going to houses. Well they were very fond of that song where he came from, he'd be like the young people today singing, buying those records, you know. But it got that popular around that area, travelled from parish to parish then; where he got it from I do not know.
So when I used be selling the ballads then like, and my mother, they used ask me, "Have you any of your father's songs?", you know, when we went in to where we were reared now, "Have you the Blind Beggar?", and I used say, "No."
"Why don't you get those printed?", they'd say, "Those are the songs you'd sell, and if you get them printed I'll buy about a dozen of them off you next time I meet you."
So that's how I got them in print then myself. My father write them out for me and I'd go in to the printing office then, then I'd get them printed.
Well they were the songs that did sing, and many a time after I went into the pubs after selling ballads like and things like that and I'd hear all the lads inside on a fair day now, we'll say markets and meetings, well when they'd have a few pints on them, 'tis then you'd hear my songs sung back again out of my ballads.
But I remember one day I was in Listowel Fair and I was selling ballads anyway. So I goes into a pub, I was fifteen years of age then - actually, I never wanted to pack it up, it was ashamed of the ladies I got, you know - but there was an American inside anyway, he wasn't back to Ireland I'd say for thirty years or something, he was saying.
So I sang that song now, The Blind Beggar, and he asked me to sing it again and every time I sang it he stuck a pound note into my top pocket.
He said, "Will you sing again?"
So I did, yeah. The pub was full all round like, what we call a nook now that time, a small bar, a private little bar off from the rest of the pub.
"And, will you sing it again?"
"I will; delighted" again, of course, another pound into my top pocket every time anyway. And the crowd was around, of course, and they were all throwing in two bobs apiece and a shilling apiece and I'd this pocket packed with silver money as well.
So he asked me, "Will you sing it for the last time."
Says I, "I'll keep singing it 'til morning if you want."
I'd six single pound notes in it when I came outside of the pub. I think I sold the rest of the ballads for half nothing to get away to the pictures".

The selling of printed song sheets, 'ballads', as they were known, was still very much a part of life right into the 1950s in rural Ireland. The trade at that time seemed to be fairly exclusively carried out by travellers who could be seen at the fairs and markets singing and selling them.
Not all the songs that appeared on these sheets were traditional; sentimental songs like Smiling Through and There's No Place Like Home, have been mentioned to us as being 'best sellers', and among the last titles to appear was The Pub with No Beer. However, they did have a profound effect on the preservation and circulation of many traditional songs. In Mikeen's case, one of the sources for the songs he sold, such as Bessie of Ballentown Brae andBonny Bunch of Roses, was his father, Michael, who had a large repertoire of traditional songs and stories and was recognised as a singer and storyteller by members of both the travelling and settled communities around Cahirciveen in Co Kerry.
In his youth, Mikeen, along with his mother and other members of the family, sold the ballads around the pubs and fairs of Kerry and he has given us a great deal of valuable information regarding the production and distribution of these, which he started to sell around the age of twelve some time in the nineteen forties.
Ref: Michael McCarthy, Singer and Ballad Seller. Singer, Song and Scholar, Sheffield Academic Press,1986.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 10:44 AM

Jim,
I'm sorry you have gone to so much trouble. I have had the book in question for many years. I'm quite familiar with your work. I even have some copies of the ballads that were sold in this way.

We've been over this ground before. IMO what the travellers were doing in Ireland in the mid 20th century does not relate closely to the situation in southern England in the early 19thc. Most of what you describe is the case in that someone wrote a ballad and took it to the printer, got his shilling, and in most cases that was end of the matter for him until he'd written another ballad. The street sellers came to the printer, bought a batch of ballads, then sold them in the streets for a penny, often singing the song on the sheet, but not always. Now I'm sure occasionally the street singer would cash in on this extra money by keeping an ear to the ground as to what was selling well with ballads from other sellers and printers. I have never denied there was interaction between print and oral tradition in both directions. In fact I have lots of examples that didn't survive until the collectors came along. But these were all commercial transactions which was my original point.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 10:50 AM

~M~

The rose-briar motif, for the purposes of this thread, consists of the rose, the briar, and the true lover's knot. Other elements are indeed important but in a strictly relative sense...

~D~

OK let's talk about these gendered plants and about Barbara Allen.

It is interesting to note that all occurrences of the Scottish variation, the "birk-briar motif" as it were, do not ascribe gender to the plants at all. Ascribing gender, like the theme of death by love-sickness, seems to fall more in line with English tradition. Although generally referred to as a Scottish ballad, Barbara Allen obviously descends from a courtly tradition and bears the influences of English (and French) ideas about courtly love. This death by love-sickness is simply not a folkish sentiment of the Scots. Recall the Twa Corbies. That's how the Scots think.

We know that ultimately Barbara Allen became the most popular ballad of them all. Why wouldn't such a popular motif eventually end up on the most popular ballad? But it didn't start out there. Your friend Child indicated that the rose-briar motif was NOT attached to Barbara
Allan originally by not including any variants that have it. I happen to agree with him there. The earliest printed broadside is from 1690, it is English, takes place in the "merry" month of May and the "young man" is not named. There is no motif in any of the early versions.

The version that is generally referred to as Scottish, takes place during Martinmas (11/11)and the young man's name is John Graeme. That is interesting to me because Bonnie Dundee is the soubriquet for John Graham, 7th Laird of Claverhouse, 1st Viscount Dundee, who with the help of the Catholic highlanders led the three main Jacobite risings in 1689 and thus became known as a Jacobite hero. Could there be a connection? Oh, most certainly I would think. The timing is right. I believe also that there is a tradition in folk music, generally speaking, that tends to put the name of notable persons or families into folk songs and ballads.

Anyway, gender occurs with the plants in this motif in English traditions: Fair Margaret and Sweet William, some variants of Lord Lovel, and some variants of Earl Bran- and nowhere else. I am satisfied that the motif did not originate on any of the other 7 ballads that it has been associated with.

Another thing Don, while I'm perfectly willing to take what "established" ballad scholars have to say into account, I'm a bit leary of strict reliance on "authoritative" sources. I like to do my own thinking. Why did Child, for example, exclude the comic tradition of Lord Lovel? Is it because he's not the be-all and end-all of ballad scholarship? Was it because he was interpreting from his own stodgy, prudish Victorian, racist mindset much of the time? I would say so. He collected a lot of information, however, he really was a bit limited in the analyses department. He missed a lot, ignored a lot, rejected a lot.

And one more point, only so much can be "proven" by citing high ranking academics in the field. This is not law, we don't base things purely on precedent do we? That's a system where a bad decision generally leads to several more bad decisions. I hope that's not how we do things around here. Some things are obvious as in common sense, we shouldn't have to wait for some important academic to point such things out to us that seem to be staring us in the face. Like the John Graeme thing. How do I "prove" it? Why the hell should I have to? It's right there!

                                              ~S~


Btw, I do that little flourish on my initial because I'm very vain :-)

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 10:56 AM

Jim,

Eleven pounds? That's a good night! I love these little stories :)

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 12:27 PM

"Ballad study," such as it was, fell into disrepute fifty years ago even among folklorists because conjecture is too easy and pertinent evidence almost nonexistent.

I personally prefer to think that the rose and the briar symbolize the Romulan-Klingon alliance against people of Earth. I don't care what anyone has to say about it, either, because I believe what I what I want to from evidence that pops into my head (R stands for Romulan, and K is a spiky, briary letter. Prove me wrong.)

It puts the "folk" back into folk scholarship.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 12:53 PM

You have no grounds whatever for (once again) dismissing what was happening in Ireland because it doesn't fit your pet theory.
I gave an example of how traditional songs got into circulation via print yet you have failed to provide one single scrap of evidence of a broadside hack composing one traditional song.
It is far more likely in England that something of the sort went on there rather than the fanciful idea of the existence of a school of (pretty ham-fisted, judging by the published collections of broadsides) hacks managing to compose the "gems from a dunghill" that went to make up a traditional repertoire that managed to survive for centuries, while the rest of their dross appeared to have disappeared within... how long?
You have even dismissed, again out of hand, the descriptions of Hindley and Walton of these songs being "country" even though they they were writing at the time when the broadsides were being produced.
This description of Walton seeing and hearing ballads and songs, a little flowery perhaps, but from somebody on the spot.

"In Walton's ' Angler,' Piscator, having caught a chub, conducts Venator to an ' honest ale house, where they would find a cleanly room, lavender in the windows, and twenty ballads stuck about the wall.' 'When I travelled,' says the Spectator, ' I took a particular delight in hearing the songs and fables that are come from father to son, and are most in vogue among the common people of the countries
through which I passed.' The heart-music of the peasant was his native minstrelsy, his blithesome carol in the cottage and in the field."

I have searched for any form of confirmation that these anonymous hacks produced hardly anything of lasting merit - Hindly, Ashton, Lilley, Henderson, Wardroper, Rollins, Holloway and Black, Euing the Bagford and Roxborough collections..... all pretty crudely composed and in most cases unsingable stuff, interesting academically certainly, but hardly deathless verse, yet you claim they come from the same stable as those Walter Pardon, Tom Lenihan, Harry Cox, Sam Larner gave us, a stunning repertoire of beautiful songs that they got from the mouths of earlier generations which fitted the singers like a Saville Row tailored suit - come onnn!
So we are left with what? - first printed editions and no more.
We once asked Mikeen McCarthy did he know of anybody having made songs to sell to the printer - he said "why bother; there was enough around without having us go to that trouble".
Makes sense to me.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 12:55 PM

PS "I'm sorry you have gone to so much trouble."
I'm not doing it for you Steve - you obviously don't want to listen - maybe others do.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 01:21 PM

Jim,
I've given you lots of examples of ballads that made it into folk tradition where we even know the names of the writers, never mind all the anonymous ones. Like John Morgan (See Hindley) they lived in towns near to the printers who also lived in towns. Nobody mentioned any SCHOOL except you. It's very possible they never even met each other. They were simply trying to turn a quick shilling. Some of them even became well known poets and writers in later life. Of course much of what they produced was of its time and for the bottom of the market. Occasionally the odd one clicked and this entered oral tradition. Flowery, and even true in some countries at certain times and maybe even true to some extent in Walton's time in England but unfortunately by the time the 'country' people of the early 19thc were learning their songs the mass market was the printed broadside and related street literature.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 01:24 PM

Okay, Jim, it's showdown time.

You keep going on about 'insider knowledge'. Let's have 20 well-known 'country' examples from the English corpus that contain substantial 'insider knowledge'.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 01:49 PM

Nice one, Jon.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 02:14 PM

Other common names to be noted are Young Jemmy Grove and Sweet William ~~ and you omit to note, Suasan, that he was Sir John Graeme of the West Country, which location doesn't sound very Scottish, altho I acknowledge that the name does. As for it's being thought of early on as a Scotch song; that is how Pepys described it in what is generally taken as the first ref to it, in his record of having heard the actress Mrs Knipp sing it:
--- A diary entry by Samuel Pepys on January 2, 1666 contains the earliest extant reference to the song. In it, he recalls the fun and games at a New Years party:[3]
    "...but above all, my dear Mrs Knipp with whom I sang; and in perfect pleasure I was to hear her sing, and especially her little Scotch song of Barbary Allen."--- wikipedia

I have signed like this

~M~

for years. I got there first and URA copycat!

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 03:06 PM

That's funny because the most memorable quote I remember regarding the ballad Barbara Allen were written by Irish poet Oliver Goldsmith who said "The music of the finest singer is dissonance to what I felt when our old dairy-maid sung me into tears with "Johnny Armstrong's Last Good Night," or the "Cruelty of Barbara Allen." End quote.I will stuff that treasure right into my little book bag, and take it on down to the bank. But, I will hang to to a bit of my oral currency just in case anybody is in a betting mode because Lord Levett's snow-white steed and Lord Lovel's milk-white lovely is chomping at the bit. Pretty horsies.

Never fear Jim, others do.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 03:19 PM

Although, if you cornered me as to whether I preferred Twa Corbies to Three Ravens, I'd have to say Three Ravens. It appeals to a woman's psyche. I wept. Then she has to play the Twa Corbies just to cheer herself up.

You Englishmen really know what you're doin. Charletan bastards!

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 03:42 PM

I just want to say also that I am very grateful to all who have been willing to converse with me. Especially you Steve because I have been rude to you as I should not have been. That's ditto for Michael.

Jim,

One of the things I love most about Irish music is the ability of a woman to take on a man's point of view and the reverse. I love the way the Irish cut through barriers to connect with the human spirit in song.

My boys? U2, Shawn Mc Gowan... When I die, I'll be good as long as the Edge is playin in the background. In fact, if he is, I might decide to live a little bit longer...

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 04:24 PM

Susan,
You have encouraged people to think about and discuss a very interesting and vital topic (IMO) and that in itself is of value.
Despite some of your more romantic notions you have inspired me to go back now and have another look at all the different variations of this motif. I mentioned the possibility that the motif has come to English in translation perhaps on different occasions and I now want to pursue that possibility. I am deeply interested in motifs and commonplaces.

Regarding 'Scotch' songs, I have read on more than one occasion that to the London Society world of the 17th century anything from 20 miles north of London not in standard English was referred to as 'Scotch'. I probably read that in Child but I couldn't swear to it.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 04:36 PM

But isn't "Barbara Allen" usually in "standard English"?

Anyway, would Pepys have known a real Scotch song if he heard one?

Perhaps Mrs. Knipp/Knepp had a Scottish accent (unlikely). Or sang the song in Scottish character (more likely). Or introduced the song, based on hearsay, as "Scotch" (possible). Or perhaps that version mentioned a Scottish locality - perhaps the "North Country" instead of the West (quite possible, particularly if a Graeme was involved).

We may never know. The point is that based on what we *do* know, which is next to nothing, Pepy's informal characterization of the song as "Scotch," all by itself, has little value as evidence for anything.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 04:43 PM

If I understand the ongoing debate between Jim and Steve, the issue is what proportion of the "folk repertoire" originated in the countryside and what proportion originated among ballad printers in the city.

Traditional songs originated in both places.

However, the question of *proportions* and ultimate inspiration (not to mention relative quality) is unanswerable by its very nature. Theoretically any broadside could have come from the country, and any rural song could have come from a ballad sheet, known or otherwise.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 04:54 PM

I wondered if what Pepys heard was the 'Graeme' version. I've even looked at the possibility that the 'Reading' version was a parody of this and that 'scarlet' being the pun on 'Reading' was a further parody. All absolute conjecture and fancy. The 'Graeme' version does have more of the art song in it.

Jon,
No, the 'Graeme' version is in what I would call 'stage Scots', i.e., 'hooly, hooly' 'gin' for 'if' etc., the sort of stuff that abounds in Ramsay's works. However that very inventive fellow Peter Buchan managed to come up with a 41 stanza version in broad Doric. Needless to say, Child ignored it.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 04:56 PM

I meant Shane Mac Gowan. Not good with names. Don't tell my good friend Dan Lovell. He's the one who introduced me to the Pogues. Kiss my ass and all that. And the funny story of how Shane broke into Bono's house, broke out of rehab and drank all Bono's booze. Now that's a funny story.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Apr 13 - 10:31 PM

Steve,

"Stage Scots?" Are you kidding me? Sir Walter Scot is the stagiest Scot on the face of the earth!

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 04:18 AM

"Let's have 20 well-known 'country' examples from the English corpus"
Seems more than a little impertinent to demand such detailed work on something most of us have taken for granted throughout the time we have been involved, when you have not produced a single example of your own other than dates on paper, but OK- but will do it bit by bit so as not to mess everybody else about.
These stand out for me.
MAID OF AUSTRALIA a: very popular in Norfolk, sung by the three greats, Sam, Harry and Walter - we recorded it from Winterton man Bob Green.
I've always assumed that Oxborough was an Australian river, but I could never get any hits for it on Google Earth. An old friend, Bob Thomson researched the song and found that Oxborough, due west of Norwich once included a settlement of returned Australian convicts. Bob, (now almost certainly retired, left Cambridgeshire to become a professor of English in Gainesville, Florida) was convinced that due to this reference the song probably originated there. Before he left the UK his specialist subject was broadsides and he worked at length on the Madden Collection.
Staying in Norfolk:
BUTTER and CHEESE and ALL - Sam and Harry.
I was always puzzled by the idea of being able to scramble up a chimney in a hurry to hide.
Sam told Charles Parker and Walter Pardon told us of the closely kept secret custom in Norfolk of 'press gang rails', iron rods built into the chimneys to create a bolt hole for those wishing to avoid the attention of the press gangs that plagued the Norfolk coast in the early part of the 19th century - both Sam and Walter Pardon linked it to the prectice - I think it is included on Sam's Now Is The Time For Fishing album - it certainly is in his actuality recordings.
THE MOWING MATCH (recorded from Becket Whitehead)
Speaks for itself; couldn't possible have been made by an outsider, with all its detailed local references to names, work, sporting rules and judging practices.
Breakfast calls; will try to do some more later - bloody exhausting way to start the day.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 06:52 AM

"Sir Walter Scot is the stagiest Scot on the face of the earth!"
Sir Wal was said to having sent a servant out to to find a skull to put on his desk while he was working on supernatural ballads.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 07:54 AM

Jim, the Hawkesbury River flows north and west of Sydney.

Could sound like "Oxborough" to the uninitiated.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 08:33 AM

Jim, do you get the feeling Sir Walter made a few enemies in his lifetime?

http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=ODT18940618.2.38

Saints preserve us!

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 08:47 AM

"Could sound like "Oxborough" to the uninitiated.
It could, of course, and what you say might be a clue to the song's origins; none of this is in any way definitive, but it certainly makes better sense to me than proclaiming that 90+% of our songs originated on the 'English' broadside presses - who knows; Steve might have discovered the first version to have come from Australia.
While I have a minute - another (this time) genre of song

BROKEN TOKEN SONGS
I have always had difficulty with the motif of breaking a (particularly gold) ring in half; it always conjured up the picture of a young man rambling around the countryside armed with a hacksaw, just in case.
While Pat and I were working on the notes for 'Lady' in Her Father's Garden on 'From Puck to Appleby' she linked the motif with a custom popular up to the 17th century of 'gimmal rings'.
While the custom seemed to have died out, it was still to be found in odd places in rural England; if my memory serves me right Sergeant Troy gives one to his lover Fanny in 'Far From The Madding Crowd'.
Would such an outdated custom be part of the hacks armoury or would it be part of the experience of the few places that retained it - would it have any relevance to any potential customer; if not, why base a whole genre of songs on it?
This is the the note we did for Wexford Traveller Mary Cash's version of the song - again, nothing definitive, just an attempt to make sense of something we didn't really understand.

This is probably one of the most popular of all the 'broken token' songs, in which parting lovers are said to break a ring in two, each half being kept by the man and woman. At their reunion, the man produces his half as a proof of his identity.
Robert Chambers, in his Book of Days, 1862-1864, describes a betrothal custom using a 'gimmal' or linked ring:

" Made with a double and sometimes with a triple link, which turned upon a pivot, it could shut up into one solid ring... It was customary to break these rings asunder at the betrothal which was ratified in a solemn manner over the Holy Bible, and sometimes in the presence of a witness, when the man and woman broke away the upper and lower rings from the central one, which the witness retained. When the marriage contract was fulfilled at the altar, the three portions of the ring were again united, and the ring used in the ceremony".
These 'broken token' songs often end with the woman flinging herself into the returned lover's arms and welcoming him back, but the above version has it differently and, Mary Delaney, who also sang it for us, had the suitor even more firmly rejected:

"For it's seven years brings an alteration,
And seven more brings a big change to me,
Oh, go home young man, choose another sweetheart,
Your serving maid I'm not here to be."

Ref: The Book of Days, Robert Chambers, W & R Chambers, 18133-64.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 09:47 AM

Sorry – cross-posted.
"Jim, do you get the feeling Sir Walter made a few enemies in his lifetime?"
He seemed to have his critics – they didn't take prisoners in those days, did they?
From Hodgart's 'The Ballads:
"His (James Hogg's) mother, Margaret Laidlaw, was an unlettered folksinger, and it was she who spoke the famous words to Scott which make a fitting comment on his work: "There was never ane o' my songs prentit till ye prentit them yourself, and ye hae spoilt them a'togither. They were made for singin' and no for readin', but ye hae broken the charm now, and they'll never be sung mair.""

Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 10:08 AM

Jim
Maid of Australia. Insider knowledge???

Butter and Cheese and All. The insides of chimneys in many large houses in towns and country had these rungs for the cleaners to ascend. Some even had little sections where one could hide from religious persecutors like Priest Holes.

The Mowing Match is not part of the corpus under consideration. I'm not aware of any versions being collected in Sharp's time or by his contemporaries. There were plenty of songs about mowers but these do not contain any 'insider knowledge' unless you count sexual euphemisms as insider knowledge.

The Broken Token was as you say very common during the period when these songs were being made and common knowledge to all. Very definitely NOT insider knowledge.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 10:21 AM

Margaret Hogg née Laidlaw's famous complaint to Scott was, however misplaced. I wrote in my entry on 'Folklore' in The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Literature (NY 2003): "Her words have been called prophetic, but the resultant decline in living folklore was probably a factor of the same influences that led to the folkloric researches of Scott and others in the first place — awareness that urbanisation and the spread of easily accessible forms of popular entertainment (pleasure gardens, music hall; later radio, cinema, television) were undermining those popular roots on which the uninhibited spread of living folkore depends, and a consequent desire to preserve what could be saved before it vanished entirely. Although the folk forms have turned out tougher than this pessimistic view suggested, it is true that, from the invention of printing onward, every technological and popular artistic development had tended to fix the form. Mrs Hogg, alas, was too late."

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 10:24 AM

Jim,
Your labours would be more convincing if you chose your examples from the corpus we were discussing, Sharp, Hammond, Gardiner, Broadwood, Kidson, Baring Gould, Vaughan Williams, etc., and their publications. I know you have a copy of Marrow Bones. That would be a good start.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 10:28 AM

"The Mowing Match is not part of the corpus under consideration. "
Why not Steve - who is deciding what is "under consideration" - you claimed "all folk songs....?"
"Maid of Australia. Insider knowledge???"
Where you aware of the Norfolk ex-convict community - I certainly wasn't? If you were, on what grounds have you rejected the possibility
"The Broken Token was as you say very common during the period when these songs were being made"
Are you saying the they were made in the 18th century?
Tell you what - how about some qualifying some of your own claims beyond "earliest dates" in exchange or are you insisting on rigging the match? Have got plenty more examples but if you're going to behave like this, I'm taking my ball home?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 10:39 AM

But who said it was your ball, Jim?

Just asking ~~ not taking sides!

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 10:47 AM

Jim,
You need to check back again. At no point did I mention ALL folk songs. I deliberately said over and over again that my researches applied to that corpus of material collected and published c1890-1920 by the likes of Sharp. If I was to consider every item of English folk song, fragments, one-offs, peripherals it would take more than a lifetime, and then there would be the old debate about what constitutes a 'folk song'. I've deliberately avoided this all along and repeatedly so.

Some were certainly made in the 18thc. Many of the flowery ones that came out of the theatres and pleasure gardens were mostly 18thc.

I have done that, Jim. I have given you the names of authors from 17th to 19th century and I can even think of a few early 20th. I'm happy to give you plenty of examples of those from broadsides. No problem.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 11:19 AM

"At no point did I mention ALL folk songs."
Very true - you only said 90+% - you also included versions in your claim.
And I said over and over again that your researches didn't hold water because our knowledge of the oral tradition didn't extend back beyond the beginning of the 20th century - you have applied the same arguments to the ballads, which go back much further than that.
You dismissed Isaac Walton's (1593-1683) evidence in his referring to songs he heard as "country songs" on the grounds that he was talking about "country printers".
And while we're at it, can you link me to evidence of ladders inside chimneys - damned if I can find anything other than little boys being lowered down them 9seem to remeber Charles Kingsley had something to say on the matter - this didn't help me; maybe you'll have better luck   
http://www.ruchalachimney.com/history.html
Harking back to the gimmal rings - can you point me to anybody who has linked broken token songs to them - if not, why not if they where a common phenomenon.
Understand what you're saying Mike, but Steve has chosen to challenge me to put up - can't really see the point in travelling up this one-way street if its going to turn out to be a cul-de-sac.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 12:22 PM

> Oxborough, due west of Norwich once included a settlement of returned Australian convicts.

Interesting, of course. But it's likely enough that whoever created the lyrics simply wanted to write an erotic song set in the romantic South Seas. Ah, the Hawkesbury banks! Why not? Particularly if it was written in Sydney.

Surely this is just as probable as any suggestion that the song originally referred to the "Oxborough" banks.

FWIW, a search of Google Books for "Oxborough + Australian" fails to confirm the existence there of a settlement of returned lags.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 02:12 PM

"But it's likely enough that whoever created the lyrics simply wanted to write an erotic song set in the romantic South Seas."
Possibly true - don't think there's much to be drawn from this other than the coincidences of the ref to Australia, there having been a returned convict colony and the song being particularly popular in Norfolk may have some significance - none of this should be set in stone, just part of the information to be assessed before you make up your mind.
I was thumbing through Roy Palmer's 'Everyman's Book of Country Songs last night - I'd forgotten how good his research was.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 03:11 PM

Funny you should mention Roy, Jim.
He was at the presentation I gave at C#H. He actually complemented me on my presentation. I'd be quite happy to ask Roy to adjudicate on this one. He's pretty much an expert on broadsides himself.

Butter &CAA, otherwise known on broadsides as 'Cook's Courtship'. The cook is obviously the cook in the kitchen of one of those old houses with a 'master' who discovers her little bit of fun. These old houses generally had a large open fire place to burn wood, the type you could walk into. Not the type you could climb up using spread hands and feet but some form of climbing aid like rungs or protruding bricks.

Broken Token
Again, Jim, I'm not sure what you're saying here. A broken token is precisely what it says on the bottle, a token of some sort that is roughly broken in half so that when placed together only these 2 pieces will join exactly. The item was usually a ring for pretty obvious reasons, but occasionally a coin or something similar, and they were just as common in the 18th century as the 19th and I wouldn't be surprised if even earlier though I can't think of an example off-hand. (unintended). If you're asking if there are broken token songs from the 18th century I'd say I'm pretty certain yes, but I'd have to go and check.

On several occasions I have stated that my conclusions are largely based on stylistic qualities within the ballads themselves. This obviously varies from ballad to ballad, which is why it would be better to select and discuss individual ballads as examples and this is why I have been offering for you to choose those examples yourself.
More shortly.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 03:16 PM

Jim,
Here's a small simple example from your own area of expertise.

Bear with me. I'm not being facetious.

Your Irish travellers often call broadsides 'ballets'. They also have a 3-word phrase they use to describe them which is common knowledge. Can you remind me of this short phrase please?

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 03:22 PM

Jim,
A rather unfortunate choice of song for you in Butter and Cheese and All. The copy I have in front of me ends as follows:

Now to conclude my ditty,
I hope I have not kept you long,
So we'll all proceed to harmony,
If you'll BUY up my song.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 04:49 PM

Susan,
Had a close look at Douglas Tragedy. Not that many versions include the burial stanzas and the American ones seem to have mainly the rose from HIS grave. All of these finish with the true love knot forming. The earliest English version has the end cut off but we are told there was probably room for about 9 more stanzas. Pure conjecture but if you take the last verse of Percy Folio version and match it to the equivalent stanza in I, the stall copy c1795, it would suggest these burial stanzas weren't present in the earliest version.

Look carefully at the headnote to Scott's version in Child. It says 'the three last stanzas from a penny pamphlet and from tradition.' By 'penny pamphlet' one presumes he means the stall copy, I, which he didn't have access to when he made the notes. The stall copy indeed finishes with the 2 stanzas 18 and 19 in Scott and Scott's version follows the stall copy pretty closely. Scott's final verse about 'Black Douglas' is found nowhere else in this ballad's tradition. In fact no other version goes beyond the lover's knot. I know some uses of the motif in other ballads have someone sever the knot, but not in this ballad. I leave you to draw your own conclusions from this.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 05:09 PM

It seems to me that "The Douglas Tragedy" was crafted out of Earl Bran. All variants of Child #7 in which the name Earl Bran is used have no motif. That's 7 out of 10. The 3 that have it of course use the name Douglas. Interestingly, these versions use the rose and briar but then switch to the second part of the variation (aye they grew etc.)This doesn't happen anywhere else. The Douglas is an example of a ballad that was tailored to fit the legend and a locale. No big mystery here. We can scratch this one off I think.

I like what Mrs. Laidlaw said. It's folk wisdom for the ages. Publishing ballads is like reducing a motion picture to a still. But I also respect your analysis Michael. It's brilliant. I've got some good stuff to ponder out in the woods where I'm a-going right now :)

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Lighter
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 05:28 PM

> It's folk wisdom for the ages.

And, like most "folk wisdom," quite wrong. People are still singing the songs, even if they did learn them from print and plastic. Did large numbers of 19th C. ballad singers quit singing because Scott fancied up some of their ballads for print? Why on earth would they?

If Mrs. Hogg could come back, even she might be delighted by some modern performers.

Once she got used to our world.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 06:32 PM

Too true, John. Many of those ballads 'tidied up' even 'concocted' by the antiquarians have quickly fallen back into oral tradition. Look at Burns' stuff as well.

'It seems to me that "The Douglas Tragedy" was crafted out of Earl Bran'. Highly unlikely, Susan. Earl Brand is a different ballad to Douglas Tragedy. They have no text in common. They have a common origin in Ribold and Guldborg, yes, along with Erlinton. I think if Child had had access to all of the versions before he published he would have given EB and DT different numbers as he did with Erlinton. There is really only one version of EB with a few minor differences and my bet is it was made up quite recently after 1814 and based on Jamieson's translation of R&G. The stall copy of DT from which all other versions are derived barring Percy's has actual text in common with Percy though not much. It is a great pity that so much of Percy's Ms version was lost.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Apr 13 - 06:33 PM

Go on then 200. Sorry, couldn't resist. Slaps own wrist.