County Songs

Subject: County Songs
From: Murpholly
Date: 03 Sep 14 - 02:10 PM

Some two and a half years ago as part of my retirement project, I decided to sing at least one folk song from each of the old English counties. I wanted them to be traditional and from the county rather than just collected there. (As the major route from London to the north Lincolnshire has a plethora of songs Not its own whereas such as Brigg Fair definitely belong to the county). I am a regular attender at two folk clubs and the task was completed last night. Oh incidentally I did add on the Isle of Man and the Isle of Wight as extras plus a Romany one for those who belong to no specific county. It has been great fun, finding, learning and singing new songs as well as some golden oldies whose county I was not necessarily aware of and many thanks to mudcatters who helped, the hubby the who learnt some of the tunes and friends who helped him out with reading music. Guess what - I am off round the 32 counties now to please himself.

Subject: RE: County Songs
From: Joe Offer
Date: 03 Sep 14 - 11:08 PM

Murpholly, did you save a list of the songs so we'll know what you sang? I'd sure be interested.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: County Songs
From: Murpholly
Date: 04 Sep 14 - 12:04 PM

Not only have I saved a list I have copies of all the words and sometimes even the tunes when we were having to learn from scratch. I might add that appropriate songs were sung at appropriate seasons such as the two wassails and May songs. So here goes:-

Bedfordshire - The Bedford May Song;
Berkshire - The Vicar of Bray;
Buckinghamshire - A Dashing Young Lad from Buckingham;
Carmbridgeshire - The Cuckoo and the Nightingale;
Cheshire - I Will Give You the Keys of Heaven;
Cornwall - Padstow (what else!);
Cumberland - D'You Ken John Peel;
Derbyshire - The Derby Ram;
Devon - Widdecombe Fair;
Dorset - Linden Lea;
Durham - The Maypole;
Essex - A Bold Young Farmer Courted Me;
Gloucestershire Wassail;
Hampshire - My Bonny Bonny Boy;
Herefordshire - An Old Farmer (sometimes claimed by Yorkshire but definitely Hereford);
Hertfordshire - The Moon Shines Bright (Mayday);
Huntingdonshire - To the Greenwood's We Will Go;
Kent - John Appleby;
Lancashire - Green Gravel (shortest song I could find as I am a Yorkshire lass);
Leicestershire - I'll Tell You of a Fellow;
Lincolnshire - Sir Hugh;
London - Barbara Allen (as quoted in Pepys Diary;
Middlesex - The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington;
Monmouth - The Three Jovial Welshmen;
Norfolk - The Foggy Foggy Dew;
Northamptonshire - The Seeds of Love;
Northumberland - Hexhamshire Lass;
Nottinghamshire - Nottingham Ale;
Oxfordshire - October Brew;
Rutland - Exton May Day Song;
Shropshire - When the Frost Is on the Pumpkin;
Somerset Wassail;
Staffordshire - Polly Oliver;
Suffolk - Oliver Cromwell;
Surrey - A Brisk and Spritely Lad;
Sussex - Twankidillo;
Warwickshire - The Keeper;
Westmorland - A North Country Maid;
Wiltshire - King Arthur's Servant's;
Worcestershire - Sweet William;
Yorkshire East - I Saw Three Ships;
North - Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill;
West - Lord George;
Isle of Man - Spin Wheel Spin;
Isle of Wight - Three Drunken Maidens;
and not least Romany Rai

All safely filed and ready to sing again.

Subject: RE: County Songs
From: RTim
Date: 04 Sep 14 - 12:25 PM

I am intrigued by the song from Oxfordshire - October Brew.
I have never heard of it and I can find no reference to the song on the Internet.

Can you reveal your source?

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: County Songs
From: Musket
Date: 04 Sep 14 - 12:53 PM

Aye, I heard Murpholly sing most of them. Most impressive.

Perhaps when I return from holiday we can have some fun with the next project by starting a discussion on the subject of how many counties there are in Ireland?

I'll get me coat.

Subject: RE: County Songs
From: greg stephens
Date: 04 Sep 14 - 03:45 PM

What is the Polly Oliver Staffordshire connection? Intriguing.

Subject: RE: County Songs
From: greg stephens
Date: 04 Sep 14 - 03:48 PM

Very interesting set altogether. Not sure about rating Linden Lea as traditional. given we know the author of the words and the music (William Barnes and Vaughan Williams). Certainly a fabulous song.

Subject: RE: County Songs
From: Mr Red
Date: 05 Sep 14 - 03:34 AM

If you are descending on Worsestershire might I suggest the "Somers Traditional Folk Club" Alma Tavern Fri 8pm?
And in Gloucestershire there is always Cheltenham Folk Club
In my area (Exeter to Shrewsbury, Cardiff to Oxford) it is worth a look at the sessions & Clubs. cresby.com. Lots more Folk Clubs. My geographical search is useful for alternatives within a given radius - "choose a town" first.

Subject: Lyr Add: OCTOBER BREW
From: Murpholly
Date: 05 Sep 14 - 01:11 PM

Hi Mudcatters, I'll try and answer your queries. I have known October Brew for a very long time. It is sung to the tune Bonny Green Garters which is a Bampton (Oxfordshire) Morris Tune so assume that is where it originated - probably at a Morris Feast (and its better than the Spotted Cow.

OCTOBER BREW
(Songwriter:???)

All ye who will drink and yet stop on the brink
Of the chasm twixt drunken and sober
Cast out to the slums all your brandies and rums
And stick fast to good honest October
Your Frenchman is famed for his frothy champagne
His Burgandy and his Bordeaux Sir
But the staggering part of October I warrant
Would send all to hell and below Sir

Your Claret and Hocks and your surgeon and box
May be all very well when when your ill sir
But I venture to think that old Pollypool's drink
Is the brace old October brew still sir
We find you for sure sat so snug in the bar
A man who is often in here sir
Away from your wife and the trouble and strife
Come settle content with your beer sir

Settle content with your beer sir
Settle content with your beer sir
Away from your wife and the trouble and strife
Come settle content with your beer sir

Musket you know very well there are 32 counties and as you missed this week's Ep'th Folk you missed the very interesting discussion regarding the Scottish referendum and if it is a yes whether all the Plantation Scots will go back to Scotland leaving the six counties for Dáil Eirinn.

Greg, the Barnes poem was originally written in Dorset dialect and I chose it as it was a favourite song of Eric Payne who founded Ep'th Folk one of my local haunts. Lots of others I could have chosen.

Have Polly Oliver from Staffordshire with the connection to the Jacobites and participation of Staffordshire regiments. Can't remember which site I picked that up from but remember reading lots about it.

It has been a fun exercise and no doubt there are many queries but I chose songs I could sing and that I liked rather than any other reason.

Subject: Lyr Add: OCTOBER (from Punch, 1877)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 05 Oct 14 - 10:30 PM

These words appeared in Punch, Vol. 73, Oct. 20, 1877, page 169:

OCTOBER

All ye who would drink,
And yet stop on the brink
Of the chasm 'twixt drunken and sober,
Throw out to the slums
All your brandies and rums,
And stick fast to good honest October!

Your Frenchman is vain
Of his frothy champagne,
Of his burgundy and his Bordeaux, sirs!
A staggering pot
Of October, I wot,
Would soon send all the lot down below, sirs!

Your clarets and hocks
And your sour German bocks
May be all very well when you're ill, sirs,
But I venture to think
That old Johnny Bull's drink
Is the brave old October-brew still, sirs!

Where find you for muscle,
Or pluck in a tussle,
A man who with Bull is compeer, sirs?
And if you'd know why,
'Tis because when he's dry,
He's content with a draught of good beer, sirs!

Subject: RE: County Songs
From: Musket
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 03:21 AM

Interesting you have it as a Bampton (Oxon) affair Kath. The words fit to a Derbyshire Morris tune, which rather than Bampton has Brampton in it. As Brampton is in Cambridgeshire, I can only assume bicycles were available in my Derbyshire from an early date.

You don't know and I don't know
What fun we had in Brampton
A roasted pig and a cuddled duck
And a pudding in a lantern.

There again, as aficionados of Terry Wogan will tell you, it fits to Cornwall's Floral Dance for that matter.

Confusing thing this geography lark. As you won't accept Kilburn North London as an Irish county....

Subject: RE: County Songs
From: GUEST,LynnH
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 03:40 AM

Musket:

surely the words are:

Aa dunna know, aa dunna care
What they do i' Bradda
Piece o' beef an' an old cow's yead
And a puddin' baked in a lantern

Bradda= Bradwell

Castleton Garland Tune according to Crichton Porteous "The Ancient Customs of Derbyshire"

Or, to stay wi' your version, (New)Brampton is part of Chesterfield whilst (Old)Brampton is a village just west of Chesterfield.

Subject: RE: County Songs
From: Musket
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 05:56 AM

Yeah but our Brampton, according to those lads in Winster, isn't the one in the song. Your words and mine certainly are a variation on a theme and somewhere in my muddled mind, yours ring a bell too.

What is your take on the verse;

This is it and that is it
And this is Morris dancing
The piper fell and broke his leg
And said it was a chancer.

?

Geography apart, I lived in Handley for a while whilst parcel deliveries were wandering around Apperknowle looking for me, fifteen miles away.. Derbyshire geography.. Don't get me started.

Subject: RE: County Songs
From: GUEST,LynnH
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 02:03 PM

I've got a feeling that I've heard that verse somewhere (long,long ago) but as to the context.........It wouldn't surprise me if Winster Morris, or some other team, had made it up. Or was it on one of the "Morris on" records?

The story behind my verse, as related in Porteous, is that cornish miners were brought up to the Peak to bring some of the lead mines up to scratch. Of course they brought their music and songs with them but the Derbyshire lads, not understanding the dialect / language, took over the tune and cobbled something together which supposedly phonetically resembled what the cornishmen sang.

Subject: RE: County Songs
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 02:16 PM

Hi Murpholly,
Only trying to be helpful but 'I saw 3 ships' is pretty universal, certainly not East Yorks though it was collected there amongst other places. Also Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill is definitely Richmond Hill in London, nothing to do with Richmond in Yorkshire. (and that's from a Yorkshireman!).

There are plenty of songs from all 3 Ridings at www.yorkshirefolksong.net

Subject: RE: County Songs
From: Murpholly
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 02:52 PM

Gosh I thought this theme was long dead. First of all Bonny Green Garters is Bampton Oxfordshire and probably from Morris Men there that I learnt October Brew.

I concede that Lass of Richmond Hill is not a folk song by some definitions being written by Leonard McNally and music by James Hook and first noted in 1789. (Old enough to be a folk song? It has a roud number). McNally married Frances L'Anson in 1787. Her family had a great deal of property in Richmond, Yorkshire including "Hill House" so think Steve that as a Yorkshire man you might accept the Richmond is that in the North Riding and as a Yorkshire Briganti I claim it for Yorkshire despite those southerners. Just a pity that McNally betrayed his United Irishment comrades later on.

Subject: RE: County Songs
From: Musket
Date: 06 Oct 14 - 03:27 PM

Mixing Derbyshire and Cornwall is nothing new. I assumed "Sun and Moon" by Charles Lowndes, his surname denoting a cousin of my mother having written it till I noted he wasn't local...

Since which I found family ties to Cornwall. Game on...

Subject: RE: County Songs
From: Snuffy
Date: 15 Oct 14 - 09:19 AM

Musket

Living in the West Midlands I have sometimes heard reference to the 36 Counties, the other four being:
   County Birmingham
   County Coventry
   County Kilburn
   County Liverpool

Subject: RE: County Songs
From: OldNicKilby
Date: 15 Oct 14 - 09:39 AM

Hello Murph, Could you put the words of your Leicestershire Song up please M'Duck
Steve I understood that the 3 Ships refers to the 3 skulls in the
Dom in Koln as they were brought up the Rhine in 3 ships because they were so valuable

Subject: RE: County Songs
From: GUEST,PeterC
Date: 15 Oct 14 - 10:33 AM

FY Steve Gardham, 'Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill' is not the correct wording - as everyone in Gloucestershire knows, it is actually 'Sweet Lass of Ribston Hall' - a girls grammar school in Gloucester. All the song books at my old (boys) grammar school had been neatly corrected!

Subject: RE: County Songs
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 15 Oct 14 - 05:15 PM

Peter,
That's a rare old Ribston Pippin!

Murph,
I must apologise. The article (1844) I had giving the history of the song and McNally's lovelife is somewhat ambiguous. Having looked at it more closely It would appear you are correct.

I think my own ancestry is more Norseman than Briganti.

Subject: RE: County Songs
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Oct 14 - 03:38 AM

Murpholly, is there somewhere online where we in the U.S. can hear you sing at least one or two of these?
-Joe-