The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #17303 Message #265846
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
27-Jul-00 - 01:26 PM
Thread Name: Penguin: Tune Add: Death and the Lady
Subject: RE: Tune Add: Death And The Lady
From the notes to the Penguin Book (1959):
"In the Middle Ages, the Dance of Death and dialogues between Death and his victims used to be enacted as a stage morality. Later, the theme was taken up by artists as great as Holbein and as humble as the chapbook illustrators. Miss Anne Gilchrist has noted (Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, vol.IV, pp.37-8) that "in English balladry the favourite aspect of the subject was Death in its relation to radiant beauty and lusty and careless youth." The ballad, perhaps of late 16th. century origin, was originally in dialogue-form and it may well have been at once sung and acted. Traditional versions have been noted from Devon (Songs of the West, Sabine Baring Gould & others, 1905, pp.202-3), Somerset (Folk Songs from Somerset, Cecil Sharp 1904-9, vol.IV p.4), Wiltshire (Folk Songs of the Upper Thames, Alfred Williams, 1923, p.173) and Sussex (English Traditional Songs and Carols, Lucy Broadwood, 1908, p.40)." -R.V.W./A.L.L.
This version was collected from Mr. Baker of Maidstone in Kent, in 1946, and was first published in the Folk Song Journal, vol.V, p.19.
There are a number of broadside texts at Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads. This is not a full listing, but covers most of the material. There is little textual variation, but the woodcuts and engravings are well worth looking at!
Death and the Lady Printer & date unknown (Harding B 45[21]) Death and the Lady Printed by G Henson, Bridge Street, Northampton; no date. Death and the Lady Printed by A. Ryle, and Co., Monmouth-Court, Seven Dials, between 1845 and 1859. Death and the Lady Printed by J. Harkness, (Preston) between 1840 and 1866.