Origins: Rose-Briar Motif

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 25 Apr 13 - 07:18 PM

I should add that the information on rungs and protruding bricks is on p74.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Apr 13 - 08:37 PM

Steve, google book results with key words "ballads Percy Parsons"

An entry should come up, pg. 38, Victorian Songhunters: The Recovery and Editing of English Vernacular Ballads and Folk Lyrics by E. David Gregory.

Please read the two paragraphs and tell me what you think.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Apr 13 - 09:57 PM

The two paragraphs that deal with Reverend Parsons that is...

Btw, the link below shows what you get when you begin with a text and compose an unmemorable tune as an afterthought. It uses the name Earl Bran but it is actually the Douglas Tragedy (no lilly lally):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWu8t1yfXPQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Ugh! And what's more, the rose-briar motif is only on the "Douglas Tragedy" and "Prince Robert" because Sir Walter Scott put them there. He passed off his own design as part of a folk tradition.

Chapter 1- The Douglas Tragedy (This is where I expose Sir Walter Scot as the P.T. Barnum of "folk artifacts." In the process knock off two contenders for my precious motif :-)))

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Apr 13 - 03:56 AM

"Sorry Steve, life really is too short - go and read a few books.
"Child Ballads had their earliest version as street literature, which at first you denied."
No Steve - another dishonest distortion
My argument throughout has been and remains that first printed versions are no indication whatever that this is where the ballads and songs originated - which has been your arrogant and unsubstantiated claim throughout - I have taken a fair amount of trouble to give reasons for my opinions - you have fallen back on telling us who backs your claims; the shape of scholarship to come I presume?
"I should add that the information on rungs and protruding bricks is on p74"
So you want me to purchase a book or join a club in order for you to make your point on information that runs contrary to that available elsewhere, how helpful of you, it compares with all the other responses to requests for information to back up your claims - Sorry, I don't buy it - literally, and no apologies forthcoming.
You demand 20 songs that give indications that the folk made their own songs - you fight every one you have been given so far, often with dishonest and evasive objections.
You do not respond to any other points, you move the argument away from your original claims when the going gets tough, you ignore the obvious contradictions to "commercial origins".... - you refuse to make your case which is indication enough for me that you do not have one.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Apr 13 - 06:39 AM

"I should add that the information on rungs and protruding bricks is on p74."
Finally got through to your book Steve - which reads "pages 73 to 74 are not available in this preview".
Nevertheless, the pages that are available carry enough description to back up every other account (such as this one http://histclo.com/act/work/area/work-sweep.html ) of the trade having no aids whatever for the young boys who worked at it.
"Inexperienced sweeps sometimes stuck fast in perpendicular flues This was likely to happen when a flue branched off (see Appendix).
The flue, instead of being the same width throughout its length, contained wider sections. Problems arose when the climbing boy descended. He unconsciously allowed his knees to rise in the enlarged section of flue, and in that position slid down into the more constricted part and became wedged, remaining for many hours with his knees and back pressed against the sides of the flue. Extraction was painful; another boy had to tie a rope to his ankles and draw his legs down, or pull his arms up from above. If this failed, then a portion of brickwork was removed. Master Sweeper H. Chidlow" reported that when he was young he had stuck fast in a flue for seven hours and that his brother had lost his life in a flue at Wolverhampton."
Still no apology forthcoming
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 26 Apr 13 - 10:51 AM

May Day coming up. May Day is a special day for chimney sweeps. Jim. Jack-in-the-Green :)

Steve, I wrote to Dr. David Gregory, the author of that book Victorian Songhunters, and received a reply! I think I may be able to interest him in looking at the communication between Percy and Reverend Parsons. Btw, he's a lot like you Jim, "We have to be very careful..." etc. :)

But I want to point out Steve that we really can't look to Percy for Fair Margaret and Sweet William. The copy he received from Reverend Parsons has a pointed reference to Newcastle (Northumberland)(no motif). I would remind you that Percy rose up in the ranks of the clergy by bringing honor to his Northumbrian patrons. In fact, Horace Walpole complained in his diary about Percy's ambition and about being pestered by Percy to put in a good word...

Parsons claimed to have collected his ballads from all his "poor parishioners" who sang them at their spinning wheels. Personally, I think the old vicar kissed the blarney stone :)

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 26 Apr 13 - 11:18 AM

Jim,
You are perfectly entitled to your opinions and I am perfectly entitled to mine.

I had no problem finding p74 for free. The climbing boys and what they did are as usual a total red herring to the description of this song and I assure you I am 100% right on this one. No opinions needed!
If you can't find p74 you'll just have to take my word for it, or wait till I come online again and I'll copy and paste it and email it to you.

The difference between our researches amounts to the fact that you are basing your opinions largely on the study of oral tradition. I am basing mine on a very wide study of many thousands of broadside ballads and the history of popular music in the centuries prior to 1900, as well as a deep study of oral tradition which can well match yours if not surpass it.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 26 Apr 13 - 11:24 AM

Susan,
I'll have to check out your very interesting Parsons info later on. You've got my attention now!

I totally agree with you re Scott but I know how defensive some people can be on Mudcat so I'm glad you said it first. I'm currently carrying out a study on all of Child's comments on the veracity of many of the ballads with particular emphasis on Peter Buchan, but I'm also taking note of all the other 'editors' as I go along. Personally and this is just my own opinion I think Child was very understated on the matter, but when you're publishing books that you want to sell in Scotland you've got to be rather reserved about what you criticise. I will be publishing online, and I won't be holding back!

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Apr 13 - 01:31 PM

"I am 100% right on this one. No opinions needed!"
You usually are Steve Doesn't make the slightest difference that whatever your book says contradicts all the other evidence
"You are perfectly entitled to your opinions and I am perfectly entitled to mine."
True, but I've always taken the view that those of us who have become involved in research have a responsibility to those we have collected from to get it right - and not make unsubstantiated and definitive statements unless we are prepared to defend them with facts - you are attempting to undermine the whole idea that the English working people were incapable of creating their own musical traditions and were forced to farm them out to indifferent to bad writers.
You have also attempted to undermine the oral tradition by suggesting that they were not even responsible for the versions - that is as destructive and as irresponsible as it gets - if you are going to make such profoundly destructive statements (you have never given them as opinions) you have the responsibility to back them up with hard facts and not unsubstiated and unprovable paperwork - or, at the very least, disprove by logic what scholars and researchers have always believed (including Child and Hindly, respectively leading experts on ballads and broadsides - bith of whol you have dismissed as being "wrong".
You have totally failed to respond to challenges to your ideas other than with unthought-out "what ifs", relying totally on a paper chase and a list of those who support you - that is appalling scholarship.
"basing your opinions largely on the study of oral tradition"
That is a claim of something you could not possibly.
I have based my conclusions on bringing together my knowledge of the tradition, gathered from the work of others, with thirty years of collecting from as many of the remaining source singers we could find and spend time with, to see if the the two made sense - we found that much of it did.
The one thing we are sure about above all other things, working people were natural composers and poets who recorded their life experiences - not as old people sitting at home in their retirement, but as whole communities. This you have passed off as unimportant "nuiffin' to do with England, they were too bust".
You have reduced our song traditions as being indistinguishable from the output of the latest boy bands, and you have admitted as much, (I'll pull that up for you if you insist).
You have shown no understanding of the oral tradition - deep or otherwise, you have all but dismissed it as a creative form, while at the same time conceding that both Ireland and Scotland have creative traditions - why on earth do you think that is - do they both have something the English don't have?      
By the way - you even got it wrong on your own "Mutton Pie" being a local song in the sense I described "local" - it was also recorded in Lancashire, Yorkshire and Lincolnshire - part of the national repertoire.   
Sorry I can't with you luck in your enterprise.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Apr 13 - 01:53 PM

"I had no problem finding p74 for free. "
BTW - I would be grateful for a link to a full text of this - should it prove me wrong I will of course apologise unreservedly
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 26 Apr 13 - 02:52 PM

Okay, Jim
Click on the blue clicky at my 25th April 7.10 posting
Scroll down to the CONTENTS
Click on the 4th chapter APPRENTICES
Scroll down to p74.

Happy reading!

Mutton Pie
A few scattered versions were recorded in surrounding counties near the border with Yorkshire. Every farm hand in the East Riding knew the song in the first half of the 20th century and there was one version reputed to have been 50 verses. Singers who we recorded in neighbouring counties knew that their versions came from the East Riding. The earliest version also came from Yorkshire but I know this counts for nothing in your book.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 26 Apr 13 - 03:22 PM

Aye lally, O lilly lally. All in the night so early :)

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Apr 13 - 03:24 PM

Frank Kidson wrote it down in Liverpool and Fred Hamer recorded it in Lincolnshire - there is no indication that the Hamer informant "knew that their versions came from the East Riding" - I helped produce and annotate the notes of 'The Leaves of Life' from the Hamer collection and know that to be the case - can't speak for the Huddleston version.
As I said - it had entered into the national repertoire - nothing like I described as being 'local'
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Apr 13 - 03:33 PM

Nope - no page 74 available, and sorry, as your claim contradicts every other account of 19th century chimney sweeping and there is not a single reference to climbing bricks or ladders, I'm afraid I am not prepared to take your word for it.
As page 74 has been removed with a note stating that fact, it seems a little odd that you were able to make your claim from it - must be losing my touch.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 26 Apr 13 - 03:48 PM

You're right Jim. But Steve will never admit it :)

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 26 Apr 13 - 04:08 PM

Could some kind Mudelf please put Jim out of his misery for me. The link works perfectly well for me every time. I think you're pulling my leg, Jim.

Kidson collected 'Mutton Pie' from a T. C. Smith in Scarborough. Last time I looked Scarborough was in Yorkshire! I'm well aware of a few variants in Lincolnshire and the West and North Ridings. A relative of mine , Mo Ogg, from Lincolnshire had a version. It doesn't appear in any of the big collections from the likes of Sharp and such a distribution hardly puts it into the league of such as 'Dark-eyed Sailor', 'Green Bushes','Indian Lass','Seventeen Come Sunday', those well-known components of the national corpus.

Where does your Liverpool info come from?

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Lighter
Date: 26 Apr 13 - 04:16 PM

Here's what I see:

"Techniques

"Large chimneys and stacks were easily climbed. They were often built with stepped sides, iron rungs, metal pegs or protruding bricks, inserted inside the flue to aid the sweeper. Evidence of this could be seen until recently at The Buck's Head (Little Wymondley), Hertfordshire. This small 17th-century inn has a central chimney stack with four flues. Two inglenook fireplaces on the ground floor contain iron rings set up the interior of the chimney. Basement chimneys in Knightsbridge were fitted with ladders.

"Narrow chimneys, however, required considerable skill. Novice sweeps practiced on straight flues. They climbed with elbows and legs spread out, feet pressing against the side of the flue. An older boy or journeyman hoisted the younger boy up the chimney, remaining below him as he climbed...."

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 26 Apr 13 - 04:22 PM

Okay, tried to cut and paste but it wouldn't allow me to, but it's only a brief para anyway so here it is.

Techniques

Large chimneys and stacks were easily climbed. They were often built with stepped sides, iron rungs, metal pegs or protruding bricks, inserted into the flue to aid the sweeper. Evidence of this could be seen until recently at the Buck's Head, Little Wymondley (Herts). This small 17th-century inn has a central chimney stack with four flues. two Inglenook fireplaces on the ground floor contain iron rungs set at intervals up the interior of the chimney. Basement chimneys in Knightsbridge were fitted with ladders.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 26 Apr 13 - 04:46 PM

Thanks, Jon.
I don't know, you wait half an hour for a bus and 2 come along at once!
(English idiom)

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 26 Apr 13 - 04:59 PM

Susan,
I don't put any trust in Percy whatsoever. All it tells us is that the ballad was in circulation in his day.

However I do put lots of trust in his Folio Manuscript, not as any sort of evidence of oral tradition, but I see no reason to doubt the texts were genuine and from the middle of the 17th century. In fact looking at the language and spelling I'd say they were considerably earlier.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Apr 13 - 09:07 PM

Please. Children actually died doing that job. Have some respect. Look up Jeremy Bentham. Or, read a novel by Charles Dickens.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Apr 13 - 09:18 PM

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

No, not the Wikipedia that glosses him over. See him for who he is.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Apr 13 - 10:52 PM

Hey, look yonder, tell me what's that you see
Marching to the fields of Concord?
It looks like Handsome Johnny with a musket in his hand,
Marching to the Concord war,
Hey marching to the Concord war.

Hey, look yonder, tell me what you see
Marching to the fields of Gettysburg?
It looks like Handsome Johnny with a flintlock in his hand,
Marching to the Gettysburg war
Hey marching to the Gettysburg war.

Hey, look yonder, tell me what's that you see
Marching to the fields of Dunkirk?
It looks like Handsome Johnny with a carbine in his hand,
Marching to the Dunkirk war
Hey marching to the Dunkirk war

Hey, look yonder, tell me what you see
Marching to the fields of Korea?
It looks like Handsome Johnny with an M1 in his hand
Marching to the Korean war,
Hey marching to the Korean war.

Hey, look yonder, tell me what you see
Marching to the fields of Vietnam?
It looks like Handsome Johnny with an M15,
Marching to the Vietnam war,
Hey marching to the Vietnam war.

Hey, look yonder, tell me what you see
Marching to the fields of Birmingham?
It looks like Handsome Johnny with his hand rolled in a fist,
Marching to the Birmingham war,
Hey marching to the Birmingham war.

Hey, it's a long hard road,
It's a long hard road
It's a long hard road,
Before we'll be free.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Apr 13 - 04:25 AM

"Large chimneys and stacks were easily climbed"
Ca

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Apr 13 - 04:54 AM

Whoops.
"Large chimneys and stacks were easily climbed."
Can we put this in context
The chimneys referred to in the quote are those of the rich and are in the city "Knightsbridge" - places where farmworkers would would have no access and no familiarity whatever - nor would broadside hacks for that matter.
The song is obviously dealing with the home of a big farmer of the type to be found all over East Anglia - Walter Pardon always compared it to the home of the farmer John Blanchford for whom his family worked for, where the harvest suppers were held where the singing was done.
Whoever made these songs, they were rural - songs of the countryside.
I have no argument with the idea that such luxuries might have existed in Knightsbridge, Chelsea or Belgravia, but these are not the environments described in any 19th century folksong, and the idea of farmworkers ploutering around such a house would never occur to me in a million years - nor the singers.
The same would go for rural Northern Ireland, where this song was also found.
The known conditions the sweepers worked in would have generally been the ones described in the links above, the ones that were publicised by Lord Salisbury in his campaign to improve the working conditions for children, certainly not the ones pertaining in the seven houses owned by the Duke of Westminster in the Greater London area.
You have been given the information on the general conditions existing and widely known to be the reality, along with the drawings that the boys worked in. The fact that you have gone to such lengths to score a minor point in order to prove that English rural workers were incapable of making their own songs says volumes and the two points are, as far as I'm concerned, are complementary to one another and dismissive of the people we are discussing - as 'Guest' says - "Please. Children actually died doing that job"
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Apr 13 - 07:49 AM

Sorry about the grammar slips in that one.
Just to try to put an end to this long-running farce.
These type of songs were largely based on perception rather than experienced reality.

The perception of chimney sweeping would have been based on the articles and illustrations published and widely distributed in The Illustrated London News, which also immortalised the images of The Irish Famine - still in constant use.
Probably the most widespread impression of boy chimney sweeps was that given by Charles Kingsley's 'Water Babies', popular right up to the present day and even used as a cartoon feature film.
This is from the first chapter of his book:
Jim Carroll

"He cried when he had to climb the dark flues, rubbing his poor knees and elbows raw; and when the soot got into his eyes, which it did every day in the week; and when his master beat him, which he did every day in
He never had heard of God, or of Christ, except in words which you never have heard, and which it would have been well if he had never heard. He cried half his time, and laughed the other half and when he had not enough to eat, which happened every day in the week; and when he had not enough to eat, which happened every day in the week likewise....
How many chimneys he swept I cannot say: but he swept so many that he got quite tired, and puzzled too, for they were not like the town flues to which he was accustomed, but such as you would find—if you would only get up them and look, which perhaps you would not like to do—in old country-houses, large and crooked chimneys, which had been altered again and again, till they ran into one another, anastomosing (as Professor Owen would say) considerably. So Tom fairly lost his way in them ; not that he cared much for that, though he was in pitchy darkness, for he was as much at home in a chimney as a mole is under-ground ; but at last, coming down as he thought
the right chimney, he came down the wrong one...."

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 27 Apr 13 - 11:01 AM

And how are you this fine day Jim Carroll?

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: GUEST
Date: 27 Apr 13 - 12:31 PM

And Steve. I downloaded all your stuff this morning and synced it my little Sony. I'm not going to tell you how good you are. I'm just going to say I love it. Most definitely a keeper.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 27 Apr 13 - 12:53 PM

"And how are you this fine day Jim Carroll?"
Bloody exhausted, longing for the bad weather - damned garden - but very much looking forward to our forthcoming trip to the Pompeii exhibition in London
Sorry you asked?
How are you?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 27 Apr 13 - 02:55 PM

No not at all. You have my email address. You should send me a picture or two of your garden later on when it's looking it's best. Pompeii exhibition huh? I looked it up. My son Tom the anthropologist who flips over everything having to do with the ancient world would love to trade places with you.

Have you ever heard Steve's singing? I ended up listening twice through and it has put me off arguing for the whole day :-)

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 28 Apr 13 - 09:38 AM

Ok Steve, I have a question for you:

If on the 1720 broadside of Fair Margaret and Sweet William it says it should be sung to the tune of Lord Thomas and Fair Ellinor (1677), doesn't this mean that the latter preceded and was fairly well known already? Fair Margaret is very much the same story as it's predecessor- except purged of murder, more suitable to the changing tastes of the British in the area of romance.

Btw, doesn't matter is not an answer :-)

There is a copy of the "William and Margaret, an Old Ballad" dated 1711 in the British Museum which has been used to prove Mallet plagiarized when he took credit for the ballad. No motif on this "old" (what's old?) ballad.

The motif was added on to the "fairy" ancient ballad of William and Margaret (typo in my opening post, I meant fairly :-). The motif probably first debuted on this ballad in a broadside, perhaps even the 1720 Douce ballad- but somewhere around then.

Yet we know the motif was already in use in Horace Walpole's parody of "Lady Hounsibelle and Lord Lovel" in 1765.

Motif belongs on Lord Lovel as in Lord Levett and Lord Levett alone :)

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 02 May 13 - 02:50 PM

Susan,
I'm back!

I'd say your first question is probably so. That is, in all the cases I know of where ballad B designates ballad A's tune then ballad A has precedent.

Your last statement has confused me, however. How can 1765 predate 1720?

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Lighter
Date: 02 May 13 - 04:00 PM

Since the printed sheet says "To an Excellent New Tune" and the ref. to "Lord Thomas" was handwritten later, there's really no telling whether "Lord Thomas" came first.

Is there some reason for ruling out the possibility that the annotation may have been made years later?

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 02 May 13 - 06:54 PM

You're right, Jon.
Caught me on the hop there. I'd forgotten it was written on.

The only obvious clue as to when it was written on would be 'to YE tune of ....'. Presuming it was genuine, I don't think they were still using 'ye' in writing in the 18th century but I may be wrong on that.

Susan,
The motif was used on a broadside ballad in 1685.

I have some original correspondence on 'William and Margaret' between Chappell and Ebsworth. I'll check it out when I have time to see if it throws any light on the matter, also Chappell's and Ebsworth's notes in Roxburghe.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Lighter
Date: 02 May 13 - 07:20 PM

Steve, from the Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories:

"Ye...was still commonly used by writers in the nineteenth century. Jane Austen, for example, in a letter of 8 February 1807 wrote '...& means to be here on ye 24th.'"

If my experience is any guide, "used by writers" means "used in handwriting rather than in print." I'm not so sure about that "commonly," but M-W is essentially the last word on these matters (aside from OED, of course, with which it is almost always in agreement).

In any case, if Jane Austen was writing "ye" in 1807, the argument that the ballad annotation must have been written around 1690 unfortunately goes out the window.

Perhaps there's another clue in the shape of the handwritten letters?

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 04 May 13 - 04:14 PM

Jon,
My copy of the Douce sheet is not a very good print off, but the writing looks early 19th century to me, so probably written on by one of the collectors. You can see the copy at the Bodl. Douce 1.72. The writer's source for this information might be around somewhere. These 17thc Black-letter sheets have long commanded a high price even since the 18thc so I would say a collector like Douce wouldn't have written on one in ink and defaced it, but that's just an opinion.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 04 May 13 - 04:35 PM

Had another look at the clear copy of Douce 1.72 on the Bodl site and I'd say this writing was most likely 18thc but I'm no expert on handwriting. Incidentally there is another copy in Douce printed in the early 18thc which corrects 'channel' to 'chancel'. I also got the 'Black Letter' wrong. It's printed in italic, but the cuts are definitely 17thc. I spent a day in the BL this week looking at the Roxburghe and Luttrel sheets and some were printed by Bates. I'll check my notes and see if I can verify Sarah Bates' dates.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 04 May 13 - 06:30 PM

You're absolutely right Steve. 1720 comes before 1765. What was I thinking? I plead battle fatigue. But I do believe the motif first appeared on Fair Margaret's Misfortune c.1720. It is not on the 1711 held at the British museum or the version or the one attributed to Mallet.

As far as I'm concerned, the earliest copy of Lord Lovel is actually Walpole's parody of 2/1765. And the way it links directly to Percy, I think tells the tale. By the way, what was clever Horace making fun of if not 75E? Walpole was rabidly anti-Jacobite, writes gleefully of Jacobite executions in his letters. Then we have Bishop Percy & Reverend Parson's half-assed do-over. Tell me what poor lass spinning at her wheel would come up with a text like 75A?

Kinloch's 1827 version 75D has no motif and that's to be expected. Roxburghshire is Black Douglas territory. And who is this lady from Roxburghshire? Why doesn't she have a name? The other 1827 Kinloch version, from Lesmahagow, 80 miles away, has the birk and brier.

So why when Lord Thomas and Fair Ellinor was made over by the Irish did they change it to rose and briar- even though there are no English or Scottish versions that have it? It's because the motif itself is Irish- not the idea of plants growing from graves and behaving in an extraordinary manner per se, which occurs in many places, but these particular plants and the true lover's knot? Irish.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 05 May 13 - 01:53 PM

Whilst we're confessing, I think the 1720 date for the earliest broadside of FMM is right. The 1685 date comes from a general comment by Chappell in Roxburghe Vol 1. The general concensus (Mudcat earlier thread, online book on printers and Bodleian)is that Sarah was Charles Bates' widow and he was still printing in 1714. Pepys has lots of sheets printed by Charles B and none by Sarah. This and the fact that it isn't in Black Letter would point to the 1720 date.

Basically we have insufficient early evidence on LL. My own opinion that the earliest extant versions look like burlesque to me could point to an even earlier ballad. The fact that even these versions were burlesqued and parodied in the 19th century is only relevant in that several artistes of the 19th century thought it worthy of further burlesque and parody. However it is possible that whoever came up with the earliest version was not burlesquing a particular ballad but the whole genre. We must remember that what we see as charming and wonderful in these ballads was seen by sophisticated literary people as crude and laughable, hence one reason why Percy and later editors felt it necessary to tamper heavily with them.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: GUEST
Date: 05 May 13 - 09:15 PM

Steve, can't you see that the great divide that began when Henry VI and Richard III went at it and continued on until well after the Jacobites were officially defeated is real? You're really missing something in your analysis if you don't think these people weren't expressing their viewpoints. It is all subtext and not face value. In order to deconstruct the text, well, nevermind... Just remember this: There are no disinterested writers, nor readers- only readers and writers who put on such airs. Cultural history is the key to interpreting any text. For Christsake! Even working class Jim knows that.

Jim, ugh, reading again? Hey, get in that garden and pull some weeds! And when you're done with that, sweep the chimney! Workhouse!

Has either if you ever heard of Mikhail Bakhtin?

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: GUEST
Date: 05 May 13 - 10:17 PM

As I was saying, Lord Lovel, the Jacobite ballad (75E) was nothing spectacular. It was just an insignificant little love ballad, written for a lady with similar sentiments, until the other side got hold of it. It was always more popular as parody or burlesque than ballad therefore running in unofficial circles in a manner that quite trumps Jacobite secrecy.

Sung in open arrogant drunkeness. How did Horace Walpole, rabid anti-Jacobite get his hands on it? Don't you think that Lady Hounsibelle and Lord Lovel (Percy's title) is Horace Walpole's perfected masterpiece sent deliberately to Percy for possible publication? Of course it was. But alas, people like Percy and Childs transmogrified comic tradition into new "ballad" tradition. Ugh!

Rather unfortunately, Percy was ahead of Horace Walpole and used Reverend Parsons as a ballad laundering service. Hey, they were all playing James Bond back then- politically, socially, even religiously. Far as I know they still are. God bless the Brits- and their American cousins. Eh?

But if it's all the same to you, if I have to deal with any gay little parlor songs, I'll take the green bourgeoisie. Thank ye kindly.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 06 May 13 - 09:56 AM

Eating eggs and marrowbone,won't make your old man blind;
So if you want to do him in,you must sneak up from behind.
Ti me fal-the-doo-ra-lido, fal-the-doo-ra-lay.

It was a little too quiet so I thought I'd sing to myself. That's really catchy Steve. Are you sure it's not Irish?

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Lighter
Date: 06 May 13 - 10:40 AM

"All subtext" means you can make it mean whatever you want to, though I suppose there are some limits.

But as a supposedly meaningful method, "deconstruction" by its very nature yields no meaning that anyone should accept or care about.

It's all just "the play of signs." Including what the deconstructionist says.

And deconstructionists are not "disinterested readers" either.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 06 May 13 - 11:03 AM

Susan,
Have you got any of Norman Iles' books on the 'Cock Robin' theme? You'd really enjoy them.

Henry VII and Richie 3's going at it was the END of a great divide, not the beginning. There are plenty of ballads with a distinct political theme in oral tradition, but they are overt enough. There are also many many political ballads that were double entendres but very few of these survived their own period, at least not in oral tradition. I've just spent a full day in the BL leafing through some and not one item is still remembered today.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 06 May 13 - 01:15 PM

Lighter, perhaps I should have made myself more clear. When I say deconstruct I mean Foucault, not Derrida. I am a critic and an historian, not a nihilist. You can't just derive any meaning you please. Subtext must be grounded in factual history and one must temper speculation to that end. Don't be such a relativist. One cannot even arrive at one's own point of view by being an extreme relativist.

Steve, I will certainly take your suggestion, but I respectfully disagree it was not the end. It was just the beginning...

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 06 May 13 - 01:51 PM

You know Steve, I was just thinking...

How funny would it be if someone such as yourself were to sing "The Old Woman from Yorkshire" at a Renn Faire -and at the end, some bedraggled beggar woman with mudcaked hair pipes up from somewhere in the crowd to sing that extra verse? OMG, that would be sooo funny :)

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Lighter
Date: 06 May 13 - 02:21 PM

Glad to hear it! That's a relief!

Foucault, however,....

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 07 May 13 - 06:17 AM

Madness and Civilization and Discipline and Punish. Both highly recommended.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Lighter
Date: 07 May 13 - 07:25 AM

Odd, I had just the opposite reaction.

Subject: RE: Origins: Rose-Briar Motif
From: Suzy Sock Puppet
Date: 07 May 13 - 07:44 AM

And what might that be?