Lyr Req: Reynardine (from Pentangle)

Subject: Reynardine as performed by Pentangle
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 12 Apr 01 - 11:02 AM

I'm looking for the words to the ballad "Reynardine" as it was performed by the band Pentangle. Their words are different from the versions now in the Digitrad; I looked. Has anybody got them on an album or tape?

I've got most of it, but a few words from two verses elude me. The verses I need start with (1)"Oh, no, my dear, I am no rake" and (2) He said, "My dear, if you look for me"

The tune for this is also different from the tune on the DigiTrad. It sounds much older, also more ominous. I love this kind of stuff!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Reynardine as performed by Pentangle
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Apr 01 - 11:43 AM

Sorry suffering from an over active return key
From memory

1. Oh, no my dear I am no rake,
Bound up in Venus' train,
I'm searching for concealment
, All from the judges men.

2. My dear, if you should look for me,
Then perhaps you'll not me find.
I'll be in my castle,
Enquire for Renardyne.

If these don't come from Pentangle, then blame Archie Fisher.

Will try to double-check with album cover when I get a chance and re-post.
love, john.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Reynardine as performed by Pentangle
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 12 Apr 01 - 11:44 AM

Martin Carthy, Bert Jansch, Anne Briggs, Pentangle and Fairport Convention all recorded arrangements of a version of the song found in the East (I think) of England by A.L. Lloyd; some alterations were made to the text in each case, if I remember rightly.  Although the song has often been discussed here (see the "Digitrad and Forum Search"), the precise words used by Pentangle have not, I think, been posted.  Lyrics taken from recordings by Carthy, Lloyd and Briggs may be seen at Garry Gillard's  Watersons  site:

Reynardine

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Reynardine as performed by Pentangle
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Apr 01 - 11:44 AM

I'll have a look on my Pentangle anthology album whan I get home. (WONDERFUL value from Amazon btw - 30-odd tracks for about 8 quid!)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Reynardine as performed by Pentangle
From: Peg
Date: 12 Apr 01 - 12:15 PM

Is this the same version as the one the John Renbourne Band recorded? (on the album Maid in Bedlam)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Reynardine as performed by Pentangle
From: GUEST,The gnome with a broken cookie!
Date: 12 Apr 01 - 01:39 PM

Sorry - It aint on the anthology. Perhaps it was the John Renbourne band as Peg suggests?

Cheers

Dave the Gnome

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Reynardine as performed by Pentangle
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 12 Apr 01 - 02:37 PM

In fact, Pentangle didn't record the song until about 1994; I was probably thinking of the Jansch recording (late '60s/ early '70s).  Shirley Collins also recorded the version found by Lloyd, on the influential album she made in 1964 with Davy Graham, Folk Roots, New Routes, which is probably where Jansch and Renbourne got it if they didn't get it directly from Lloyd.  Even Lloyd didn't record it till 1966.  He seems to have modified the text quite a bit over time, and I strongly suspect that it was he who introduced "his teeth did brightly shine"; Shirley Collins got "his eyes so bright did shine" from him a few years previously.  On that, and on one unsubstantiated remark by an Irish poet and song collector, rests the whole "this is a werewolf/ werefox/ vampire story" canard...

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Reynardine as performed by Pentangle
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 13 Apr 01 - 09:15 AM

I'm back. How nice to get helpful responses in only 24 hours. (Last night was Holy Thursday, you know. It's the kick-off for "National Catholic Week", which involves cleaning and decorating the church, then music Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday morning. Then brunch with the gang, and finally bird-watching to rest up from it all.

The guy who told me to join a regular choral group if I wanted to improve my voice was right on. (He's Welsh.)

Anyhow, about the song Reynardine. There are two definite versions floating around. In one, (as seen in the DigiTrad)Reynardine is a merely human outlaw or oppressor. In the other, he is a shape-shifter, an evil one, who leads the young woman away to the mountains, where "she fell into a coffin" and then is revived. But we can assume, I think, that she is now a zombie or revenant, and not her real self anymore.

The second version has the words, "her rosy cheeks and ruby lips", words I am familiar with from the American song "The Lily of the West". I wonder if this means that Pentangle's song had lived in America for a while.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Reynardine as performed by Pentangle
From: Peg
Date: 13 Apr 01 - 10:36 AM

well, ruby cheeks and rosy lips would seem to be common enough lyrics in traditional songs...

another thought: "Reynard" is the common name for a fox in French fairy tales; this fits with the shape-shifting thing, but also speaks to this character's wily ways...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Reynardine as performed by Pentangle
From: Snuffy
Date: 13 Apr 01 - 02:25 PM

"her rosy cheeks and ruby lips" are in The Parting Glass, to name but one.

Almost everything worthwhile in the Americas originally came from across the pond **BG** :-}

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Reynardine as performed by Pentangle
From: Stewie
Date: 13 Apr 01 - 07:28 PM

There is also this one - there is a version in the DT under the title 'Renaldine 2':

Mountains of Pomeroy

There have been several previous threads about 'Reynardine' including this one:

Click

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Reynardine as performed by Pentangle
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 13 Apr 01 - 09:21 PM

Quite so.  What I want to know is where Leeneia got that "falling into a coffin" business.  As I mentioned earlier, the "supernatural" take on Reynardine is almost certainly a 20th century romantic construct, and if there's someone out there pulling people's legs about it, we ought to be told!

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Reynardine as performed by Pentangle
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 13 Apr 01 - 09:34 PM

Easy, Malcolm, easy. It's only a song, and whether Reynardine is an outlaw or a warlock is not that important.

To answer your q., I got the "falling into a coffin business" from the singing of the man I am to accompany. He says he learned it from Pentangle. At least, that's what he said last week. Next week he might say he learned it from an Appalachian Sufi.

Whether it's 20th-century or not (hard to prove) it's a good song and we're doing it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Reynardine as performed by Pentangle
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 13 Apr 01 - 09:48 PM

Ah; he made it up, then.  That's all I wanted to know.  Where traditional songs are concerned, I think it's important that people do not tell lies about their provenance, as it confuses the issue.  You have to remember that these are not just songs; they are also a part of our common heritage, and of our history.  They do not belong to individuals.  Deliberately to falsify historical evidence is to defraud us, and our children, of their rightful inheritance; which, above all else, should be the truth.

Malcolm

Subject: Lyr Add: REYNARDINE (from Pentangle)
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Aug 11 - 02:58 PM

Pentangle's version, from So Early in the Spring (1989):


One morning as I rambled upon the springtime
I overheard a young woman converse with Reynardine
Her hair so black and her eyes so blue, her lips like ruby wine.
He smiled and gazed upon her, did the sly, bold Reynardine

She said, "Young man, please be civil, my company forsake,
For to my good opinion, I fear you are a rake."
"Oh no, my dear, I am no rake, but cast out and made a thief.
And I'm searching for concealment all from the judge's man."

He kissed her once and he kissed her twice till she came to again.
Then modestly she bade him, "Pray tell to me your name."
He said, "My dear, if you look for me, perhaps you'll not me find.
But I'll be here in my castle. Pray inquire for Reynardine."

Both sun and dark, she followed him. His eyes so bright did shine.
And he led her over the mountain, did the sly, bold Reynardine.



Bert Jansch recorded the song again on his own, and included the following verse missing from the Pentangle version:

Her rosy cheeks, her ruby lips
They lost their bloom so fine
And she fell into his arms
That sly, bold Reynardine