Oldest European Folk Song

Subject: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 02:12 PM

Anybody know what would be the oldest European-descended song(s)? Are there any that pre-date the Roman Conquest or even the Holy Roman conquest and still sung? Just wondering as it occurred to me that there seems to be very little left of beginnings of this particular tribe of humans, other than cookin' out in the backyard and I think we got that from the Mongols;~)

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest European Folk Song
From: MMario
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 02:43 PM

I believe the oldest English (secular) song is suppossed to be "Sumer is acumin in" - I don't know about the rest of Europe. Suppossedly there are some older songs with what are suppossed to be musical directions in the mid-east

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 04:17 PM

How old is that one MMario? Does it pre-date the Roman invasion?

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Amergin
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 04:22 PM

well there was no england til the angles and the saxons came.....

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 04:52 PM

Before all that,Amergin. Is there anything that remains other than Beowulf and some of the Norse verses that managed to escape the bishops and monks?

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Sorcha
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 05:03 PM

There are Hebrew chants if you want to consider them Euro.

Subject: RE: BS: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 05:31 PM

Well, the thing is Mz.Sorchy, that I was thinkin' about was why do other more ancient cultures still have old songs and ways somewhat preserved and the traditions held by the Northern European tribes seems to have been completely crushed and lost. Hebrews were able to record their works via the written word and Native Americans seemingly have passed it down from generation to generation from their beginnings, but white folks' stuff seems to begin somewhere in the Middle Ages and everything prior to the Christianization of those tribes and clans seems to be gone. I thought maybe someone here who is schooled in this sort of thing properly would know of something that might have slipped through the cracks and been preserved. Or could it possibly be that our (mine anyhow) ancestors were so barbaric and savage that there were no songs to preserve?

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 05:50 PM

"Sumer is icumen in" is Old English, is it not? Certainly not pre-Roman invasion, in that form, but who knows what its antecedents were?

The oldest-rooted one I happen to be aware of is "Lord Randal, My Son", which I understand goes WAY back, and through MANY countries.

And how about the golden-ball songs, whose descendant I know as "Slack your rope, hangs-a-man". I've been told that goes WAY back, and widespread too.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 06:11 PM

Oh, what will you leave your brother, Lord Randal my son?
Oh, what will you leave your brother, my handsome young man?
My horse and the saddle, mother, make my bed soon,
For I'm sick to my heart and I fain would lie down.

Thanks Uncle Dave. I found "Lord Randall" in the digitrad but I suspect that mebbe it's from a more modern timezone than what I'm thinking of because of the reference to saddles. I believe horses and saddles came into use after the Romans took over, but could be wrong there. Neat song though and I'd hazard a guess that it might have inspired a well known Dylan number.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Don Firth
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 06:15 PM

It's going to be a bit hard to pin this one down. The first manuscript ever found that contained an anywhere near understandable system for writing music came from sometime in the mid-eleventh century. Lots of chants and liturgical music were extant, of course. The trouvères and troubadours were roaming all over Europe about that time. Fascinating history, really—all tied up with monasteries, Latin scholars, Roman poetry, horny young monks, and Viking raids. Many scholars maintain that some of the older traditional ballads and secular songs were put together by wandering troubadours and minstrels, but most of the ones that survived did so through oral transmission. When you can find many of the older folk ballads in England, France, Germany, and Scandinavia that tell the same stories and have the same verse structure, it tends to support the troubadour / minstrel authorship theory.

The Greeks and the Romans had music, of course (instruments survived, but no written music as far as I've ever heard) and lots and lots of poetry. It's pretty certain that much if not all poetry was intoned, chanted, or sung, usually to the accompaniment of a lyre or similar instrument. I've heard that many Greek scholars and music historians maintain that portions of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and other epic poetry were recited or chanted to the accompaniment of a lyre or harp.

I think the oldest European song was probably sung by some anonymous Neanderthal.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 07:18 PM

http://www.webster.sk.ca/greenwich/evidence.htm

ljc

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST,ljc--cookie gone.
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 07:31 PM

Song of Solomon

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 07:38 PM

I believe "Sumer is icumen in" only dates back to the Middle-English period. It seems like we studied it in Chaucer class on college.

I'm sure that one reason that there are so few really old English folksongs is simply that the English language has had such a dynamic history. Fifty percent of the words in the language were changed as a result of the Norman Conquest, and that was only one of several linguistic upheavals. It's hard to pass songs down when the language that they are "written" in changes out from under the singer, particularly if continuing to use the "older version" of the language is not socially acceptable.

On the other hand, Hebrew chants are still around precisely because the Hebrew language has remained essentially unchanged since Biblical times.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: toadfrog
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 07:51 PM

Yes. It is hard to ascertain how "old" a song is unless the words, at least, are written down. It is said that "Judas" dates from ca. 1300, and is the oldest recorded Child Ballad. That would make it "older" than Lord Randall.

Historically, liturgical pieces are the oldest recorded. Biblical psalms are surely very old, but no one knows what tunes, if any, they were sung to. It is safe to say that if there are songs, that is, poems or whatever with identifiable tunes, from Europe or from anywhere else that are older than 1100, we have no way of knowing what they are. That is, any identifiable song, from anywhere on Earth, not just "this particular tribe" is at the very least a thousand years more recent than the "Roman Conquest," (assuming you mean conquest of England).

It is not clear what "Holy Roman Conquest" you would have in mind. The "Holy Roman Empire" dates from aroung 1100-1200. There may be songs that old, although that is stretching things.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Gray D
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 08:14 PM

My greatly-missed friend Edisher Garikadnitze was an ethnomusicologist from Georgia in Eastern Europe. The oral song tradition there is still much prized and has been for some time (as you will see).

The first time that we met was when he and his colleague, Josef Giordanskia, were teaching a week-long workshop in Cardiff, Wales. They taught us many songs that week, one of which was, how shall we say, a little tricky. The song was called "Lilé" and is from the Svaneti region of Georgia. Even though it is in a language that nobody speaks any more Edisher explained that the song was still sung there because it was a song that was sung, just that. So the ethnomusicologists and linguistic archaeologists studied the words to try and trace the song's roots. They worked out that the language in which the song was sung was last in common use . . . about three thousand years ago.

Gave me the chills when he told us.

There's a version of it on the Rustavi Choir CD "Mirangula" - Sony St. Petersburg Classics label SMK66 588.

It is not what I would call easy listening, but I like it.

His group Mtiebi are still together and have been touring Britain recently. If you get the chance to go to one of their concerts, I recommend them. If they don't sing it in concert, try asking them afterwards. Georgians don't need much encouragement to sing. I can just about guarantee that the experience will overwhelm you.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 08:45 PM

Last in common use that long ago, perhaps, but obviously still in use somewhere when the song was noted; when was that? To make assumptions of great antiquity based on "evidence" of that kind really is rather dicey. Liturgical music apart (about which I know nothing) there is no conclusive evidence that there is any music surviving in tradition anywhere in the world (as Toadfrog said earlier) that is of any great age. Some of it may be, but without evidence that can only be supposition.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: The Pooka
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 09:03 PM

*Thank you* for this (and this bedrock genre of) thread, Mudcat scholars. Remarkable & excellent, as always. (Note to well-intentioned 'off-topic-thread' protesters: remember that we BS-thread types, while we often may be unqualified to contribute to these *real* Mudcat threads, can & do read 'em, value 'em, marvel, & even learn.)

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Gray D
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 09:03 PM

Malcolm,

Get in touch with the university of Tbilisi and ask them. I shall be interested in your report back to the thread.

Gray D

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 09:14 PM

I'd be more interested in what you have to say about it, since you posted the information. As I asked; when was the song noted from tradition? If you make a claim, it's for you to back it up!

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: masato sakurai
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 09:49 PM

On "Sumer Is Icumen In," see this thread: Lyr Req: 'Summer is a comm?in in' ?. The manuscript is HERE. The "Judas" manuscript is HERE (Click on "Folio 34r" to see the enlarged image). One of the earliest known musical manuscripts of European songs is of the late 9th century French liturgy, about which this site (MS 096: ANTIPHONAL: OFFICE OF ST. REMIGIUS (1 OCTOBER)) says, "A rare survival from a very early French musical liturgy, probably among the earliest extant." The "earliest known songs of what might be broadly termed Western culture are the Biblical Psalms." (from HERE) See also this thread: Tune Req: Original Psalm Tunes.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Sorcha
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 10:11 PM

Dumb question here--isn't "Pre-Roman literacy" in Europe likely to be an oxymoron? Were not most European Pre Roman cultures basically without any written language? (Yes, I know about the oral/aural tradition, but who can we trust to accurately transcribe oral/aural stuff? Not the Romans, that's for sure.)

Sure, the "Celts" had Ogham, the Vikings had runes, but were any of these actually used for poems/songs/folktales? I doubt it. These all seem to be transmitted by the oral/aural tradition.

Seems to me they all had to wait for the Romans to arrive, add an alphabet and get Interested. Then, after that, bother to write things down. (Uh, that means the things that didn't have to do with war, conquest or politics.)

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 10:32 PM

Thanks Gray D, "Lilé" would seem to be the one that answers my question. I'll tell you that it gave me chills reading your reply. A Three Thousand year old song and still sung because it always has been sung. And Toadfrog, re: the Holy Roman conquest, I was just referring to the mop-up and general Christianization of Gauls and Celts and Teutonic tribes whose culture and beliefs were dumped, much like the missionaries of more recent times have erased other "primitive" people's beliefs and traditions. It's a shame that so few knew how to write back then.
Don't stop now though, I'm getting a free education with this.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 10:49 PM

Here's a midi from LJC's link to the world's oldest song transcribed somehow from a 3,400 year old cuneiform tablet. Thanks John, hope you find yer cookie.
The Syrian Song

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST,CC Rider
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 11:35 PM

Look to Homer the blind poet.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: The Pooka
Date: 17 Aug 02 - 11:43 PM

Sorcha (who has *never* asked a "Dumb question", while kindly answering many) - re Celtic Ogham - I did a quickie-clickie scan of some seemingly-pertinent links at Every Ogham Thing on the Web; and, provisionally, you seem to be right as usual. Didn't see evidence of Ogham transmission of poems/songs/folktales. Now Viking runes, I didn't do. Yo, MudNorseCats! Get in here. Out-and-out scholarship is being committed.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 18 Aug 02 - 12:08 AM

The Ogham link got me thinking some more. I'd forgotten about the Basques, who seem to have stayed fairly uncontaminated by the outside world and speak a language that isn't based on Latin, or any other root language I guess. Anyhow, here's a link to all things Basque. There's even a predecessor to Cleigh O'Possum on the Instruments page and an 8,000 year old three holed bone flute too.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: The Pooka
Date: 18 Aug 02 - 12:39 AM

Thanks Tweed. By God, the more you find, the more there is to seek. Wonderful. / Uh but "...an 8,000 year old three holed bone flute too." -- y'mean, mr. catspaw is represented on the Instruments page? Oy, such an Instrument. :) Woops: ThreadCreep. Sorry. No BS here. Back to scholarship.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 18 Aug 02 - 01:11 AM

The question was "What are the oldest European-descended songs?" Trouble is, songs were around long before they was any way to make a record of them.

I'm not going to be scholarly here, just chatting. Today I saw a picture of musicians playing in the court of Asshurbanipal. (He was a tyrant in the Fertile Crescent, 'way back, B.C.) One musician was playing a harp, the other was either playing a percussion instrument or brushing flies off sausage rolls. I'm sure that if they had harps, they had tunes, but we have no way of knowing how they sounded.

The Icelandic sagas are very old. 1000? 1200? I have a tape from Iceland (Melodies in the Midnight Sun, very enjoyable) that plays melodies from the sagas.

Of course, "Sumer is i-cumin in" is very old, but who said it was Old English? It's Middle English. If it were Old English, it would be totally unintelligible to us.

Don mentioned Neanderthals. Whistles have been found in Neanderthal occupation layers. (Read the book "Secrets of the Ice Age.") I, for one, am sure that if they had whistles, even if they were mostly for signalling, that they would have fooled with them and produced lines of music. Man, the Tune-Maker.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Kaleea
Date: 18 Aug 02 - 02:45 AM

The oldest song is an interesting topic, especially for students of Music History, who study primarily the history of "Western Music" inasmuchas the hand written & printed documents of music are more likely to be from "Europe" since written languages go back only so far in history, and "The Church" had the money to pay persons to transcribe texts, and later to hire musicians. Therefore when "we" study Music History, we are mainly studying the history of the music of "The Christian (mainly Catholic) Church." There have been found pictoral records of history in the form of carvings on rocks, cave & temple walls, tablets, blocks of wood, etc. We do not study ancient music--middle & far east music-- for the simple reason that there is little or no recorded history. Some Hebrew scholars maintain that the Old Testament is "Jewish Mythology" and not to be accepted as fact, but as stories handed down from generation to generation by oral means. Whether the stories are fact or based upon partial facts if unknown. If we are to accept the Old Testament as recorded history, there are many passages referring to music--instrumental & song. As a guest pointed out The Song of Solomon, it has been considered by some to be song, but by others to be verse. If we accept this, there are many singers such as David, and Deborah of ancient times. There have been heiroglyphics from temples & pyramids translated which are believed to have been songs--especially when the writings or pictorals are interjected with drawings/carvings of humans playing musical instruments. There was even an ancient roman song about how to make beer found! Perhaps this is old enough to be considered "European" since the Biblical passages take place in what we now call the middle east. The songs from Egypt would also be considered the middle east. The oral tradition was the best they had at one time, but when writing began, they could truly record history. The first known recorded date was 4241 BC from an Egyptian calendar; 3760 is the first year of the Jewish canendar. The first known writing of phonetic sounds, not actual "language" was @3500 BC. The Assyrians were in power in Egypt & had a 24 character alphabet in @ 2000-1500 B.C. It is believed that @1500-1000 B.C. Charleton Heston (lol)aka Moses left Egypt & got the 10 commandments--supposedly written by God. In order to read them, there would have to be an alphabet & written language. Then about 900-1000 B.C. David wrote songs & Solomon took over the throne from David. SO---somewhere in there was song first recorded, BUT--western europe was pretty much uncivilized with no known written language. SO, that would take us to maybe the early Phoenicians @ 800 B.C. Scholars think that The Illiad & The Oddessey were published in Greece about 810 B.C. The Greeks had written language by then. I learned in Music History class that the earliest known written music was Greek, in about 700-800 B.C. Therefore, the earliest known written European music would have to be around there, if one considers Greece to be a part of Europe. The song about making beer would be around 800 B.C. We don't really have much knowledge of the ancient music of Sumer, & Babylonia, and just a little of Egypt. However--A quote from Boethius, a Roman from @480-524 B.C. is translated as: "Nothing is more characteristic of human nature than to be soothed by sweet modes and stirred up by their opposites. Infants, youths, and old people as well are so naturally attuned to musical modes by a kind of spontaneous feeling that no age is without delight in sweet song." We know that there has probably been music & song since there was language. The voice is considered by some to have been the first instrument, followed by hand clapping & slapping, then sticks & rocks, then drumlike & flutelike instruments. Some say it was the hands & then sticks & rocks. We will never know, because the ancient music went unrecorded & has fallen into eternity. I guess the best answer to the question is, "we aren't sure!" The only songs from ancient times still sung are probably in Hebrew. Who really knows?

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST,Gurney
Date: 18 Aug 02 - 03:54 AM

I have a LP of 'The Gaels,' of which Sean Cannon was a founder member, which includes a number called 'Kishmul's Galley,' and sleeve notes say it is one of the oldest songs in the tradition. From the Hebrides, it sounds primitive. Gurney. P.S. Should that be "An L.P?

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Jim McLean
Date: 18 Aug 02 - 12:34 PM

Hi Gurney, there's a version of Kishmul's Galley here:
http://www.cyberstudia.com/ogmios/audio/kishmul.html
You'll see that it was collected in 1909 and the singing version is of a rather classical soprano nature. Nigel Denver recorded this years ago and gives it a powerful, mystical treatment. It seems to date from the times of viking warriers fighting jsut off Barra and was written in Scottish Gaelic but ususally sung in English. Slainte, Jim Mclean

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Memphis Mud
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 08:57 AM

The ooooldest European Folk song could've gone something like this:

uh Fug wuh wuh uh Fug wuh wuh Fug rmmmmmmmmmmmm Fug rmmmmmmmmmmmm blunn Fug Fug Fug Fug

Translation: There once was a hunter named Fug. There once was a mighty hunter named Fug. Fug could run as fast as the Deer. Fug could catch Deer for tribe. We're glad Fug is in our tribe.

You europeans go way back.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: pavane
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 09:10 AM

In Karl Dallas' book The Cruel Wars, there is a song 'Three Danish Galleys', collected in Porlock in 1919, which he claims is possibly the oldest (UK) folk song, as it seems to correspond to events described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 918. Maybe not the oldest song, but relevant to the thread, anyway.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: The Pooka
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 09:20 AM

Memphis Mud: Cool, 'cat. I *knew* there must be *some* ancient song written in Ogham. Ya found it! Good work, deer.
---Fug the Pook

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 09:24 AM

For more on Three Danish Galleys, see this discussion: Love and Death on the Shore.

The (alleged) circumstances of its collection are given there.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Snuffy
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 09:28 AM

Pavane,

I seem to recall that one being discredited in a thread some time ago. Apparently the lady who "collected" it was not above making up her own stuff, and is considered less reliable than McColl or JJ Niles.

WassaiL! V

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 10:34 AM

One of the problems as usual is defining a FOLK song. The special thing about "Summer is icomen in" is that the music was collected as well as the lyrics. These days we have a high percentage of literacy, but the percentage of these who can notate music is quite small. In "Olden Days" ordinary literacy was a rare commodity and therefore musical literacy would probably have been even rarer. I would expect that anyone who did collect a folk song was hoping to introduce it to the world of "Art Music" and the song therefore lost it's FOLK status. Songs like "Watkin's Ale" abound, but it is hard to define their source.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: pavane
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 02:09 PM

Just shows you can't believe all you read!

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: katlaughing
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 02:53 PM

It would seem logical that some of the very earliest, yet undocumented, songs would be lullabies.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Crane Driver
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 05:15 PM

Those of you that remeber the LP will recall that it produces sound by the vibrations of a needle in a groove in something spinning quite fast. The same principle lay behind the old way of recording music on the wax cylinder (which even I don't remember). Now, pottery is made by spinning a lump of clay on a wheel and shaping it. In theory, ambient sounds at the time the pot was thrown should be recorded in the clay. All you need is a way of playing it back, and you might catch the tune the potter was whistling as he worked .....

In theory.

Andrew

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 05:36 PM

Pavane said:

In Karl Dallas' book The Cruel Wars, there is a song 'Three Danish Galleys', collected in Porlock in 1919, which he claims is possibly the oldest (UK) folk song, as it seems to correspond to events described in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 918. Maybe not the oldest song, but relevant to the thread, anyway.

This raises a troublesome point: Can we date a song by the date of the incident(s) it purports to chronicle? Seems questionable.

But if your answer is no, or maybe, then I can nominate "The Cherry Tree Carol", which tells a story related in one of the apocryphal books (False John? I forget right now) which was written in the sixth century, and of course refers to a putative miraculous incident which would have happened, if at all, 4 BC. Now it would clearly be wrong to date the song to 4 BC, but just MAYBE the song could be coeval with the apocryphal writing. Sounds pretty shaky to me, though.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 05:38 PM

I meant to start that last paragraph with "if your answer is yes or maybe"....

Age creeps up.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: EBarnacle1
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 05:53 PM

I agree that these are all old. I also agree that it is unlikely that we will ever know the oldest Euro song. A big part of the problem is that people would often not write down what was a part of their daily lives. As Child said: The rude utterances of the common folk. How far back does Gilgamesh go? If you don't mind slipping over to the other side of the supercontinent, how far back do the Indian (Aryan pre-migration) and Chinese recorded songs go? Mea culpa, I have no answers, only questions.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: firínne
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 06:13 PM

Romans and their alphabet not withstanding, it stands to reason that folk songs were handed down by oral tradition - up to the last century the majority of people couldn't read or write!! The same applies to old stories and sagas. How else would great events have been remembered long ago if there had been no bards appointed to celebrate them in song! Every tribe worth its salt had a bard!

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST,CraigS
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 07:38 PM

I had a book about English song which I've lost - so I may not be too accurate - but as I remember it, the earliest documented secular song in English was in a Scottish source of about 1240, and the earliest English source for a secular song was around 1310.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 08:28 PM

Well, I think the point is proven, or almost anyhow, that the song culture of melanin deficient Northern Europeans was nearly stamped out from the sixth century back, and I would go so far to say that it looks like it was the work of missionarys bent on refining the heathens. It's interesting to wonder what their songs might have sounded like and I reckon that Memphis Mud ain't too far off on a fair translation of one. Still don't have a clue as to what sort of beat there mighta been or what naturally occuring sound in their world might have inspired it. I've been hypothesizin' lately that the pounding of corn into meal might have been the backbeat for Native American songs and locomotives for Blues music. Water sounds for Eastern music, but can't quite fantasize far back enough to hear anything in the villages of the tree worshipping, blue painted wild peoples. Any ideas on that one?

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: GUEST,Malcolm Douglas
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 09:05 PM

You're looking for the wrong things, and using the wrong terms of reference. There is no question here of "missionaries" "stamping out" anybody's traditional song culture; that culture was oral and unrecorded in the first place; from the point of view of a literate person, there was nothing to suppress. The fact that monks (as a rule, the first literate people in Europe) failed to record it is completely irrelevant. Why would they bother, even if they were aware of its existence? I'd suggest you read up a bit on medieval history before getting too involved in uninformed theories.

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: michaelr
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 09:28 PM

Crane Driver -- that's a great theory! Now how do we play back that urn?

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: toadfrog
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 10:38 PM

Thanks Malcom. A little bit of common sense.........

Subject: RE: Oldest European Folk Song
From: Tweed
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 11:16 PM

Dear Malcolm,
How the heck could I be looking for the wrong things? I'm looking for a link to something that may or not be there, but won't know unless I look. And why is it that Inuit and Native American and some African cultures were able to be handed down and somewhat preserved while Northern and Western Europe's savage past was completely obliterated save for a couple of chapters in Tacitus' Germania?
It's true I'm probably not as literate as you (mebbe), but I have looked into medieval history on my own and came away with the sense that when large portions of a population are set on fire or flayed alive for their primitive beliefs, the old customs are set aside and forgotten pretty quick. Early Bishops and monks, being the literate folks that they were, probably did record something regarding habits and customs of their converts. They would have recorded their observations simply because they could, just like any learned person of today would. Question is, where would these eye witness accounts be kept? There's gotta be something left somewhere.
I ain't gonna go off on that last "uninformed theory" jab as I may only be partially literate but I know when somebody's just tryin' to piss me off for the hell of it;~)
Yerz,
Tweed