Origins: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: GUEST,BlackAcornUK
Date: 09 May 20 - 12:46 PM

It's quite correct that people adhere to social distancing requirements, but it was still very sad to see Helston standing empty yesterday;

Of possible interest to anyone not completely exhausted by the endless debate over Hal-an-Tow, I've tried to draw together many of the different interpretations in my new blog, as part of https://twitter.com/hashtag/AFolkSongAFortnight - my new, lockdown-spurred project to learn, research, record and write about a different traditional song every couple of weeks.

https://afolksongafortnight.blogspot.com/2020/05/afolksongafortnight-no1-hal-tow.html

Grateful for comments, shares and future song suggestions...!

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 26 Apr 12 - 05:02 AM

Dave Swarbrick last night:

Well it was an extraordinary performance. To miss-quote other people: He played all the notes and in the right order and most of the other notes as well. He played in a number of keys and in many, many time sigs. sometimes in the same tune. I felt that sometimes the tunes dissappeared only to re-emerge a few bars later. I think the tunes fought back and did well in the second half.

And he didn't mention Hal an Tow once

Les

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 26 Apr 12 - 04:36 AM

I think there's a big difference between "pagan" and "seasonal". There are still seasonal festivals - they're called things like Christmas and Easter and Bank Holiday Monday. 100 or 150 years ago, the seasonal meaning of festivals like that would have been much more vivid - and so would the religious (Christian) meaning. I think people who try to find spiritual significance in old songs by spotting parallels with pre-Christian religions are looking in the wrong place.

Anyway, this is all way off topic - maybe I should hang on to this thought until the next time somebody starts sounding off about Saturnalia.

How was Swarb?

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 26 Apr 12 - 03:13 AM

The Christian Church in in Enland has been one of the most powerful influences on the lives of working people and 'society in general' since the Anglo-Saxons were converted.

The Church matched the pattern of the agricultural year to aspects of the life of JC as descibed in the new testament and embued almost everything they could with 'christian significance'. The poor old pagens never had a chance.

When you consider the ferocity with which protestant reformers treated catholics and at various times vice versa it is hardley surprising that anything that might be described at all as 'pre-christian' or pagan has survived at all.

In fact I am tempted to say their is no evidence of survival at all. Maybe a few re-introductions and massive significance thrown on to a few features of seasonal.

Hal an Tow? A strange old song that's great fun to sing.

Les

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 05:41 PM

Yes ~ but, Phil. Without going all Golden Bough, there is surely always some traceable syncretic continuum? Though I agree with you it is too simple to go to the other extreme & insist on over-interpretation of everything. Perhaps someone had an Aunt called Mary Moses, for that matter, and pagan fertility goddesses had nothing to do with it!

~M~

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 03:56 PM

Michael - someone else asked the original question, and I wasn't criticising anything you'd contributed. (I hadn't realised the Watersons had contributed the 'Shakespeare' verse; I was quite spooked when I happened upon it, leafing through As you like it one day for reasons I forget.)

The hazy chronology on that page you quoted just struck me as a typical example of woozy folkie retro-paganism, something that always irritates me (all right, Les, I'll let it lie in just a minute, OK...). When I sing the Holly and the Ivy I like to introduce it by saying that it's a song that preserves many symbols and images of an ancient faith that was once practised throughout England... a faith called "Christianity". The serious point is that you don't need to go that far back - perhaps to around the time my grandparents were born - to get to a world without electric lighting but with universal observance of Christian ritual. The people Cecil Sharp and Vaughan Williams collected from would have had an immediate understanding of the sentiments of a song like the Holly and the Ivy or the Boar's Head Carol, in a way that we can't any more. (Those sentiments being: (a) "it's really cold and dark out there" and (b) "praise our Lord and Saviour".) Chin-stroking neo-pagan "explanations" of the "symbolism" of these songs just make the past into much more of a foreign country than it was - or maybe it would be closer to the point to say that they make the past easier to understand, by glossing over the taken-for-granted Christian faith which genuinely does seem exotic to us now.

I like the idea of "Aunt Mary Moses" as a codeword for the BVM; not sure if there's anything to support it, but it's a nice folk-explanation at the very least. But I can't see any reason to drag pre-Xtian deities into it.

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 05:07 AM

Phil, Phil let it lie

Les

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 03:20 AM

Don't know. & don't know. Just that you asked a question and I found a possible, speculative, answer by searching. If it doesn't satisfy you, that's OK. But not a topic I have particular interest in pursuing.

~M~

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 02:44 AM

True, but where's the evidence of this particular ancient faith feeding into this particular newer one? And what's it got to do with this song?

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Apr 12 - 12:11 AM

Syncretically ~~ perfectly natural & true to form when newer faiths replace ancient.

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 24 Apr 12 - 06:59 PM

Before the Reformation she was one of the Saints Mary, possibly the Blessed Virgin herself. Were medieval Cornish Christians telling their beads to "a version of the Pagan Goddess of spring"?

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Apr 12 - 05:21 PM

No ~~ before the Reformation, c mid-C16: not an absurd stretch of time.

~M~

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 24 Apr 12 - 03:20 PM

she got desainted after the Reformation in England. Before that she was probably a version of the Pagan Goddess of spring

Before what, exactly? Before Christianity? It would be nice to think that the singing of Hal-an-Tow (or something like it) dated back to before the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, but it's a bit of a stretch.

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Apr 12 - 11:50 AM

Suggestion on one website, http://piereligion.org/mayday2.html#furry ~~

"Poor Aunt Mary Moses was surely once Saint Mary, but she got desainted after the Reformation in England. Before that she was probably a version of the Pagan Goddess of spring, almost certainly Freya. And if you don't happen to be in England, you can ask her to send "peace through all the land."

All speculative, I guess; but probably as good a guess as any.

This website, BTW, explicitly quoting the Watersons' version as reference, includes unquestioned the "Take no scorn to wear the horn" verse, showing that the poster had not taken on board my post above, 24 Sep 10, 0406 AM, where I state on the authority of Norma herself that the Watersons got that verse from Shax's As You Like It because they thought it sounded good there. It does not appear in any of the traditional on-the-spot or field recordings I have ever heard.

~M~

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 24 Apr 12 - 11:27 AM

She's the one with all the power and might - O

L in C#

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: GUEST,Nicole
Date: 24 Apr 12 - 11:26 AM

Who is Aunt Mary Moses?

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 Sep 10 - 03:10 PM

Yes, as political "polls" are *head* counts.

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: GUEST,Seonaid
Date: 24 Sep 10 - 02:01 PM

Thanks, everyone --
Fine diversion for the Cornish in me...
Takes me back to my Ren-Faire days, and following the "oss" about.
And thanks so much for introducing me to the word "mondeverdant"!!
Now, from my Scots half --
Re "curly pow" above, "pow" is, I believe, a variant of "poll".
Definitely has to do with things on the head -- hair, horns, etc.
Cheers!

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Sep 10 - 04:06 AM

Notable [but no-one seems to have noted it above, or any of the many other threads about all this that I have found] is that the Watersons' first "Take thou no scorn to wear the horn" verse does not appear in any of the traditional versions there cited. I once thought I would try to write an article for OUP's Notes·&·Queries or some such on how a verse from Shakespeare's As You Like It (I once played Amiens, who sings it in the play) should have fused into this traditional but ongoing ritual. Unable to find any annotations in any edition of AYLI I consulted, I rang Norma Waterson to explain what I was working on & ask her where they got the verse from. "Oh, no problem," she said; "we got it from As You Like It and thought it sounded good there."

So ~ question answered, and one scholarly article that never got written. But it had better be known that that verse used in that song is no older than the Watersons' rendition: just as, according to a post a bit back [Folkiedave 19 Apr 08], Mike Waterson appears to have written the 'man created...works debated' jingle himself.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Sep 10 - 08:39 PM

I can't tell you what it means, but I have a version of it in one of my songbooks, and it is written as,"Hal-an-toe, jolly lu mallow". I always just assumed it was nonsense words because it was such a happy song.

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 May 09 - 08:48 AM

Some information for you that is not mentioned clearly anyone in this long thread, and which is possibly assumed by the experts -

(1) "The Hal An Tow" is used to refer to the performance and song, done every year, in Helston Cornwall on May 8th, where it has been performed and sung for a very very long time. No doubt it may have older / wider origins, but the Helston 'version' is certainly older and more authentic than the versions by the Watersons or the Oyster Band, much as we may love them.

If we take the view that the meaning of a word is its use, as Wittgenstien would have it, then this is the meaning of The Hal An Tow. For example, an old man in the Blue Anchor pub in Helston, at around 9.15am this year, finished his very early pint and said "I am going to go now and watch The Hal An Tow" - and off he went (this is true, I heard him say it).

(2) The lyrics sung in Helston are exactly as here -
http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=4211

- except that recently, Cornish enthusiasts have added a verse about St Piran.

(3) This years performance (May 8th 2009) was filmed by an amateur here -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDYkfNfrxWE

a slightly clearer view, from last years performance -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JWd6mpR-fY


Note they do it around 8 times in different locations. These are just local people following an old tradition.

I suppose my point in posting this is to say that The Hal An Tow is not some old dead song lost in mists of time and folk singer tributes. At 8.30 on a brisk May morning, with whistles and oggie oggies, its very much alive.

My personal interest here is that I used see this every year in early 1970s when I was a child, as we lived hear Helston and my father played St Michael, being a drama teacher at the school. It was the same then as it is now, with the exception of the people in blue / the St Piran verse.

Why not go to Helston early on May 8th and see for yourself ?

Hope this helps,
Gabriel

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Greg B
Date: 04 Sep 08 - 09:45 PM

Hey...that rhymes!

Hal an tow
How do you know...

You made a pome.

Have some Mead.

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 04 Sep 08 - 09:28 PM

How do you know?

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: GUEST,Mike Garvin
Date: 04 Sep 08 - 12:13 PM

"Hal an Tow" is derived from old saxen.The modern Dutch is "Haal aan het touw"...meaning to pull or tug on the rope. Many such Saxen terms are found in Cornish festivals. Robin Hood and Maid Marion, and Saint George, to name a few.

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: GUEST,Bobby Bob, Ellan Vannin
Date: 18 May 08 - 05:14 PM

I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but -

My partner is Helston born, and she's pointed out to me, the two lines as they sing them in Helston don't actually rhyme.

Tow rhymes with 'how' or 'now' (ie, definitely not to rhyme with 'hoe' or 'know'),

whereas the second bit, 'jolly rumbelow', rhymes with 'hoe'/'know'.

Shoh slaynt,

Bobby Bob

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: GUEST
Date: 17 May 08 - 08:07 PM

City: London
Publisher: Printed by Iohn Windet the Assigne of William Barley [etc.]
Date: 1606

Songs 30 & 31 here   http://dev.hil.unb.ca/Texts/EPD/UNB/view-works.cgi?c=songbook.1616&pos=79

This line therein to be found

"heaue and ho, Rumbelo,"

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: JeffB
Date: 24 Apr 08 - 12:32 PM

Well, you gotta laff! I thought we were talking about rumbelow in the song!

Now we know know the multifarious meanings of the word I expect we are all thoroughly bored with it. On to something else, which I wanted to bring up earlier - one of the things that really interests me about "Hal and Tow" is the mention of Robin Hood and Little John. They are a long way from their usual haunts of the Midlands and the Borders, in fact this is the only time I can recall their appearance in a West Country song. Is this holiday of theirs in Cornwall unique, or has anyone come across them in the West before?

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 03:37 PM

Londe is an obsolete word for land, in the sentence quoted it means the region of or tract of Rumbelowe. The name 'Rumbelow' is a surname in England; more than one district has the name- one near Birmingham, one in Aston, another a division of County Warwick, and one in Staffordshire known in 1430 as Romylowe- the exact locations are now unknown.
http://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/DBY/NamesPersonal/Rumbelow.html.

Genealogists have looked into the surname, and the above is from their researches.

The OED has no reference to rum in their article on Rumbelow.

I was giving the various meanings of 'rumbelow' as printed in the OED; none is specifically meant to relate to the song.

Rumbo (rumbowling) was a grog (mostly rum); no indications of a relationship to 'rumbelow.' Rumbo was a slang word for rope stolen from a Royal shipyard, and also slang for gaol (jail).
Rumbowling also was a slang term for anything inferior.
OED


The name as used for a type of carriage is a late one. No idea what type of carriage is meant; could have been the name of a maker, or a reference to the ride or sound as the vehicle moved along. The curator of a carriage museum probably could help.

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 01:54 PM

Long ago Betsy and Winfree gave the likely meaning of 'hal,' which could be the same word as 'hale,' an old Germanic word meaning to haul or pull, halen,, "They setten mast, and halen saile."

The word has been superceded by 'haul.' The spelling 'hall' persisted until at least 1700. See Dampier, Smith, and other nautical writings, where it is spelled 'hall.'
OED

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: JeffB
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 01:49 PM

Thanks for that, Q. I didn't quote from the OED, not because I'm lazy but because I don't have a copy.

Your first quote, "the londe of Rumbelowe", still does not exclude the meaning "rum". Perhaps a more extended quote might make this clearer one way or another. Your other indicating a carriage doesn't make sense in the context of the song. However your others, a blow or a loose woman, obviously could.

I assume you are not referring to me in your comment about others making up new meanings. I merely quoted a plausible derivation from a reference I happen to have.

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 01:20 PM

No one seems industrious enough any more to use the Oxford English Dictionary, which goes into the history of the word in detail, with many quotes.

The word first surfaces in print in Cour de Leon and in 1315 in Brut as a "meaningless combination of syllables serving as a refrain, orig. sung by sailors when rowing."
From Cour de Leon: They rowede hard and sungge ther too, with heuelow and rumbeloo." This usage continued, along with others, given below, into the 1700s.

The word also used as a place-name:
1530- Hickscomer, "I have been in Gene and in Cowe, also in the londe of Rumbelowe,..."

Also used to mean a blow or stroke:
1400- Land Troy Book,..., He gave him such a rumbelow, That he went ouer his sadil-bowe."

Also to mean rumbling, or resounding 1582, etc.

Also to mean "a woman of light behaviour:"
1611- J. Davies "Then yee descend, where he sits in a Gondolow With Eggs thrown at him by a wanton Room-be-low."

Also to mean a type of carriage:
1881- Blackmore, "Let the other flys, and rumbelows, come down first."

Enough? I suppose some will continue to invent new meanings rather than accept any authority.

____________________________________
One more interesting quote, with bearing on the overdone thread "Hal and Tow:
1790- Gentl. Mag. LX.. "I have recollected the first verse of the song used on that day (i. c., Flora, Day at Helston, Cornwall)... "Hel-an-tow, Rumbelow.""

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: JeffB
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 12:13 PM

If you re-read Bruce Olson's quotes you might agree with me that they do not at all make it clear that "rumbelo" or "rumbylow" are places. Skeat does not print "rumbelow" in what has become the accepted spelling of this word in "Hal and tow". However, there is no official orthography with such non-standard words, and there was certainly comparatively little recognised orthography in the 18th C and earlier. Consequently we have to take a common-sense approach to questions of this sort. If you can accept, for instance, Olson's "rumbelo" as being a relation of the word in "Hal and tow", I fail to see why a connection cannot also be made between Smollett's "rumbo" and Skeat's "rumbowling".

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 04:52 AM

A place....?

I hadn't considered that. A two-bedroomed rumbelow with central heating...

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 22 Apr 08 - 04:34 AM

Does Skeat actually mention 'rumbelow', or are you just guessing at a connection? Do have a look at Bruce Olson's comments in earlier discussions if you haven't already; most particularly Lyr Req: Hal n Toe. His references are mainly earlier, and make it clear that Rumbelow was at that time considered a place rather than a beverage. That doesn't mean that it was understood in this song in that way, but it does mean that we can't say for sure one way or the other.

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: GUEST,Suffolk Miracle
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 09:56 AM

I always explain it as Heel and Toe. It may be wrong BUT I want to remind the audience that it is a dance and not, as some appear to want to make it, a two mile an hour funeral dirge!!

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 08:28 AM

You ain't a real man til you've had one or two jolly rumbelows.

You lot'll be tellling me you've never been keen on 'titty fa la! titty fal lay!' next.

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 08:24 AM

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: JeffB
Date: 21 Apr 08 - 06:40 AM

As for "rumbelow" - from Walter Skeat's Dictionary of English Etymology (1882) Rum: called "rumbo" in Smollett ... this is short for the sailors' word "rumbowling", grog. Originally called "rumbullion" in Barbadoes, 1651; from Devonshire "rumbullion", uproar, rumpus. Founded on F "ramper".

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Dave Earl
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 07:43 PM

Oy Gervase

Did us not have a sing in that Royal Oak a year or two ago?

Dave

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Gervase
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 01:40 PM

Little Robyn's comment on "ladies in red capes" is probably a reference to the time during the Napoleonic Wars when French troops landed in Caermarthenshire, in an attempt to invade Britain.
They surrendered to a group of Welsh women, wearing traditional costume of dark skirt and red capes, who they thought were English Redcoats. Like in many stories, time/place seems to have been portable!
Don't tell that to the folk of Abergwaun. It was there that the last French invasion of Britain, led by an Irish American, was seen off in 1797,with the help of a hefty lass called Jemima Nicholas, and they're very proud of the old battleaxe.
These days there's a music session every Tuesday in the Royal Oak, the pub where the French signed the surrender documents.
You can find a fairly comprehensive account here.

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: GUEST,Jim Martin
Date: 20 Apr 08 - 05:57 AM

Sustainable fishing, whatever next? We can't have that!

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Dave Hunt
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 08:17 PM

Haul and Tow is an ancient (and still practised) method of oyster dredging on the Helford river. - they are still using boats under sail for part of the process - they used to sail, (now motor) up stream, and then drift sideways down on the current whilst dredging, and the use of engines is not allowed. This method of fishery has helped sustain the oyster stocks!
Dave.

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 07:44 PM

Oh Malcolm. why are you so impatient with us ignoramuses?

Most of us us predicate an entire body of work on all our daft mistaken beliefs. That's allright, ain't it?

al

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 07:12 PM

That's one of many theories already gone into in these old, tired and depressingly repetitive discussions. Unless anybody has anything new to add having read what has already been said (which seems pretty unlikely) can we please let this ancient thread slip quietly back into the grave where it belongs?

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 06:51 PM

Hmmmm...

Even without bothering myself with the facts, my immediate reaction just looking at the thread title in a forum in which sea shanties are a significant part of the shared interes (and living as I curently do in the Low Countries, from which so much nautical English comes) was that Haul and Tow was probably a mondeverdant anglicisation of the Dutch "Haal an 't touw" (pull on the rope), and that it was a phrase from a sea shanty.

One of the frustrating things about folk culture and the process that linguists deride as "folk etymology" is that it's easy to surmise but hard to prove anything. Wouldn't it be nice to imagine that a whole school of "heel and toe" dancing might have sprung from a misunderstanding of a foreign phrase?

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 06:21 PM

I think it is a celebration of the earth's fecundity and the fact that it's roots lie in an act of act of mischief and impropiety.

The horns are the horns of the cuckold. Referred to in Shakespeare, and as Evelyn Waugh put it in Brideshead Revisited, "My cuckold's horns made me Lord of the Forest."

I bet thats why the Abbotts Bromley dancers have stags antlers when they dance.

A hymn to licentiousness and fornication.

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 06:17 PM

I think we'd need some evidence for that. See the late Bruce Olson's comments in earlier discussions here of the subject for what seems to be the most likely explanation for 'Rumbelow'.

The answer to 'mom's' question is that nobody knows; though a lot of people think they know.

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: JeffB
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 04:17 PM

And "rumbelow" (and its variants) was the normal 17th-18th century term for rum.

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Folkiedave
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 01:10 PM

And if you sing:

Since man was first created his works have been debated
And we have celebrated the coming of the spring.

- Mike Waterson wrote that bit.

Subject: RE: What does 'Hal an Tow' mean?
From: Bill D
Date: 19 Apr 08 - 11:05 AM

look at the top of the thread and read and follow the various links! This has been answered in excruciating detail over the last 8-9 years.