The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #20303 Message #3535336
Posted By: Jim Carroll
09-Jul-13 - 02:40 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Coal-Black Smith? / Two Magicians
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Coal-Black Smith? / Two Magicians
Hi Brian.
"I believe Bert Lloyd made up the tune"
This from the notes to MacColl's recording of the ballad on volume 5 of the 'Blood and Roses' set
"Child's only version of this fine ballad, a Scots one from Aberdeenshire, was "Englished" by A.L. Lloyd in the 1960's and wedded to a Greig-Duncan tune of "Katherine Jaffray" (Child 221). It became, and deservedly so, a very popular item in the repertory of folk-revivalists. France, Poland, Italy, Catalan Spain, Greece, Roumania and Turkey have all yielded sets of the ballad."
Personally, I'm rather fond of Roger Corman's rendition of the story in a beautifully over-the-top film based on an Edgar Allan Poe story (The Raven?), where a wonderfully hammy Vincent Price exchanges spells with a rival magician - maybe not to everybody's taste though!
Jim Carroll