Having had a request from EKanne for a review of the event, I'm starting a new thread as the previous one had attracted a lot of spam.

Eleven people had signed up, choosing a wide range of ballads in advance to sing and talk about. Three of the participants were fairly new to folk music and ballads in particular, one having come through choral singing, one through the theatre and one through Eastern European and Indian storytelling.

The day got off to a rousing start at 11.00 a.m. with The Claque singing Henry V's Conquest of France, in stirring three-part harmony with a refrain that was fun to join in and got everyone's vocal chords working.

We all talked a bit about what attracts us to ballads: the fact that they tell stories in simple but powerful language, the theatrical qualities of the way they tell them, the powerful images they evoke, and the way that some of them connect with very ancient stories from before written records. Tom Addison gave a fascinating example of this, which I've just looted from Wikipedia, in The Outlandish Knight:

'A.L Lloyd gives much more credence to the Hungarian scholar, Lajos Vargyas, who has suggested that the origins of the song are much earlier and are based in Asia, having then been taken into Europe by the Magyars. One scene which appears in some variants of the ballad is that in which the lady sits beneath a tree whilst the villain places his head in her lap, to be de-loused. She looks up and sees his bloody weapons hanging from the branches of the tree. This image is very close to that depicted in medieval church paintings in Hungary and Slovakia, of St Ladislas being de-loused by a woman, beneath a tree from which his weapons and helmet hang. An almost identical image has been found on a sword scabbard, originating from Siberia, dating from 300BC, and now in the Hermitage collection in Leningrad. It is claimed that the scene crops up in epic ballads of the Mongols, relating to the abduction of a woman by another tribe. If correct, the basis of the ballad may have survived over 2000 years of oral tradition, and a journey from the mountains of Western Mongolia, to the villages of England.'

Sean O'Shea explained that he'd grown up with a father who constantly sang, and with a deep love of traditional stories; not the comfortable, sanitised ones, but the darker and tougher myths. Barry Lister, having a theatrical background, liked the scope that singing a ballad with three or four voices together gave for subtly characterising the protagonists without hamming things up.

By lunchtime the death count was rising briskly, as we'd already got through Henry V's French adventure and the Massacre of the Innocents (The Carnal and The Crane). After lunch The Claque treated us to a spellbinding version of The Two Sisters. It was new to everyone; Tom explained that he'd found himself singing his own version at work one day without consciously rewriting it, having heard many others over the years and finding that the song had remade itself in his head with a new tune and refrain.

Although most people stuck to the ballads they'd chosen in advance and everyone sang two, a few new ones were prompted by the discussion and what other people had chosen. There were two unusual Robin Hood ballads, Gamble Gold and Robin Hood & the Bishop of Hereford, which spurred at least two people to go away and look at some more for another occasion. There were powerful performances of better-known ballads, such as The Outlandish Knight, Tam Lin, Edwin, The Great Silkie, and The Captain's Apprentice. We had an Irish Gaelic version of Lord Randall.

'Cold Haily Rainy Night' stimulated discussion of whether this was properly a ballad: some felt it was more prosaic than truly tragic, while others thought it was allowable as a descendant of the great night-visiting songs in which the visitant is a ghost or revenant.

Ideas and songs were flowing freely as we approached the finishing time of 4.45 p.m. and we could easily have gone on much longer, but we had to clear the room for The Claque's evening performance at the Lewes Saturday Folk Club and give the chaps time to recover. Marian Button closed the proceedings with a heart-stopping Child Owlett (which goes back to the tragedy of Hippolytus and Phaedra).

Needless to say, the Claque gave us a terrific night at the folk club and the audience was full of singers. We were only sorry that Dave Lowry couldn't be with them as his presence was required at a family wedding, but we'll hope for a full hand next time they visit.

Our next ballad forum is with Brian Peters on Sunday 17th. July (full details on the club website here.

Valmai (Lewes)