Lyr Req: Lyric Variants/The Nightingale/refra

Subject: Lyric Variants/The Nightingale/refrain
From:
Date: 11 May 01 - 06:20 AM

50 plus years ago I learnt this lovely song as Pretty Betty, other variants include ' 'hear the refrain (surly better than?) 'hear the fond tale'. Regards, Richard Palser.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lyric Variants/The Nightingale/refra
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 11 May 01 - 10:02 AM

This earlier discussion contains a couple of variants and links to all the ones I could find in the Digital Tradition database and in the Forum, together with a few elsewhere:  Lyr/Chords Req: The Nightengale Sings

The best-known "Pretty Betty" version is probably that found by Sabine Baring Gould in a number of parts of Cornwall at the end of the 19th. century; the tune, which he originally got from a Mr. E.F. Stevens of St. Ives, was widely popularised through school songbooks, though there is little trace of the sexual subtext which informs most traditional versions.  We sang it at school in the early 1960s, pretty much to the words given by James Henry Dixon in  Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England  (1846); I expect it still happens.  See, amongst other places:

The Nightingale  (with sound samples).

It's sometimes sung in Cornish, too, (An Eos Whek), though that's a modern translation into Cornish, made as part of the Cornish Revival movement.

See also  The Traditional Ballad Index:

One Morning in May (To Hear the Nightingale Sing) [Laws P14]

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lyric Variants/The Nightingale/refra
From: Sorcha
Date: 14 Jul 01 - 07:25 PM

refresh, and e mail sent.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lyric Variants/The Nightingale/refra
From: Sorcha
Date: 14 Jul 01 - 08:56 PM

e mail bounced. I give up.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lyric Variants/The Nightingale/refra
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 14 Jul 01 - 10:47 PM

You and I have done our best on this one; if the person who wanted the information couldn't be bothered looking back here to see if he or she got an answer, and didn't feel able to give a valid email address, then we may as well write them off.  The information remains here, though I expect to hear a repetition of the question before I hear from someone who has taken the trouble to look at the main Forum page and noticed the word SEARCH...

>sigh<

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Lyric Variants/The Nightingale/refra
From: Sorcha
Date: 14 Jul 01 - 11:02 PM

LOL, of course you are correct, Malcolm! I did try, tho.