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English Folk Songs
In Mudcat MIDIs:
Whistle Daughter, Whistle
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Subject: English Folk Songs From: Date: 26 Feb 99 - 08:27 PM I need the lyrics to some English Folksongs by R. Vaughn Williams' Folk Song Suite For Millitary Band. It is Composed of Seventeen Come Sunday, My Bonny Boy, and Folk Songs From Somerset. I was just wondering if anybody knew any of the words. Any help will be apprecia |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: jo77 Date: 26 Feb 99 - 08:29 PM Try EFDS (English Folk Dance Society) It is on the web too. Somerset to me = cider woooohooooo. Look in the database here as well.
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Bruce O. Date: 26 Feb 99 - 09:21 PM One can click on the English Folk Dance & Song Society (EFDSS) website from my hompage, but it's been down for a while. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Bruce O. Date: 27 Feb 99 - 02:04 PM For "Seventeen come Sunday" search DT for [Laws] O17, and also look in the Traditional Ballad Index on the web. No song "My Bonny Boy" is listed in Margaret Dean Smith's 'A Guide to English Folk Song Collections'. It's possibly "The bonny boy" a traditional song from a late 18th or early 19th century broadside, that was a recasting of the 17th century "Cupid's Trappan". 'Folk Songs from Somerset', is the title of the 1st two issues of Novello's 'Songs for Schools', and another book, all by Cecil Sharp. ["Bonny boy" might also be that called "Daily Growing" in DT. I got the earliest text of this, 1824, just yesterday.] |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: John Moulden Date: 27 Feb 99 - 04:15 PM "Seventeen come Sunday", "My Bonny Boy" and "Folk Songs from Somerset" are the names which were given to the three movements of "The English Folk Song Suite," a composition for military band by Ralph Vaughan Williams. It is often heard in an orchestral arrangement by Gordon Jacob. Each of the three movements uses the tunes of several songs - most of which, if not all, were collected in Somerset by Cecil Sharp - thus the most likely place to look for words proper to these tunes would be in his works - but beware his early 20th century tendency to censor the words for sexual content. In "Seventeen come Sunday" I hear the eponymous tune and a version (or possibly two versions) of Dives and Lazarus - better known as the Lowlands of Holland or The Star of the County Down. In "My Bonny Boy" is the tune of the song which starts "Now once I was courted by a bonny, bonny boy" and another called "The Cutty Wren" which is well known. Folksongs from Somerset has four tunes: Blow away the Morning Dew, High Germany, Whistle daughter whistle and John Barleycorn. I'm not prepared to post words unless search elsewhere fails to find them - and if you are in difficulty I'll provide further references first! John Moulden |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Bruce O. Date: 27 Feb 99 - 04:49 PM "I once loved a boy, a bonnie bonnie boy" is in Broadwood and Fuller Maitland's 'English County Songs, and JFSS 1, 274, 1904; JFSS 2, 82, 1905. It's the one descended, indirectly, from "Cupid's Trappan". A version of that, and most, or all, of the songs mentioned by John Moulden above will be found in DT. That doesn't necessarily mean they will fit the tunes as given by Vaughn Williams. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Pete M Date: 28 Feb 99 - 10:08 PM There are two versions of "Seventeen come Sunday" in the DT under the reference given by Bruce, but neither are the Somerset version.. There are also several versions of "The lowlands of Holland" . Bruce has identified a source for "My Bonny Boy" above. The CUTTY WREN is in the DT here ; BLOW AWAY THE MORNING DEW, (child 112) is in the DT here; HIGH GERMANY here and JOHN BARLEYCORN. here. I'm still looking for "Whistle daughter whistle" Pete M |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Bruce O. Date: 28 Feb 99 - 10:59 PM I thought everyone would know "Whistle, Daughter Whistle". I am not home at the moment, so can't look up a copy. It's a descendent of "The Maulster's Daughter of Marlborough" listed in the broadside ballad index on my website. By my recollection Emily Lyle gave a later broadside copy at the end of 'Andrew Crawfurd's Collection of Ballads', I, as well as the Scots traditional text Crawfurd collected, given earlier in that work. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Bruce O. Date: 01 Mar 99 - 11:48 AM Two of the many places that "Whistle, daughter, whistle" may be found are Sharp-Karpeles' 'English Folksongs of the Southern Appalachians', II, p. 169, and Vance Randolph's 'Ozark Folksongs', I, p. 411. I take back what I said about the song being derived from, 'The Maulster's Daughter of Marlborough', it's still possible, but there are enough differences to make it questionable.
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Pete M Date: 01 Mar 99 - 03:07 PM Hi Bruce, I didn't mean I didn't know "Whistle daughter whistle", just that I hadn't found a source to point our friend towards. Pete M |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Penny Date: 11 Mar 99 - 05:19 PM Has anyone found a source for the words of "Whistle daughter, whistle"? The tune has been on my mind since reading this, but as I originally picked it up at a college folk club by ear, and it hasn't been renewed since, most of the words have gone. I can whistle it...... And is there any truth in the claim that the song "The Cutty Wren" was associated with the Peasants' Revolt of 1381? I've been in one of the centres of this for ages, and all I've heard of is "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?" My book of British History in Song suggests the connection. There is such a tradition of the wren hunt being associated with the western part of Britain that Kent and Essex seem less likely to use a song like that. Except that Kent has some odd Celtic hangovers in place-names and in the Hooden Horse of the morris dancers. And, if Pete M is out there, I've remembered where Lorne Road is. Given the time when you left Dover, and the area, where I knew a few people, if I never met you, I imagine we had at least acquaintances in common. Small world, isn't it. Dover's not the same....I don't go back much. Penny |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Bruce O. Date: 11 Mar 99 - 05:31 PM Two sources of "Whistle daughter, whistle" are given in the 2nd note above the last. That 'When Adam delved.." came from a minister among Wat Tyler's rebels (whose name I have somewhere, but am too lazy to look up), but I haven't seen any connection to "Cutty Wren" |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Penny Date: 11 Mar 99 - 06:22 PM Thanks - actually, I need a source accessible out of working hours, as our libraries now are only open when I am in school, which is until very late. I'm in that state called work rich, time poor, not to mention energy depleted and other negative states. The preacher was John Ball, a Lollard, who was imprisoned in Maidstone gaol until released by the Kentish part of the rebellion. Wat Tyler was with the Essex bunch, although there has been some argument about that, as everyone wanted to claim him, and the Thames isn't that wide. There's a nasty story in Dartford which tells how Tyler's daughter was examined by a poll-tax inspector to establish if she was adult, and was punched by Tyler, killing him. The business was much too well organised for that to have been the start of the rebellion, and it was only Tyler's doing if it was someone else with the same name. Not impossible with the way peasants did things later, like the French Jacques, and Captain Swing, Rebecca etc. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Pete M Date: 11 Mar 99 - 06:52 PM Hi Penny, yes it does seem likely, the trips by the Girls up to the Boys Grammar you mentioned were just starting when I left. I was interested in your references to "celtic" place names etc, and would appreciate any extra info. A Yorkshire lass who married a friend of mine was surprised how at home she felt in Dover. I suppose a lot of it was to do with the same dependency on coal, the sea and the land for your living, I think the pits are all closed now, the fish gone, and probably the land factory farmed for "efficiency". I'm sure that a lot of people in England, let alone the rest of the world think of Kent as a suburb of London. When I was at school the sense of Saxon identity was still strong, and I remember one history master saying that Harold's Corps d'elite were all Men of Kent (that means born South of the Medway for you furriners) and that we would have won at Hastings if the "Sussex peasants" hadn't broken ranks. Small world isn't it? Pete M |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Bruce O. Date: 11 Mar 99 - 07:06 PM In the play 'The Life and Death of Iack Straw', 1594, the parson (John Ball), in the company of Wat Tyler, Nobs and Tom Miller, speaks thusly: Neighbours, neighbours! the weakest now-a-days goes to the wall; [Ball contines for nearly a whole page of text, preaching a variety of communism.]
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Bruce O. Date: 11 Mar 99 - 07:15 PM I should have ntoed that old plays are not much better than old ballads as sources of real history. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Penny Date: 12 Mar 99 - 02:17 AM Pete M Sussex born and bred, I am, and my Dad holds that Kent should not be so proud of the name Invicta, since they were not conquered, but surrendered. Which seems to be true, as there's a memorial not far from me at Swanscombe actually celebrating that Kent negotiated a deal with William before he'd completed his terror march around London and the Witan surrendered at Berkhampstead. Still that is all water under the Medway bridge, and I won't hold grudges. Harold's elite hung out at Wallingford, which William razed on his perambulation. I would be interested in other evidence of Harold's top men being Kentish. I've read quite a bit about the period, and not met the idea elsewhere. It could be supported by evidence from Domesday on land holdings- they'd have forfeited theirs. As for peasants breaking ranks - what else do you expect? But current works on the battle emphasise what close run thing it was, which suggests that it couldn't have been quite so unskilled as all that. I won't get involved further. I have an abiding memory of an academic row about the size of the Danish army in Alfred's time which was as heated as if they were at the door. As to Celtic placenames. the river at Dover, for starters, the Dour, is dwr, water, and Dover itself is a direct transliteration of Dubris 'at the waters' to 'Dofras' with the same case ending, in English, then to Dover. Reculver has hardly changed. Rochester can be traced from Durobrivae to D'bri, to Hrofi's cester to Rochester. Apparently. By common linguistic development. The river Darent is cognate with Derwent, another common Celtic river name, and Dartford is the ford on the Darent. That's all I can do off the top of my head, but there is also evidence from archaeology that the incoming English simply took over existing estates in Kent lock stock and villein, relatively peacefully. If you want more, I'll have a look. Your friend's Yorkshire lass wife wouldn't be called Tricia, would she? Bruce O, I went to my history books last night - I haven't much, but one on Wycliffe was so scathing about Ball "a half mad hedge-priest" and seemed to feel the rebellion was such a Bad Thing that I feel he should have been writing letters to the Telegraph about it. It always seems strange to me that academics can get so heated about long dead people. I've even seen it over the character of Odysseus. He was very anxious to prove that Wycliffe's followers had nothing to do with fomenting rebellion. I must get a better source. I don't think I can continue to give this one house room. I should be able to manage the Jack Straw one in our library's local history section. Funny thing, in the 60's when my sister was at the LSE, we thought the current Jack Straw a worthy inheritor of the name. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Penny Date: 12 Mar 99 - 11:05 AM Don't know how that happened. Penge is pen coed, the head of the wood, ie the Great North Wood in the north of Surrey, now Sarf Lund'n. There's still a little bit of it left, but it is currently being decapitated as Bromley cuts the trees on the top of the Crystal Palace ridge preparatory to building a glass fronted multiplex. One of my place-name books points out that Celtic names are sparce in the east, but adds that while Sussex has none, others such as Essex have a few, Kent has several. The only example is Dover, as above. Still looking. There is Kent itself, recorded in that Greek explorer who circumnavigated these parts. I'm surprised that the river Adur in Sussex is not supposed to be a Celtic name. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Bruce O. Date: 12 Mar 99 - 12:10 PM Penny, don't waste any time on the old play, that's not history. Should you like to look at it, it's in W. C. Hazlitt's 'Old English Plays', V, 1874. This is actually the 4th edition of Dodsley's 'Old Plays', and 'Jack Straw' may be in earlier editions also. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Penny Date: 12 Mar 99 - 02:17 PM It may not be history, but it could be fun! And an example of the way people thought. There's a modern work on the rebellion which makes it all part of a (the) Templar plot, with Wat Tyler a prototype Freemason (as if they were the only people who used the word Tyler). Fortunately the writer did not know about the Templar site near one of the stopping point of the Kentish group. The point of this work seemed to be that peasants were incapable of organising anything unless a member, or members of the aristocracy did it for them. Which is pretty well not history, but an exmple of a certain sort of thought current at the end of the 20th century. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Bruce O. Date: 12 Mar 99 - 03:07 PM There are also many books based on the premise that Shakespeare couldn't have been the author of the plays atributed to him, because only noblemen could write that well. The number of theories about Templars seems to be fast approaching the number who were Templars. The latest I have makes them reemerge in Scotland as the Masons. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Penny Date: 12 Mar 99 - 04:14 PM Bruce O The one I mentioned was part of the Scottish Templar argument - I find reading that sort of thing a form of relaxation. Pete M, some more names More Kentish Celtic. Coed also appears in Chatham and Chattenden, on the Medway (second element cognate with Welsh gwy, winding), also a Celtic name, as is the Cray, for some time the boundary between Britons and Jutes. Lympne and Lyminge, (though the ge suffix is English) carry the name of the Limen, the old name of the Rother, meaning elm. Thanet may have derived from a word cognate with Welsh tan, fire. Richborough was formed from a contraction of Rutupiae through Repta to Ratteburg and thence Richborough (possibly changing to avoid a rodent connection). Blean is apparently British. There are some minor placenames such as Wycombe, which may incorporate cwm. There are also Roman survivals in names with wick (from vicus), and various combes, and comps (from camp). Faversham may be from faber, and there is an argument for a Roman workshop surviving there into English times. Eccles is argued about. It either was, or was not, an early Christian ecclesia. One book points out that there is a swathe of Romano-British names round the coast fom Pevensey to London, and that there has to be a common cause for these survivals, such as their being known to settlers before their arrival. There's archaeological evidence for the continuity of pre-Roman estate boundaries down to parishes in the present, for example at Lullingstone, where the villa was succeeded by an English settlement, which also argues for some sort of continuity of society of some sort. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Lonesome EJ Date: 12 Mar 99 - 04:25 PM Rutherford, author of Sarum and London made an tnteresting argument for the current layout of the city of London having been determined by various monumental Roman structures. The streets circumvented these structures for hundreds of years after the Romans left,even as they tumbled into ruin and gradually disappeared. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Bert Date: 12 Mar 99 - 04:41 PM Penny, I love your discussion of English place names WHen I was in England I lived in the village of Paddock Wood in Kent. My boss lived in Brenchley in Wat Tyler's Cottage. Just North, across the Medway is a road called Seven Mile Lane. Obviously been used since Roman times. It is dead straight and just over 5 miles long so it corresponds roughly to the shorter Roman mile. Bert. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Pete M Date: 12 Mar 99 - 07:32 PM Hi Penny, thnks for all that, that was quick work in a short time. I'll read it more thoroughly at leisure and get back to you. As to 1066 and all that, I'm not taking sides, just reporting what we were told. Although its a lot earlier than my main period of interest and on land not sea, I would agree that the evidence I have seen suggests a very close battle. I would also think that, in common with any battle, there is not going to be any accurate unbiased account. As you note, current day historians have as much of an axe to grind as the contemporary reporters. It seems to me that Harolds main problem was that he was King as well as CinC, and in this case the best military strategy was overridden by political necessity, not for the first or last time. Re wives, no, she was called Margaret. thanks again Pete M |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Lonesome EJ Date: 13 Mar 99 - 01:55 AM Another contributing factor must have been exhaustion in the ranks of the Saxons, as they had ,prior to Hastings , first marched north to York to battle the Danes . They then had to march south to London, and then to Hastings to encounter William. Harold's insistance on being in the vanguard of the counterattack, though admirable, was an obvious tactical error. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Penny Date: 13 Mar 99 - 04:06 AM Pete M, I'm quite relieved about the Yorkshire wife. I was beginning to think that the small world might be TOO small for comfort. Bert, I'll own up to being in the Dartford area, where we have a Wat Tyler pub, and the site of a rebellion bivouac a mile away from a Templar site. The other source (not the one that believes that peasants had no right, let alone duty, to oppose unjust rule) I have on the subject says that Wat crossed from Essex to lead the Kent band in their attack on London. I've got to rush off to teach astronomy to a Children's University, and am aiming for the library after. They have a pamphlet on Tyler, at least. I definitely remember that at the onset of the rebellion he seems to have been north, perhaps as far as Colchester. Synchronicity again. BBC Radio 4 has just had a comment on rugby songs, their place in tradition, and how difficult it is to challenge the image of women they convey when the women players have more bawdy songs than the men and can outsing them. Is that a Mudcat subject or not?! |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: The Shambles Date: 13 Mar 99 - 11:11 AM Penny On the subject of place names in Kent. Have you any ideas as to the area where nearly all the towns end in 'den', as in Tenterden etc? |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Penny Date: 13 Mar 99 - 11:52 AM Shambles - used to live there, in Rolvenden, near Tenterden. It's the south west part, in the east of the Weald, which used to be heavily wooded, abutting on to Sussex, north of Romney Marsh. They were the woodland pastures for pigs. Tenterden belonged to the men of Thanet. The early inhabitants (very vague early, don't know whether this was Jutish or Celtic organisation) used to share out the resources of the county so that every unit had access to the coast for fish and salt, the Downs for wood, and grain growing areas, and so on, so the old boundaries cross the geological ones. Other dens may derive prefixes from personal or tribal names, or natural features. Pete M - should have put NOI on the remarks about the people of Kent. Some of us teachers have a) appallingly heavy humour, and b) a tendency to put forward the bees in our bonnets as fact. Besides which, a part of me is Kentish, but from near London. Bert - I know Seven-Mile lane, and used to drive along it regularly between Rolvenden and Dartford, but I never noticed it was only five. There's a similar survival at Wye, where a straight stretch is called Milecamp, and it is a Roman mile long. More on Tyler. I was wrong about him being in Essex at the start of the rebellion. He came from Colchester, as did Ball, and was in Maidstone when the NW Kent band arrived, as was Ball (in gaol). The Dartford Tyler was another man of the same name, first name John, though, but the confusion was spread by Tom Paine as well as others. Wat was almost certainly in the building trade, as one source uses a medieval word for roofer as his surname, and would have been part of the newly formed Tilers' Gild. One of the books I used included a good many old sources, including a treatment on subsequent uses of the story, and had a passage from the Jack Straw play, as well as some of the songs associated, mostly later, with the rebellion. None of which was, or had been at any time, in the metre of the Cutty Wren, or bore any other resemblance to it. I suspect my song book of economy with its researches. I know it was used in Wesker's "Chips with Everything" as a song of revolution, but I am not sure where the idea came from befoe that. So I think I may have answered my own question there. Unless someone else knows better. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Penny Date: 13 Mar 99 - 11:53 AM Shambles - used to live there, in Rolvenden, near Tenterden. It's the south west part, in the east of the Weald, which used to be heavily wooded, abutting on to Sussex, north of Romney Marsh. They were the woodland pastures for pigs. Tenterden belonged to the men of Thanet. The early inhabitants (very vague early, don't know whether this was Jutish or Celtic organisation) used to share out the resources of the county so that every unit had access to the coast for fish and salt, the Downs for wood, and grain growing areas, and so on, so the old boundaries cross the geological ones. Other dens may derive prefixes from personal or tribal names, or natural features. Pete M - should have put NOI on the remarks about the people of Kent. Some of us teachers have a) appallingly heavy humour, and b) a tendency to put forward the bees in our bonnets as fact. Besides which, a part of me is Kentish, but from near London. Bert - I know Seven-Mile lane, and used to drive along it regularly between Rolvenden and Dartford, but I never noticed it was only five. There's a similar survival at Wye, where a straight stretch is called Milecamp, and it is a Roman mile long. More on Tyler. I was wrong about him being in Essex at the start of the rebellion. He came from Colchester, as did Ball, and was in Maidstone when the NW Kent band arrived, as was Ball (in gaol). The Dartford Tyler was another man of the same name, first name John, though, but the confusion was spread by Tom Paine as well as others. Wat was almost certainly in the building trade, as one source uses a medieval word for roofer as his surname, and would have been part of the newly formed Tilers' Gild. One of the books I used included a good many old sources, including a treatment on subsequent uses of the story, and had a passage from the Jack Straw play, as well as some of the songs associated, mostly later, with the rebellion. None of which was, or had been at any time, in the metre of the Cutty Wren, or bore any other resemblance to it. I suspect my song book of economy with its researches. I know it was used in Wesker's "Chips with Everything" as a song of revolution, but I am not sure where the idea came from befoe that. So I think I may have answered my own question there. Unless someone else knows better. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Penny Date: 13 Mar 99 - 11:55 AM Done it again - sorry. My computer reported it couldn't do it, but it did, so when I asked it to do it again, I repeated myself. Still with an error message. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: j0_77 Date: 13 Mar 99 - 01:02 PM Hi Penny - Sussex (Grins ...like a cat LOL) I noticed a number of names in the Home Counties with the sound 'cran' I often wondered if there is a history to this or what does it mean? I am here thinking of Cranleigh (Surrey) Cranbourne(Dorset) and some others I can't think of right now. Re: Celts in England There is a thingie (can't now remember it's carrect name) on a hill side in Oxfordshire. It's like a horse, the grass does not grow on the hillside where the image lies so if viewed from a distance you see an enormous 'horse' picture. Is it the case that Aurthur was a Celt? I once, after reading a couple of books on this period, went to Winchester in search of Aurthurian things and was delighted to find many things familiar. The Stone 'o Scone. It was predicted by ancient lore that if the stone was 'rolled over' one more time the world would end. Since it has now been moved back to Scotland do you think that the world will end. Also read somewheres that this stone was given to a celtic like tribe in Israel and it was also originaly a bit of a bigger rock that God had done something to (can't now recall what). Any case the account claimed the Stone was brought to the British Isles by the Scotti (These are NOT the same people as the modern Scottish but are the folk who predate the Celtic Invasions of Ireland, Man etc) The Stone, it went on, remainded in Ireland for a long time before ending up in Scotland. The Tuatha de Dannan King Aiden, it claimed, brought the stone to Scotland. In recent history the Stone was brought from Scotland to England. In this Century the Stone was returned to Edinburgh. Also wish to draw 'your' attention to the interest taken by several 'secret' organisations world wide - in this piece of rock and any writings about it. jo77 |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Penny Date: 13 Mar 99 - 02:17 PM Hey, I'm not an expert, you know, but I do have books. Cran is usually a crane, as in long-legged feathery thing that stands around by water. We don't have cranes now, but may have had in the past, or they may have meant herons. The Uffington White Horse is the one you mean, I think (the grass doesn't grow because it is regularly "scoured", as are the other hill figures. "(Have you been to Cerne Abbas in Dorset ever? That one is sure to interest some of the contributors here!) There is no known date for most of them, but some work was done on Uffington a couple of years back, and it is much older than Celtic. Arthur was either a Celt, or Romano-Celtic, which may mean the same thing except for the cultural accretions. I know that the Stone of Scone was reputed to be the one which Jacob used as a pillow when he was running from Esau, but, I have to put my geologist's hard-hat on here, it's been identified as a red sandstone of a type found in Scotland. There is such rock quite close to Scone. Then again, I think the identification may have been done after the operation to retrieve it earlier this century, and there has been a suggestion that the one returned recently was a fake, substituted at that time. My personal feeling is that the importance of that stone is not its high and far off past, but that invested in it in the last few hundred years by the Scots, who have quite rightly been given it back. My heart would rather that it had stayed back when seized, rather than been granted. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: j0_77 Date: 13 Mar 99 - 02:26 PM Thank you Miss Penny - I do aggree that things were better left as is. PS I have the odd honour (fellows included) of being alma mater Sussex (Very honoured may I say) Hugzzzz |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: The Shambles Date: 13 Mar 99 - 03:01 PM Penny You mentioned the Cerne Abbas Giant, and you are quite right there a few here who would be interested. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: The Shambles Date: 13 Mar 99 - 03:04 PM Penny You mentioned the Cerne Abbas Giant, and you are quite right there a few here who would be interested. Big Mick? |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Penny Date: 13 Mar 99 - 06:01 PM Stone of Scone, apparently there's some suggestion in the geological field that, shock, horror, that old bit of red sandstone is not only not from the Middle East, nor from Ireland, but is actually a bit of (whisper this north of Hadrian's Wall) English. But then again, if it was quarried a reasonable time ago, it wouldn't have been, would it? |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Sandy Paton Date: 13 Mar 99 - 06:48 PM That's Big Mick with an "M" - not a "D", folks. But maybe Bruce, with his plough, and Catspaw with his... well, you know what I mean... Sandy |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: j0_77 Date: 13 Mar 99 - 07:13 PM Now Miss Penny surely you don't set much value on establishment evaluations of these things. If as you suggest the stone was replaced by a fake then surely we will never know. Perhaps the people on Art Bell's Web Site may know more about it, I will ask there. If the lore is true then, I *hope* the original rock is safe and well and hidden - perhaps in some very obvious location. I often wondered - Windsor perhaps?? Winchester ?? |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Musicman Date: 13 Mar 99 - 09:43 PM Hello Penny, Seems to me that you have a good knowledge about all this history stuff. My ancestors come from Kent, my last name is Evenden, any thoughts on the origin? Musicman |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Penny Date: 14 Mar 99 - 03:00 AM A lot of the dens have remained just as farm names, so Evenden is probably on the map at that sort of level. It isn't in the place-name books I have, and the English Place Name Society has been working on the Kent book for half a century or so without publishing. However, other places which begin Even are either from a personal name such as Eafa, or what it sounds like, even, a level area. The academics insist you can't sort this out without early examples of the name. Off hand, Tenterden, Benenden, Rolvenden, Biddenden, Bethersden are all even areas, so it would be odd to single one out as being so. Like calling somewhere on the marshes Flatham. And I heard the rock stuff down the grapevine, not from authority. |
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Subject: Lyr Add: WHISTLE, DAUGHTER, WHISTLE^^^ From: alison Date: 14 Mar 99 - 05:50 AM Hi, Here you go WHISTLE, DAUGHTER, WHISTLE
"Mother, I long to get married, I long to be a bride;
"Whistle, daughter, whistle, and you shall have a cow."
"Whistle, daughter, whistle, and you shall have a man."
"You nasty, impudent jade, I will pull your courage down;
"Mother, don't be so cruel to send me to the field,
Slainte alison |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: AlistairUK Date: 20 Mar 99 - 09:44 AM just found this fascinating thread and had something to add. I was actually born in Harpenden, now I know what the -den stands for what does the Harpen- mean? Also, i was raised in luton and some years ago came across the history of the town and was interested to see that not only was it a highly disputed parish between the Archbishop of St. Albans and vaux Hall but much earlier had been a frontier town between the saxon south and the danelaw to the north. Although the town isn't up to much nowadays, Historically it was a pretty important place...apart from the fact that that the river Lea (at leagrave wheer it springs from) is one of the more important tributaries for the Thames. The area has never had its own folk tradition, or has never kept it up. But a folk band from the town took it upon themselves to write a cycle of songs about the town in a trad vein. Which ended up as a record called 'Strawplait and Old Lace' unfortunately I have completely forgotten the name of the group which is really bad because Graeme the singer and Guitarist was a colleage on the commitee for Luton Folk Club for a number of years. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Ian Date: 20 Mar 99 - 03:14 PM Alistair Think you'll find that Harpenden was on the border between the Danelagh and the Western Anglians (Mercia). The Saxon tribes didn't come so far North. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Penny Date: 23 Mar 99 - 04:19 PM You might like this one: Harpenden was thought to be "harpers' town", but it seems that was folk etymology ie. wrong. The "den" isn't "denn" pig pasture, but "den" valley, as in names with dene or dean. The first part seems to be herepaeth (that should be a diphthong ae, but I can't access the correct character) which means army way. This is topographical, as Watling Street, the boundary between the Danelagh and that part of England under Wessex rule, runs along a valley (slight, it says), and Roman roads would have been used for military purposes. (The Danelagh boundary also seems to be the boundary between the area with many old churchyard yews, and that where there are very few, in a few defined places. I don't know what this means. Did the Danes set about chopping down all those they found, or did the English confine them to a certain soil type, which did not favour yews? Or nothing.) |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Bert Date: 24 Mar 99 - 11:00 AM I recall reading a book on The Peasant's Revolt. It was titled 'An English Heritage' and published by 'The Left Book Club'. I don't remember the author. It tells the story from the Peasants' point of view. I couldn't find any reference to it with a web search but if you can dig up a copy it's well worth reading. Bert. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Penny Date: 24 Mar 99 - 04:25 PM That sounds worth the search, just when I'd learned to walk past secondhand bookshops. Mum used to read Left Book Club books, before my time though. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Bert Date: 24 Mar 99 - 05:15 PM it's a heartbreaking story though. |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: The Shambles Date: 24 Mar 99 - 05:21 PM Hey Bert! How about a sog about revolting peasants? *smiles* Was this the one that was started by the implementation of a Poll Tax? |
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Subject: RE: English Folk Songs From: Penny Date: 24 Mar 99 - 05:39 PM Sure was |
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