English Folk Songs

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: The Shambles
Date: 24 Mar 99 - 06:51 PM

Well what's wrong with a tax where everyone pays the same amount?????????????? A Penny?

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: Penny
Date: 25 Mar 99 - 01:19 PM

Well done The Shambles! I actually have never heard that one before!

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: The Shambles
Date: 25 Mar 99 - 06:50 PM

Sorry Penny the joke was just an after thought, I should have thought a bit more. It was the question that I wanted an answer to, as Margaret Thatcher didn't appear to know the answer or much history.

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: Penny
Date: 26 Mar 99 - 07:22 AM

Or much else, apart from pleasing the wrong sort of people.

I don't mind new coinage, honest! Quite enjoy it, really. No heavy sarcasm intended at all. Keep minting.

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: AlistairUK
Date: 26 Mar 99 - 01:56 PM

Thanks for correcting my confusion. The dene connection sounds abot right as there are two valleys there. One in which the smalll village of Batford is situated and as you go up the hill from batford you crest and go over into Harpenden. It's interesting that the harpen- part means army way, though watling street (the A1 as is) does actually go through Harpenden but is a few miles west of it. Another thing, on the edge of one of the roughest council estates in Luton there is an old Iron age fort, for some reason it has survived all that the local trailbikers could throw at it (at least that was until 6 years ago when I left the UK). The estate is called Marsh Farm and the sources of the river Lea are quite close to where, the earthworks are. The area adjacent is called Leagrave.

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: Penny
Date: 27 Mar 99 - 03:46 AM

I didn't know that that was where the Lea rose. That makes it the place where the Danelagh boundary left Watling Street to go east along the river, doesn't it?

And a separate aside: I was looking up legends about the Milky Way for a Children's University astronomy class, and it gave a Saxon name for it as Watling Street. I don't know the source for this, and its derivation from a mythological king, but it's an interesting and romantic thought for those of us living alongside it.

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: The Shambles
Date: 27 Mar 99 - 01:36 PM

On the subject of Margaret Thatcher, thre was a headline in the papers this morning about her visit to General Pinochet.

RIGHT-WING DICTATOR MEETS GENERAL PINOCHET

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: AlistairUK
Date: 29 Mar 99 - 08:21 AM

Penny:

It is hence the name Leagrave. Actually there's quites a substantial river in Leagrave itself, but if you go upstream a couple of miles it's small streams and marshes (hence the name Marsh Farm of the council estate) and springs that have been built over in the last 50 years or so. The area is absolutely riddled with marshes and streams. Unfortunately (according to my sources back home) the place is now even more urbanised that when I left it 6 years ago. At one side of the town is a bluff that leads to farmland that is a pretty good example of stepped agriculture, the steps that the (bronze age?) farmers cultivated are really visible eevn today. Unfortunately I can't for the life of me remember the name of the locale. The villages around about have some really interesting names, like Stretely and Offely which are on the way out of Luton to the east going towards hitchin. the place where I went to high school was called Challney, which derives from "Chal Nez"the name that the local french gave to the name centuries ago because of the big knob of chalk that the are is.

So there you go, a faulty history of my home town that has probably bored the pants off of everyone.

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: Penny
Date: 29 Mar 99 - 11:57 AM

Funny the way people will keep building on springs, isn't it? Despite the locals who draw their attention to the problems. There was a school built in Folkestone on one, and they kept on having to re-lay the concrete floor. I don't know what happened in the end, but it is a very folk-story sort of situation, like all those churches the Devil used to make fall down in the night. And the piers for the Round Hill Tunnel above Holy Well, well, I always go by the old road between Folkestone and Dover. Nearly wrote Filkestone. That would make it science fiction, wouldn't it. The locals in this case were spoken to nicely by the engineers in suits when the politicians were there, but treated like ignorant peasants in their absence. This of course was all MT's doing (see above). She absolutely had to ruin that site.

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: GUEST,Harry
Date: 11 Dec 04 - 09:05 PM

Does anyone know whether RVW was a member of a Masonic Lodge? Was he a Mason?

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: John C.
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 10:49 AM

To all you place names experts out there - anyone know where the prefix 'Il' comes from - as in Ilminster, Ilchester, Ilkley, Ilford etc.?

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: Ed.
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 01:23 PM

Interesting question, John C, though I don't quite understand why you chose to ask it in this thread...

Anyway, a quick search would suggest that there's no simple answer to your question.

For example, according to this site Ilkeston was probably founded in the 6th century AD and gets its name from it supposed founder, Elch or Elcha who was an Anglian chieftan ("Elka's Tun" = Elka's Town).

Ilminster and Ilchester appear to have been named due to their proximity to the River Ile

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: John C.
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 04:17 PM

Thanks, Ed.
I asked the question in this thread because earlier in it there was a discussion of celtic place names and such like - which led to a discussion of suffixes such as '-den' - so, as the 'Il'thing has been bugging me lately I just thought I'd chuck it in and see what would happen (opportunism, I suppose you'd call it).

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: GUEST,Lindsey
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 12:12 PM

Going back to the sings from Somerset (where i happen to live at the moment), Folk South West (based in Montecute, Somerset), teamed up with the River Parrett Trail Partnership, to create a lovely Tape of music it contains the following-
   God speed the plough, 1907 (these are dates collected)
   From riches to poverty, 1904
   Low lowlands of Holland, 1905
   Tarpaulin jacket, 1905
   Female cabin boy,1905
   The Rover,1905
   Whistle, daughter, whistle, 1906
   Draggletail gypsies, 1904
   Bridgwater fair, 1906 (bridgwater is spelt correctly)
   Pride of Kildare, 1905
   Come all jolly fellows, that follow the plough,
   King George,1904
   Once I courted, 1904
   I wish I never had known, 1904
   Ratcliffe Highway, 1906
   Farewell he, 1904
   New Year song, 1909
   The deserter, 1906
   I kept a pack of hounds, 1908
   Song of the River Parrett
These are mainly songs from when cecil sharp visited the area in and after 1903. And the songs were recreated using his original manuscripts using local people (with accents!).
   It has a lovely version of whistle, daughter, whistle, and so i copied off it off the tape on listen on CD in my car(not fun). Hope this helps.
   Anyone know of any yorkshire/northumberland equivalents?
Thanks

Oh and big thanks to Alison, for saving me typing out the words again, after i lost my first lot due to a computer crash!

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 11 Sep 05 - 12:31 PM

Well, if you want Cumberland music there's a wonderful CD of recordings made in the early 50s. The name eludes me right now.

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Dec 05 - 12:22 AM

good

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: Fidjit
Date: 06 Dec 05 - 03:44 PM

Elleanor Shanley does a very good version of, Whistle Daughter Whistle with Delores Keane on her CD "Elleanor Shanley & Friends"

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: GUEST,David Moncoeur
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 08:23 PM

This response is being typed in Edinburgh by someone who has lived in Edinburgh all his life, though events have caused me to visit Biddenden a few times for investigative reasons and am looking at these posts for the same reason.....it wouldn't be that one of your questions can be answered because of this
The suffix 'den' came across to me as relating to the archaeological discovery of tombs with mummies, enbalmed & wrapped etcetera, cultural difference being that the tombs separated male & female, one side for males on bunk-like structures, the other side for females in exactly the same structure
cannot recall right now how many thousands of years old they were,
wasn't it thought strange that something similar to the Egyptian phenomenon had been practiced? Am struggling to recall whether they were just one thousand years old, though.....these may have been called 'dens', thus the den suffix arises from the peculiar nature of the burial practice.
All the best from

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From:
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 08:36 PM

That message above missed out my effort to type in my email address, it won't take 'is greater than' signs
Groups like Steel Eye Span made me very interested in English folk songs
Yours truly,
Dave

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: GUEST,DB
Date: 09 Jan 06 - 04:48 AM

I have always believed that the suffix '-den' has something to do with pigstys!

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: Paul Burke
Date: 09 Jan 06 - 06:15 AM

I don't think any mummies have been found anywhere at all in British archaeology, though I'd be more than pleased to be proved wrong. The -den suffix generally means a valley, except IIRC in Kent, where it refers to a woodland pig pasture. I'm not sure that either vallys, mummies or pigs have very much to do with English folksong.

Any songs about a mummy?

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: Paul Burke
Date: 09 Jan 06 - 07:31 AM

Apart from Cladh Hallan, that is...

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: Alien Dave
Date: 09 Jan 06 - 08:41 PM

Amazing! It may have been the somethingArms pub where they've got lots of information about ancient Biddenden, and I'm sure it's down there that they state the name 'den' comes from the unusual burial practice

A song about that would be even better, can't recall Maddy Prior or Linda Thompson singing one.....

Subject: ADD Version: The White Cockade
From: GUEST,Gentle Gaint
Date: 18 Aug 10 - 08:51 AM

Does anyone know the origin of a folk song called "The White Cockade".
It's one of my favorites.

THE WHITE COCKADE
One day as I was walking all o'er yon fields of moss,
I had no thoughts of enlisting till some soldiers did me cross,
They kindly did invite me to a flowing ball and down,
They advanced, they advanced me some money,
A shilling from the crown.

My true love he is handsome and he wears a white cockade,
He is a handsome young man, likewise a roving blade,
He is a handsome young man, he's gone to serve the King,
Oh my very, oh my very,
Heart is aching all the love of him.

My true love he is handsome and comely for to see,
And by a sad misfortune a soldier now is he,
I wish the man that's listed him might prosper night nor day,
And I wish that, I wish that,
The hollanders might sink him in the sea.

Then he took out his hankerchief to wipe my flowing eye,
Leave off your lamentations likewise your mournful sighs,
Leave off your grief and sorrow until I march o'er yon plain,
We'll be married, we'll be married,
In the springtime when I return again.

My true love he is listed and it's all for him I'll rove,
I'll write his name on every tree that grows in yonder grove,
My poor heart it does hallow, how my poor heart it does cry,
To remind me, to remind me,
Of my ploughboy, until the day I die.

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: theleveller
Date: 18 Aug 10 - 09:45 AM

Most probably from the Napoleonic Wars. Many, many versions of this around - Show of Hands do a good 'un.

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: GUEST,Fezzik
Date: 06 Jul 11 - 08:39 AM

Hi GentleGiant, re the song "The White Cockade": the lyrics you have posted are of an English song, possibly dating to the mid 1700s. There's a Scottish song of this name by Robert Burns, which became popular in America and generates far more Googurls when you go searching online. Regarding the English song, check out

http://www.yorkshirefolksong.net/song_database/Parting/The_White_Cockade.16.aspx

"Unlike many broadside ballads of the period it doesn't appear to have been carried abroad from the British Isles, and in fact only survived in oral tradition in Yorkshire, Durham and the south coast counties."

Subject: RE: English Folk Songs
From: Willa
Date: 07 Jul 11 - 07:07 AM

here's the link

http://www.yorkshirefolksong.net/song_database/Parting/The_White_Cockade.16.aspx