The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #24962   Message #1379396
Posted By: John C.
15-Jan-05 - 11:52 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Lord Beichan and Susie Pye
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Lord Beichan and Susie Pye
The Northamptonshire poet, John Clare, collected a version of Lord B. from a (local Northamptonshire?) shepherd (see 'John Clare And The Folk Tradition' by George Deacon, Sinclair Browne, 1983, p.189). The text is very similar to the versions collected in Lincolnshire, at the beginning of the 20th Century, by Percy Grainger, except that each pair of adjacent verses are run together (if that makes sense!). Clare does not appear to have collected a tune so Deacon has used one of the Lincolnshire tunes (that given to Grainger by Mr Thompson of Barrow, 1906). For anyone who is wondering, the bit of Northamptonshire where Clare lived (just North of Peterborough) is now incorporated into Cambridgeshire (you didn't really need to know that but I threw it in any way!).