Music for Bragandary

Subject: Music for Bragandary
From: Annie Harper.
Date: 16 Mar 99 - 04:41 AM

I was wondering if anyone has ever come across any music for an old broadside ballad called Bragandary. Claude Simpson believes the tune has been lost, but I thought that as many broadside tunes traveled from England to America someone my have come across a varient. The tune was usually conected with the themes of murder and the supernatural and was also refered to as Bragandary down. Any help would be much appriciated.

Subject: RE: Music for Bragandary
From: Bruce O.
Date: 16 Mar 99 - 11:14 AM

I have one good possibility, one used in the U.S. in 1745 for a song sung to "Folly, Desperate Folly", one of the later titles of "Bragandary". It is from the U.S. See on my website under ABC's for broadside ballad tunes, next after the broadside ballad index, then 'BBBM, Additions' for the bibliography, and file BM5 for the tune. www.erols.com/olsonw

Subject: RE: Music for Bragandary
From: Bruce O.
Date: 16 Mar 99 - 02:56 PM

As you will see from my notes, there are severraal other names for the tune.

Observe that the structure of the tune is rather like that of the McPeake's "Mongahan Fair", probably the "Derry Fair", c 1597, just a little after "Bragandary" appeared. The meter is a bit different, so they probably weren't the same tune in the late 16th century.
The structure is (1)introduction, (2) body, and (3) conclusion. The "Bragandary" meter of the (3)conclusion is pretty distinctive, and I've found it elsewhere on only 1 song, earlier. Anyhow, the (2) body part is a series of repeats which can be extended for as many lines as needed, and that's apparently why songs to "Bradandary" (under it's vaious titles) have variable numbers of lines.

Subject: RE: Music for Bragandary
From: Bruce O.
Date: 16 Mar 99 - 03:20 PM

Note further that the 'dary' of "Bragandary" and 'Derry' in "Derry's Fair" are both from the Gaelic 'dair[e]' for 'oak'. (Derry/ Londonderry having been named for the trees there). For 'Brag an' there are just too many possiblities to fix on any one as the only correct one. My leanings are something along the lines of toy/ false/ immitation, or something in immitation of oak, or looks like oak but isn't. Mistletoe doesn't seem to be it, unless an old word for it has dissappeared.

Subject: RE: Music for Bragandary
From: Bruce O.
Date: 16 Mar 99 - 07:38 PM

Annie, your opening sentence seems to imply that there was a broadside ballad called "Bragandary", which I've never seen or even seen mention of. Where is it? So far as I know "Bragandary" was only a tune title.

Subject: RE: Music for Bragandary
From: Bruce O.
Date: 16 Mar 99 - 11:56 PM

There is another tune that bears slight mention. There is a song "Wicked Polly", p. 306-8, in Gale Huntington's 'Songs the Whalemen Sang", 1964, 1970, that is a version of "A Description of Wanton Women", to "Braggandary, or Southampton". Forget his speculation there, he later learned of the early broadside copy. Huntington has a tune, but so far as I can tell it's an arbitray choice (other than fitting his song, of course).

Subject: RE: Music for Bragandary
From: Bruce O.
Date: 18 Mar 99 - 11:21 AM

I've now added all the known 16th century broadside ballads for which there is a tune citation (or other evidence that it was sung), to the broadside ballad index on my website. "Bragandary" is first heard of as the tune for the first half of "The faire Widow of Watling Street", ZN2123, a ballad entered in the Stationers' Register on Aug. 15, 1597. Under various titles the tune lasted nearly a hundred years. I've found no evidence of any song which might have lead to the title "Bragandary" for it.