Child and Waterson/Carthy

Subject: Child and Waterson/Carthy
From: Garry Gillard
Date: 08 Oct 01 - 02:36 AM

I've added a page to my site that relates songs recorded by the Carthys and the Watersons to the Child collection. I'd be grateful for any assistance/comments.

Here's the index. You'll see the link.

Garry

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https://mainlynorfolk.info/watersons/child.html

Subject: RE: Child and Waterson/Carthy
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 08 Oct 01 - 08:40 AM

Here are some more from the repertoire list on your site:

An Acre of Land: #2 (The Elfin Knight)
Banks Of Green Willow: #24 (Bonnie Annie)
Bill Norrie: #83 (Child Maurice)
Billy Boy: usually treated as a sub-set of #12 (Lord Randal)
The Brown Girl: #295 (The Brown Girl)
Cruel Mother: #20 (The Cruel Mother)
Georgie: #209 (Geordie)
The Grey Cock: #248 (The Grey Cock, or Saw You My Father) -though this group of songs has a very complicated set of inter-relationships.
King Knapperty: #33 (Kempy Kay)
Lord Bateman: #53 (Young Beichan)
The Old Virginia Lowlands: #286 (The Golden Vanity, or The Lowlands Low)
Outlandish Knight: #4 (Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight)
The Prickle-Holly Bush: #95 (The Maid Freed from the Gallows)
Rackabello: #18 (Sir Lionel)
Seven Yellow Gypsies: #200 (The Gypsy Laddie)

I'll get back to you about Mother, Go Make My Bed.

Subject: RE: Child and Waterson/Carthy
From: masato sakurai
Date: 08 Oct 01 - 12:05 PM

Thank you, Garry. The page is of great help to me. I've got The Carthy Chronicles, and like disc 4 "Child: Carthy." Thank you, Malcolm, for additions.
~Masato

Subject: RE: Child and Waterson/Carthy
From: GUEST,English Jon. Must reset cookie...
Date: 08 Oct 01 - 12:31 PM

Child 18:

Anyone ever heard Martin Brown sing "Bold Sir Rilas?

Anyone got the words/tune?

Apparently it was one of the sources for "Rackabello", but I've never heard anyone else do it.

Cheers,

EJ

Subject: RE: Child and Waterson/Carthy
From: Wolfgang
Date: 09 Oct 01 - 04:09 AM

I started last night looking for omissions, but there is nothing so far I can add to Malcolm's list. I'd never have spotted Rackabello!

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Child and Waterson/Carthy
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 09 Oct 01 - 01:49 PM

A couple more:

Mother, Go Make My Bed:  This is a bit complicated.  Versions of the song, all pretty similar, seem to have been quite common in the south of England; I don't know where Eliza got hers.

There was some discussion of the song's possible roots in The Journal of the Folk Song Society (vol. III, no. 11, 1907).  H.E.D. Hammond thought it primarily derived from Child #65 (Lady Maisry) with some apparant input from #75 (Lord Lovel).  Anne Gilchrist considered a Lady Maisry connection unlikely, and inclined toward the Lord Lovel group, though noting, "The elements of ballads are shifting, and no hard and fast line can be drawn between their various groups; at the same time it is well to remember that such an incident as an absent lover returning in haste to his lady does not always belong to the same story."

Lucy Broadwood was in the Lord Lovel camp, while Cecil Sharp felt that it should be regarded as a fragment of Lady Maisry.  I don't know what current thinking on the subject might be, but it's worth mentioning that all the elements of the song appear in a number of others, and are pretty much commonplaces of folk song; though there isn't really any great need to assign it to a "Child" group, Lady Maisry does seem the closer match if one must be made.

Lowlands of Holland:  Not itself a "Child" ballad, but arguably related to #92 (Bonnie Bee Hom); part of it is quoted in Child's notes to that song.

Subject: RE: Child and Waterson/Carthy
From: Garry Gillard
Date: 10 Oct 01 - 12:58 AM

I'm very grateful, Malcolm. I've made all those additions, and included your note on Mother, Go Make My Bed in the notes to that song: hope that's OK with you.

Thanks very much, Garry.

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https://mainlynorfolk.info/eliza.carthy/songs/mothergomakemybed.html

Subject: RE: Child and Waterson/Carthy
From: Wolfgang
Date: 11 Oct 01 - 12:36 PM

Garry,

the rate at which the information at your new page increases is breathtaking. May I add a tiny bit to that:

Long Lankin : Child #93 (Lamkin)
For the next two don't rely on my, wait for corroboration or refutation by others:
- Beggar Song (Beggar man) : Child #279 (Jolly Beggar); the closest I have found was a relation to the Gaberlunzie Man given in the Appendix to Child # 279
- Jack Rowland has some scattered verses related to the Twa Magicians

Raggle Taggle Gypsys can also be mentioned at Child#200 beside Seven yellow gypsys

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Child and Waterson/Carthy
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 11 Oct 01 - 05:02 PM

A-Begging I Will Go isn't related to any Child ballads; it seems first to have appeared as The Beggars Chorus, a stage-song in Richard Brome's The Jovial Crew; perhaps not in the original production (1641), but in a revival of it, c. 1684.  (Refs. Chappell, Popular Music of the Olden Time, 1859; Simpson, The British Broadside and Its Music, 1966).

Jack Rowland is another complicated case, as Carthy wrote much of it himself, based on a narrative published by Jamieson (Illustrations of Northern Antiquities, 1814), as Child Rowland and Burd Ellen, a traditional narrative with some parts in verse, imperfectly recalled from Jamieson's childhood.  Child quotes one verse in his Fragments section (vol. V, p.201).  Various retellings of the story, rarely with proper attribution, can be found on the web.  It would be necessary to see Jamieson's text in order to establish how much is him, and how much is Carthy; although various motifs are included that occur in, for example, The Twa Magicians, Sir Cawline and The Maid Freed from the Gallows, that doesn't in itself imply any actual connection.

I'm amazed that I overlooked Long Lankin!  That was the name of a band I played with back in the '70s...

Subject: RE: Child and Waterson/Carthy
From: Wolfgang
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 04:25 AM

Malcolm, thanks for the information about Jack Rowland.

As for the begging song(s), titles are elusive. I used the W/C titeling and was referring to The Beggar song (Beggar man) from the 'True hearted girl' LP and not to The begging song.

Wolfgang

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https://mainlynorfolk.info/watersons/songs/thebeggarman.html

https://mainlynorfolk.info/martin.carthy/songs/thebeggingsong.html

Subject: RE: Child and Waterson/Carthy
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 09:34 AM

Ah, I had the wrong beggar; sorry about that!  As Bruce Olson once pointed out in a discussion here (correcting me), not itself strictly a "Child" ballad but, as Wolfgang has said, appended to #279.  Very popular in Scotland; there are 27 examples in the Greig-Duncan collection, though they mostly have the shorter, one-line refrain.

Subject: RE: Child and Waterson/Carthy
From: Wolfgang
Date: 12 Oct 01 - 10:53 AM

I'll try next time to use links or at least first lines when titles can be misleading.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Child and Waterson/Carthy
From: Garry Gillard
Date: 16 Oct 01 - 12:37 AM

Thanks very much, Malcolm and Wolfgang. I've brought the page up to date, as it were.

Garry

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https://mainlynorfolk.info/watersons/child.html