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15 Jan 20 - 11:27 AM (#4028481) Subject: Pembrokeshire Wren song - origin? From: Tradsinger I am tryiing to find the provenance for the tune for the song "Joy, health, love and peace" AKA The Wren song AKA The King or Please to see the King. I have found the "original" words in Notes and Queries for 1864, with no tune, so I am wondering where the tune came from. Is there another source somewhere? For info, I am not interested in knowing about who recorded it - I am surely interested in where the tune came from and when it first arose. Tradsinger |
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15 Jan 20 - 04:56 PM (#4028517) Subject: RE: Pembrokeshire Wren song - origin? From: GUEST,henryp A Folk Song a Week - Andy Turner ‘The King’ was recorded from two retired schoolteachers, Dorothy and Elizabeth Phillips, from Hook in Pembrokeshire. They also gave first-hand reminiscences of the custom, which they remembered from the 1920s. The wren-party would go to ‘any manor houses in the neighbourhood where they would have food and drink and sometimes money’, during the period between 6 and 12 January, which they called ‘Twelfth-Tide’. The wren-house was ‘a little wooden cottage and dressed with ribbons really crêpe paper and the wren was inside and when they entered the house of course they all looked in and wanted to see the king. The date of this recording is given as 1981, but I’m assuming this was a return visit and that these were the same “two old ladies in Pembrokeshire” from whom Andy Nisbet collected the song in the 1960s. Martin Carthy has recorded this song at least three times in different settings. I learned it, as I’m sure many others did also, from the Steeleye Span album Please to see the King. But Martin had already recorded it with Dave Swarbrick on Prince Heathen (1969). In fact Norma Waterson told me that, a few days after Martin had first heard ‘The King’ from Andy Nisbet, he happened to meet the Watersons at a festival – and immediately taught them this song! A decade or so later, of course, Martin was a a member of the Watersons, and they recorded ‘The King’ on Sound sound your instruments of joy. |
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16 Jan 20 - 02:28 AM (#4028569) Subject: RE: Pembrokeshire Wren song - origin? From: GUEST,henryp From Mainly Norfolk Steeleye Span; Please to See the King Musicians Maddy Prior, vocals, spoon, tabor, tambourine, bells; Martin Carthy, vocals, guitar, banjo, organ, bells; Tim Hart, vocals, guitar, dulcimer, bells; Ashley Hutchings, vocals, bass guitar, bells; Peter Knight, vocals, fiddle, mandolin, organ, bass guitar, bells LP Sleeve Notes Thanks to: Two old ladies in Pembrokeshire via Andy Nisbet for The King |
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16 Jan 20 - 03:23 AM (#4028571) Subject: RE: Pembrokeshire Wren song - origin? From: GUEST,henryp See also Welsh Traditional Music by Phyllis Kinney Search for Dorothy and Elizabeth Phillips Pembrokeshire |
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16 Jan 20 - 04:15 AM (#4028577) Subject: RE: Pembrokeshire Wren song - origin? From: Tradsinger That's exactly what I wanted to know. Thanks, Henry. |
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16 Jan 20 - 04:26 PM (#4028671) Subject: RE: Pembrokeshire Wren song - origin? From: FreddyHeadey ^^^^ Welsh Traditional Music by Phyllis Kinney here are a few pages on googlebooks p77-81 https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0OWYDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=wren+tune+Dorothabeth+Phillips+Pembrokeshire&source=bl&ots= |