The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #166666 Message #4009344
Posted By: Kevin Werner
17-Sep-19 - 04:56 PM
Thread Name: Origins: 'Packington's Pound' in oral tradition?
Subject: Origins: 'Packington's Pound' in oral tradition?
Ok, I have created a new thread to enquire about this. I'm rather fond of the old tune Packington's Pound. It used to be a popular broadside ballad tune before 1700. I was curious to find out if it lasted into modern times.
I really like that website, it is useful when looking up broadside texts and their respective tunes. I think they did a good job with it. Pittie's Lamentation for the cruelty of this age was also recorded by Ewan MacColl as "Pity's Lamentation" on "Broadside Ballads, Vol. 1 (London: 1600-1700)" (1962).
We already found out in the "Tune Req: Derry Down" thread that the song "Droylsden Wakes" (Roud No. 3290) uses a form of the tune.
I also posted these scans from Randolph/Legman's Unprintable Ozark Ballads about a bawdy version of Brian O Lin, called "Brinzi O' Flynn" recorded by Sam Eskin in 1942 from a British seaman in San Francisco that used the tune:
There also a second text there, Thumble O'Lynn, also set to the Packington tune. I have never encountered another Brinzi version apart from the one given in this book. And I don't know of any other songs from oral tradition that used a variant of this old tune.
If anybody happens to know more examples I'd love to hear them.