Subject: Mummers Songs From: alanww Date: 11 Dec 00 - 07:05 PM Hi there I hope the Digital Tradition can help us out. As the Captain of the Shakespeare Mummers in Stratford-upon-Avon (England!), each year we perform various mummers plays from our local area and, at the end, we perform an appropriate traditional song. At present we perform one of The Camptown Races, Not For Joe and Old Bob Ridley. But we have reference to other songs which were sung at some time (maybe 100 years ago!) but which have been lost. Can anyone please help with the words and tunes for the following:- 1 Darkies Lead A Happy Life 2 Ran Tan Tinder Box 3 Jack Up The Orchard Thanks. Wassail! |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: Snuffy Date: 11 Dec 00 - 07:34 PM And 4. Cat In The Fiddle Bag? (I'm one of Alan's troop) |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: GUEST,Sarah Date: 11 Dec 00 - 10:47 PM I'm at work now, but will check it out in the morning (U.S. Central time) when I drag myself up. I do have a number of old, old tunes from my parents' collections, although these don't really ring any bells (seasonal pun). Anyone else out there? (Number one sounds ominously S. Foster-ish...) Sarah |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: GUEST,Sarah Date: 12 Dec 00 - 03:50 PM Update: Sorry, no luck so far. I've been through the handiest of the old collections I have, and haven't found any of the songs you've listed. There are some earlier editions around here somewhere, and I'll keep trying to find them, too... Sarah |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: GUEST,Sarah Date: 12 Dec 00 - 03:55 PM Update: Sorry, no luck so far. I've been through the handiest of the old collections I have, which are "Best Loved Songs" sort of publications dating back to the early 1900s, and haven't found any of the songs you've listed. There are some earlier editions around here somewhere, and I'll keep trying to find them, too... But I have to get ready for work now, so it will be tomorrow before I can do any more -- my employers are very tacky about my being at the office in order to draw my pay. Heavy martyred sigh... Sarah |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: MMario Date: 12 Dec 00 - 03:58 PM no luck on internet searching either |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: GUEST,Peter Millington Date: 12 Dec 00 - 04:31 PM Over 100 Mummers' play texts, some with songs can be found at the Traditional Drama Research Group website: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~tdrg/Texts.htm The following song comes from a Sheffield chapbook version - on page: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~tdrg/Texts/84sk38pj.htm FOOL: Come all you jolly Mummers, That Mum at Christmas time; Come join with me in chorus, And join with me in rhyme
CHORUS:
ALL:
Of Giants and of Dragons,
Then bold Slasher he stood up,
He fought a fiery Dragon,
St. George with Prince of Paradine,
Old King of Egypt he came by,
Then he called for Hector,
A furious battle then they fought,
Now we have performed St. George,
A full version of the chorus is given in: http://www.shef.ac.uk/~tdrg/Texts/87----ej.htm |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: GUEST,Peter Millington (again) Date: 12 Dec 00 - 04:38 PM ...and you could try the now classic Newfoundland "Mummers Song" by Simani. The following website includes a sound clip. http://www.k12.nf.ca/fitzgerald/Commun/music/Simani.html |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: GUEST,John in Brisbane Date: 13 Dec 00 - 08:02 AM Pardon my lack of knowledge of this subject, but I've come across a small number of them over the last year or two, without taking too much notice - I seem to recall one or two in books I've searched through recently - Maybe Cecil Sharpe's English Country Songs or another title containing Cumbrian songs. (From memory I posted an index to the Cumbrian songs). I gather that Mummer songs themselves aren't that hard to find, just your four titles? Is that correct? Regards, John |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: Snuffy Date: 13 Dec 00 - 08:59 AM Most mummer's plays were collected in the late 19th/early 20th century. Because mummers traditionally blacked their faces, when the Negro Minstrel Show craze swept Britain (in the 1850s/60s?), most mummers adopted one of these songs at the end of the play. Maybe because their audience now expected that sort of song from someone with a black face. Folk processing amd thread creep aren't purely modern phenomena. As a consequence, the songs that had been sung pre-1850 were never collected, but there are references to a few titles in some plays. We would like to resurrect them, if possible, to be able to do a more authentic (i.e. older) version of the plays. Wassail! V |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: GUEST,John J Date: 15 Dec 00 - 04:42 AM Bugger, my cookie needs sorting agn! Re; Mummers stuff...email me on john.jocys@btinternet.com and I'll get some stuff sorted / put you in touch with sources you ma find of interest. In the meantime I'll get this cookie sorted. Again. John |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: Snuffy Date: 16 Dec 00 - 05:50 AM John J Alanww is away for the weekend, but I'll get him to e-mail you next week. Wassail! V
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Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: alanww Date: 18 Dec 00 - 10:28 AM John in Brisbane / John J / Sarah / Peter Millington / MMario Thanks for all your efforts. Yes it is just these four songs which are hard to find. I have emailed the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library at EFDSS to see if they can help and await their response. All the best Wassail! Alan W PS I was in Brisbane in October and sang at the POD Folk Club at Coorparoo! |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: GUEST,John in Brisbane Date: 19 Dec 00 - 06:45 AM Alan, I checked with my local resources today but found nothing (except one song called Happy Darkies - which I didn't investigate further). My specialist music librarian suggested Library of Congress given that some of the material suggests to be US in origin. Was speaking to Shez Wright last night about some tasks for the Woodford Festival - now less than a week away. She has just resigned from organising POD activities. Hope you enjoyed The POD. Regards, John |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: alanww Date: 28 Aug 01 - 10:11 AM Anyone else got any ideas, as I still haven't had any luck in tracing these particular songs? Perhaps they don't exist and they were just an in joke between the mummers themselves at the end of the play, which finishes (from memory):- Fiddler Wit: "In comes I Fiddler Wit, with me great big yud and little wit. Me wit so big, me wit so small, I've brought me fiddle to please you all!" All: "What about Cat in the Fiddle Bag etc" "We're one, two, three jolly boys all in a line ..." Wassail! Alan |
Subject: Lyr Add: THE MUMMER'S SONG From: GUEST,Nick Date: 28 Aug 01 - 01:20 PM THE MUMMER'S SONG
Don't seem like Christmas if the Mummers aren't here (knock, knock, knock) Any Mummers 'lowed in?
Hark what's the noise, out by the porch door
Come in lovely Mummers don't bother the snow
Don't 'spose you fine Mummers will turn down a drop
My God how hot is it, we better go
You can hear the tune (I think) |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: selby Date: 28 Aug 01 - 01:43 PM I think the ran tan tinder box is on John Kirpatricks wasssail cd on fellside Keith |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: pavane Date: 28 Aug 01 - 02:08 PM The words used by the doctor in many plays are printed as a song in a broadside in the Bodley collection, dated between 1700 and 1740, along with a tune. See The Infallible Doctor |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: Alice Date: 28 Aug 01 - 02:46 PM My interest in Mary O'Hara's singing came up in some emails exchanged with Jean Ritchie, and Jean added this bit about what is called The Wexford Mummer's song, on Mary O'Hara's album.
"....she heard Sean O-Touma's name. She jumped out of her chair, "Oh! Oh! You know Sean-O?" she cried. I told her he had sung a lovely little song for us, about two girls and their little pigs... she interrupted me, singing out on the refrain of that song, "Fa-la-la-la-la-la!" ........... putting me off!" So we sang it for her, then played the tape of Sean-O himself singing it, and she was giggling about the surprise she was going to give Sean-O when next she saw him....."
I've done a sound clip of it here, CLICK, my singing. I have always wondered about this song and how different it seems from other mummers songs in the tradition of the plays. If anyone knows more about its background, I would appreciate it. Now I'm off to alert Jean to this thread. Alice
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Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: alanww Date: 03 Sep 01 - 09:07 AM Refresh ... ! "Farewell to Princes Landing Stage ...!" Alan |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: GUEST,alanww Date: 20 Nov 03 - 06:37 AM Refresh again! Thanks for the contributions so far but I still do not have the songs for the titles mentioned at the start of the thread. Any more thoughts? Wassail! The black horse fall in the big mud hole ...!" Alan |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: Malcolm Douglas Date: 20 Nov 03 - 01:41 PM A reference at the Traditional Drama Research Group, added since Peter Millington posted to this discussion nearly three years ago, mentions three of the titles: Christmas Mummers' Play from Weston-sub-Edge, Glos. - 1864 The impression given is that these may have been the names of dance tunes, not of songs. It's also possible that they didn't exist at all except as a standing joke; at all events, it appears that the Weston mummers didn't know them, as a note indicates that the tune they actually played for the three-handed reel was Not for Jo[e] Perhaps someone might follow up the earlier reference to John Kirkpatrick, just in case. |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: Snuffy Date: 20 Nov 03 - 07:35 PM We (Shakespeare Mummers) are again performing the Weston Subedge play this year (including one performance in Weston Subedge), hence alanww's original request and current refreshing. Ran-Tan is at JCs Tunefinder, but not Ran Tan Tinderbox, nor the other two. WassaiL! V |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: GUEST,Chicoutimi Girl Date: 09 Dec 07 - 06:25 PM Anyone have the music/chords for the Mummer's Song (Newfoundland version).... Thanks |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: Emma B Date: 09 Dec 07 - 06:31 PM Chicoutimi Girl, I met up with Ron Hynes earlier this year and swopped information about the Newfoundland and British tradition of mumming. He has a lot of information about the Newfoundland Christmas scripts which now seem to have fallen out of performance. |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: MuddleC Date: 22 Dec 11 - 11:26 AM Well, it's four years later.... any one found the songs??? |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: GUEST,George Frampton Date: 23 Dec 11 - 04:25 AM Charlie Bridger (died 1996) sang 'Darkies' (or 'Playing on the Old Banjo') which strikes me as a period Christy minstrel song. Charlie was born at Kenardington on the fringe of Romney Marsh in Kent, and joined the Woodchurch village band as a boy, retiring to Stone in Oxney in later life. I was given a recording of his songs you still wish to pursue this. Nice polka tune. I may have the words somewhere, otherwise contact me. |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: Mick Pearce (MCP) Date: 23 Dec 11 - 11:34 AM Three of them look more like tune titles, as Malcolm suggested above. However, there is a reference to Johnny's Up The Orchard in a book Sharps, Flats, Gamblers and Racehorses: "There we would roar out " Dear Old Pals " or " Johnny's up the Orchard " with the great Mac-Dermott", suggesting that there was indeed a song. So a bit of looking found a broadsheet titled Johnny's Up The Orchard at UCLA. Sadly it's in a special collection and isn't available online.Here's the online search ref: Johnny's In the Orchard (I found it originally in a reference document for the collection). If you scroll down to: Box 8 Folder 16, you'll find the entry. Perhaps someone in the area could look it up for you. (I'll have a look for the others now). Mick |
Subject: RE: Mummers Songs From: Mick Pearce (MCP) Date: 23 Dec 11 - 11:45 AM (I should have mentioned that The English Folk Play gives the title as Jonnie Up The Orchard for the Weston-sub-Edge play. Mick |
Subject: Lyr Add: A MUMMING WE WILL GO From: Jim Dixon Date: 18 May 22 - 01:50 PM Aunt Judy's Magazine: “Aunt Judy’s Christmas Volume for 1872” (Volume 10), edited by Mrs. Alfred Gatty (London: Bell and Daldy, 1872) contains “The Peace Egg: A Christmas Tale” by J. H. Ewing, starting on page 98. The story contains the one line “A mumming we will go” quoted from the song, on page 115. This is apparently the first printing of that story and the first printed identifiable reference to the song by that name. The story was reprinted in several books, one of which is: The Peace Egg, and a Christmas Mumming Play, by Juliana Horatia Ewing (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, [1887]) This book contains a more thorough commentary. Ewing says (on page 40):
“The Mumming Chorus, ‘And a mumming we will go,’ etc., is not in any one of these versions, but I never saw mumming without it.”
And a mumming we will go, With a bright cockade in all our hats, We’ll go with a gallant show.
In the villages about Sheffield a play called St. George and the Dragon is acted at Christmas by mummers. They have rude swords, made apparently by the rudest of village blacksmiths, and they are dressed in all sorts of bright colours and ribbons. The play which they act is contained in a little chap-book printed at Otley in Yorkshire, the title of it being 'The Peace Egg.' In this neighbourhood the following verses, which do not appear in the printed chap-book, are always sung at the end of the play:— Come all ye jolly mummers That mum in Christmas time, Come join with us in chorus; Come join with us in rime. And a mumming we will go, we'll go, And a mumming we will go, With a white cockade all in our hats We'll go to the gallant show. It's of St. George's valour So loudly let us sing; An honour to his country And a credit to his king. And a mumming we will go, we'll go, And a mumming we will go; We'll face all sorts of weather, Both rain, cold, wet, and snow. It's of the King of Egypt That came to seek his son; It's of the King of Egypt That made his sword so wan (sic). And a mumming, &c. It's of the black Morocco dog That fought the fiery battle; It's of the black Morocco dog That made his sword to rattle. And a mumming we will go, we'll go, And a mumming we will go, With a white cockade all in our hats We'll go to the gallant show. |
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