Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it collected

Subject: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it coll
From: GUEST,James
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 09:21 AM

I watched the utterly dreadful shattered City on CBC last. during a funeral scene a piper played farewell to Nova Scotia. I did not think that the song was known in 1917 but that it was collected by Helen Creighton much later. Does anyone know more about this ?

Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it coll
From: masato sakurai
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 09:46 AM

Helen Creighton collected it in the 1930s. See these threads:

Lyr Req: Farewell to Nova Scotia

Farewell to Nova Scotia --lyrics request

Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it coll
From: GUEST, GEST
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 09:47 AM

The origins of The Nova Scotia Song go back much later than that. Here's more on the subject: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Zone/6338/farewell.html.

Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it coll
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 09:51 AM

The fact it was collected in 1930 doesn't mean that it was totally and completly UNKNOWN prior to that...

Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it coll
From: Amos
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 10:02 AM

And the tune was not original with the song.

A

Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it coll
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 10:13 AM

The song goes back a long way, however it was not widely known in Nova Scotia before the nineteen thirties. It is unlikely that a random group of people standing at a graveside would have known the song. Like much of the production of shattered City..it was not interested in Historical accuracy at all..it was a soap opera during which a minor explosion happened. CBC ought to bury it's head on this one.
Also; I am curious to know what other songs used the tune to which Farewell to Nova Scotia is sung.

Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it collected
From: Amos
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 12:13 PM

See the current DTStudy: Farewell to Nova Scotia which provides the Scottish antecedent known as the Soldier's Adieu.

A

Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it collected
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 12:41 PM

Thanks Amos; that thread is very interesting. I did not realize the close similarity between the Scots and Nova Scotia versions. Is the tune original to the Scots version ?

Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it collected
From: GUEST,James
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 01:32 PM

I was not suggesting that it was unknown, I just didn't think it was widely known and therefore would been an unlikely song to have been played at a Funeral in 1917, AND have it be familiar to a lot of people. Am I correct in assuming that this now famous song would have been fairly obscure at that time. I am just curious as to why the film depicted the funeral in this way. Havinf read a good deal about the Hfx. Explosion I realize that the TV show was way off the mark in many respects..world war two uniforms ? German Spies ? all that stuff. I have never read that this song was played at this funeral for the unknown victims.

Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it collected
From:
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 06:59 PM

Apparently, the song was known best in the Pepeswick region of Halifax County.

It was mentioned that the people, knew it from the school system, as a school teacher had taught it in the area. The informant, Walter Roast, then in his 60s during the 40s so it would have been in the 1890s he learned it originally.

Hope that helps.

Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it collected
From:
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 01:58 PM

And to confirm, the actual date that Helen Creighton first heard the song, along with Doreen Senior, was August, 1932 at the kitchen of Annie Greenough.

Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it collected
From: GUEST,logan leslie
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 02:01 PM

Then and now are two different worlds.
Then: a song shifted and spread as fast as cold mollasses in January.
Sometimes good songs didn't spread because of community rivalry.
Back then is not now.
It is not unheard of for a good song to take many years to cross a province.
Helen Creighton(bless her heart) did everyone a great service.To use her as a starting point for anything other than recording what is already there is a bit abusive.
I personnally know of maritime songs that have not been recorded and have been around for at least fifty years.
Kitchens are full of them.
Relax.
Don't let a date get you shorts in a knot.
Have a happy day
Logan

Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it collected
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 02:57 PM

"personally know..."
Please post them here or with GEST.

Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it collected
From: Amos
Date: 19 Sep 07 - 03:15 PM

Hell, I first heard it from a complete amateur in 1974, in Toronto.

So it must have been known well before then.


A

Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it collected
From: Bee
Date: 20 Sep 07 - 08:08 AM

That film (Shattered City) was dreadful. The real people's stories of the explosion and its aftermath deserve retelling; the film was only vaguely connected to those stories.

I sang Farewell to Nova Scotia a few weeks ago, just two houses away from Greenough's. ;-)

Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it collected
From: Beer
Date: 20 Sep 07 - 08:45 PM

Q.
Guest,logan hasn't responded as yet but here is something that may fall in the area in which he/she is speaking of.

Mum use to sing a song to we little folk many years ago called "Frozen Charlotte". She said that it came from the lumberjacks from New Brunswick who use to go to work in the woods of Maine. Don't know why they would do that because New Brunswick sure has lots of trees. Pay I guess. Anyway. Now this song was sung to me in Prince Edward Island. Last year I was visiting Newfoundland and an old chap at a kitchen party sang the song. I asked where he had heard it but he didn't remember much except that his father had sung it to him.

Here is the song and even here the words change a bit from when Mum use to sing it. i also have a copy of the same song from Newfoundland with the words again slightly changed but the story still the same. True story as well.
Beer (adrien)

Young Charlotte (Frozen Girl)

Young Charlotte lived by the mountainside in a cold and dreary spot
No other dwelling for miles around, except her father's cot
And yet, on many a winter's eve, young swains would gather there
For her father kept a social board and she was very fair

Her father loved to see her dressed prim as a city belle
She was the only child he had and he loved his daughter well
In a village some fifteen miles off there's a merry ball tonight
Though the driving wind is cold as death their hearts were free and light

And yet how beams those sparkling eyes as the well-known sound she hears
And dashing up to her father's door, young Charles and his sleigh appears
"Oh, daughter dear," her mother says, "those blankets round you fold
For it is a dreadful night to ride and you'll catch your death of cold"

"Oh nay, oh nay," young Charlotte said, and she laughed like a gypsy queen
"To ride with blankets muffled up one never would be seen"
Her gloves and bonnet being on, she stepped into the sleigh
And away they rode by the mountain side and it's o'er the hills and away

There's music in those merry bells as o'er the hills we go
What a creaking noise those runners make as they strike the frozen snow
And muffled faces silent are as the first five miles are passed
When Charles with few and shivering words the silence broke at last

"What a dreadful night it is to ride. My lines I scarce can hold"
When she replied in a feeble voice, "I am extremely cold"
Charles cracked his whip and urged his team far faster than before
Until at length five other miles in silence were passed o'er

"Charlotte, how fast the freezing ice is gathering on my brow"
When she replied in a feeble voice, "I'm getting warmer now"
And away they ride by the mountain side beneath the cold starlight
Until at length the village inn and the ballroom are in sight

When they drove up, Charles he got out and offered her his hand
"Why sit you there like a monument that hath no power to stand?"
He asked her once, he asked her twice but she ans
He offered her his hand again, but still she never stirred

[And there he sat down by her side while bitter tears did flow
And cried," My own, my charming bride, 'tis you may never know."
He twined his arms around her neck, he kissed her marble brow,
His thoughts flew back to where she said,"I'm growing warmer now."]*

He took her hand into his own, twas cold as any stone
He tore the veil from off her face and the cold stars on her shone
And quick into the lighted hall her lifeless form he bore
Fair Charlotte was a frozen corpse and a word she ne'er spoke more

He took her back into the sleigh and quickly hurried home
And when he came to her father's door oh how her parents moaned
They mourned the loss of their daughter dear while Charles wept o'er their gloom
Until at length, Charles died of grief and they both lay in one tomb

sung by Margaret MacArthur
printed in Folk Songs Out of Wisconsin
may be based on an incident in February 1840

Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it collected
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 20 Sep 07 - 09:00 PM

There's rarely any need to copy-and-paste Digital Tradition texts to discussion threads. Please just add a link, thus:

YOUNG CHARLOTTE (FROZEN GIRL)

See also:

Frozen Charlotte / Young Charlotte (discussion)

Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it collected
From: Beer
Date: 20 Sep 07 - 09:09 PM

Sorry I ruffled your feathers malcolm. Thanks for the tip.

Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it collected
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Sep 07 - 09:10 PM

Hi, Beer. Thanks for the Wisconsin version of this well-known song.
Kenneth Peacock said "Several attempts have been made to relate his American ballad to an actual event, all without real success. If Charlotte existed, however, we can be reasonably certain she lived somewhere in New England. What we do know is that part of the ballad appeared in "The Rover" in 1843 and was credited to Seba Smith, a well-known journalist of the period. It is not known whether he composed it himself or learned it from oral tradition. "
Kenneth Peacock, 1965, "Songs of the Newfoundland Outports," vol. 3, pp. 735-737, with score.

logan leslie suggested that he knew songs that have not been recorded. I was hoping he would post them and verify his claim.

Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it collected
From: Beer
Date: 20 Sep 07 - 09:33 PM

I agree Q. I was waiting as well. I hope a reply does come.
Beer (adrien)

Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it collected
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 20 Sep 07 - 09:42 PM

You didn't ruffle any feathers of mine, 'beer'; so please don't try to trivialise the point by suggesting that. You just made it unnecessarily harder for other people to follow the discussion, that's all. You've been posting here long enough to have learned how to use the search engine.

Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it collected
From: Beer
Date: 20 Sep 07 - 09:44 PM

Thanks again.

Subject: RE: Farewell to Nova Scotia-when was it collected
From: GUEST,goosedog
Date: 27 Jul 08 - 11:48 AM

hi-helen creighton recorded FAREWELL TO NOVA SCOTIA sung by FREEMAN YOUNG in east petpeswick,nova scotia. It was said he had written the song but we do not think that is true. he was spposed to be the first to sing all verses which were said to be many.thanks-