The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #138343   Message #3171651
Posted By: Arkie
16-Jun-11 - 04:48 PM
Thread Name: Info required re: Luddites
Subject: RE: Info required re: Luddites
The Steeleye Span CD, Bloody Men, includes a series of songs bearing the title Ned Ludd. The notes have this to say:

"The Ned Ludd cycle begins with a song about the enclosure movement in Early Modern England, effectively a pastoral ode to preindustrial England, and then moves on to the plight of the workers who have been displaced by industrialization. The third song is an appeal to the mythical Ned Ludd to destroy the machines and lead the workers in a rebellion. The fourth and fifth songs deal with the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, in which the British cavalry charged into a peaceful crowd of protesters supporting a repeal of the Corn Laws. Neither the Enclosure Movement nor the Corn Laws were directly related to the Luddite Movement, but in the cycle these serve to explore the wider problems of common workers."