Week 40, and the next few weeks are going to feature Peter Bellamy's settings of Kipling quite heavily. Traditional songs will also feature!

Queen Jane is a strange and moving piece of folk history; the story it tells must already have been a couple of centuries old when the song was written. Backing is heavy on the woodwinds (flute drone!).

Puck's song: Kipling lays out his map of the deep history of England - all the way back to "the lines the Flint Men made to guard their wondrous towns". In terms of accompaniment, this one starts out fairly straightforward and gets a bit "weird" as it develops. There is concertina; there are bees.

52 Folk Songs is, as ever, at http://52folksongs.com.