S. Baring-Gould

1. BY Chance it was. Music and words dictated by James Parsons, hedger, Lew Down; he had learned it from his father, "The Singing Machine."

A second version of the melody was obtained from Bruce Tyndall, Esq., of Exmouth, who had learned it from a Devonshire nurse in 1839 or 1840. The melody was but a variant. It had lost the E? that comes in so pleasantly.

The tune was certainly originally in the Dorian mode, the E? being an alteration of a modern singer. We did not, however, feel justified in restoring the air to its early form, as we had no authority for so doing.

The words of the song are to be found in a collection of early ballad books in the British Museum, entitled "The Court of Apollo." There it consists of six verses, the first three of which are almost word for word the same as ours. In "The Songster's Favourite Companion," a later collection, the same song occurs. There it is in three verses only, and in a very corrupt form.

We are inclined to think that the song dates from the time of James I. or Charles I.

2. The Hunting of Arscott of Tetcott. This song, once vastly popular in North Devon, and at all hunting dinners, is now nearly forgotten. The words have been published in "John Arscott of Tetcott" by Luke, Plymouth, N.D. A great many variations of the text exist. An early copy, dating from the end of the 18th century, was supplied me by R. Kelly, Esq., of Kelly; another by a gentleman, now dead, in his grandmother's handwriting (1820), with explanatory notes. The date given in the song varies; sometimes it is set down as 1752, sometimes as 1772.

John Arscott, the last of his race, died in 1788. The "Sons of the Blue" are taken to have been Sir John Molesworth of Pencarrow, Bart., William Morshead of Blisland, and Braddon Clode of Skisdon. But neither Sir John Molesworth nor Mr. Morshead was, as it happens, a naval man. If the date were either 1652 or 1672, it would fit John Arscott of Tetcott, who died in 1708, and Sir John Molesworth of Pencarrow, who was Vice-admiral of Cornwall; and the "Sons of the Blue" would be Hender, Sparke, and John, sons of Sir John. The second John Molesworth married Jane, daughter of John Arscott of Tetcott, in 1704. It seems probable, accordingly, that the song belonged originally to the elder John Arscott, and was adapted a century later to the last John Arscott. The date is not given with precision in the song; it is left vague as to the century—"In the year '52."

The author of the version of the song as now sung is said to have been one Dogget, who was wont to run after the foxhounds of the last Arscott. He probably followed the habit of all rural bards of adapting an earlier ballad to his purpose, and spoiling it in so doing. I think this, because along with much wretched stuff there occur traces of something better, and smacking of an earlier period. As Dogget's doggerel has been printed, and as I have taken down a dozen variants, I have retained only what I deemed worthy of retention, and have entirely recast the conclusion of the song.

John Arscott is still believed to hunt the country, and there are men alive who declare positively that they have seen him and his hounds go by, and have heard the winding of his horn, at night, in the park at Tetcott.

Mr. Frank Abbott, gamekeeper at Pencarrow, but born at Tetcott, informed me, concerning Dogget: "Once they unkennelled in the immediate neighbourhood of Tetcott, and killed at Hatherleigh. This runner was in at the death, as was his wont. John Arscott ordered him a bed at Hatherleigh, but to his astonishment, when he returned to Tetcott, his wife told him all the particulars of the run. 'Then,' said Arscott, 'this must be the doing of none other than Dogget; where is he?' Dogget was soon found in the servants' hall, drinking ale, having outstripped his master and run all the way home."

In the MS. copy of 1820, the names of the "Sons of the Blue" were Bob (Robt. Dennis of S. Breock), Bill (Bill Tickell), and Britannia (Sir J. Molesworth). The tune, which is in the Æolian mode, was obtained through the assistance of Mr. W.C. Richards, schoolmaster at Tetcott. We also had it from John Benney, labourer, Menheniot.

Mr. Richards writes:—"This song is sung annually at the Rent-audit of the Molesworth estate at Tetcott. Thirty years ago an old man sang it, and the version I send you is as near the original, as sung by him, as can be secured. Workmen on the estate often hum the air, and always sing it at their annual treats." The Arscott property at Tetcott passed by inheritance to the Molesworths.

Half of the tune was employed by D'Urfey, a Devonshire man, in his "Pills to Purge Melancholy," to the words, "Dear Catholic Brother" (vi. p. 277, ed. 1719-20). From D'Urfey it passed into the "Musical Miscellany," 1731, vi. p. 171, to the words, "Come take up your Burden, ye Dogs, and away." From England the same half-tune was carried into Wales, and Jones, in his "Musical Relicks of the Welsh Bards," 1794, i. p. 129, gives it set to the words of "Difarwch gwyn Dyfl."

As Benny's variant is interesting, I give it here—

And sing Fol-de-rol.

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3. Upon a Sunday Morning. The melody taken down from Robert Hard, South Brent. This is the song to which reference has been made in the Introduction. It is not a genuine folk melody, but it is an interesting example of the way in which the folk muse reshapes an air.

Hard sang the words of Charles Swan—

"'Twas on a Sunday morning, before the bells did peal,
A note came through the window, with Cupid as the seal."

These words were set to music by Francis Mori in 1853. I give Mori's tune, and advise that with it should be compared Hard's variation of it. I have written fresh words to this variation—

F. Mori.

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4. The Trees they are so High. Words and melody taken down in 1888 first from James Parsons, then from Matthew Baker. Again in 1891 from Richard Broad, aged 71, of Herodsfoot, near S. Keyne, Cornwall. Again, the words, to a different air, from Roger Hannaford. Another version from William Aggett, a paralysed labourer of 70 years, at Chagford. Mr. Sharp has also obtained it in Somersetshire. A fragment was sung at the Folk-Song Competition at Frome in April 1904. Mr. Kidson has noted a version in Yorkshire, Miss Broadwood another in Surrey, see Folk-Song Journal, vol. i. p. 214. Apparently there exist two distinct variants of the ballad, each to its proper melody.

Johnson, in his "Museum," professed to give a Scottish version—

"O Lady Mary Ann looks owre the Castle wa',
She saw three bonny boys playing at the ba',
The youngest he was the flower among them a';
My bonny laddie's young, but he's growing yet."

But of his version only three of the stanzas are genuine, and they are inverted; the rest are a modern composition.

A more genuine Scottish form is in Maidment's "North Country Garland," Edinburgh, 1874; but there the young man is fictitiously converted into a Laird of Craigstoun. It begins—

"Father, said she, you have done me wrong,
For ye have married me on a childe young man,
And my bonny love is long
Agrowing, growing, deary,
Growing, growing, said the bonny maid."

But the most genuine form is on an Aberdeen Broadside, B.M., 1871, f. This, the real Scottish ballad, has verses not in the English, and the English ballad has a verse or two not in the Scottish.

I have received an Irish version as sung in Co. Tipperary; it is in six verses, but that about the "Trees so High" is lacking. The rhyme is more correct than that of any of the printed versions, and the lines run in triplets. One verse is—

"O Father, dear Father, I'll tell you what we'll do,
We'll send him off to college for another year or two,
And we'll tie round his college cap a ribbon of the blue,
To let the maidens know he is married."

In one of the versions I have taken down (Hannaford's and Aggett's) there were traces of the triplet very distinct, and the tune was akin to the Irish melody sent me, as sung by Mary O'Bryan, Cahir, Tipperary. Portions of the ballad have been forced into that of "The Cruel Mother" in Motherwell's MS., Child's "British and Scottish Ballads," i. p. 223. In this a mother gives birth to three sons at once and murders them; but after they are murdered—

"She lookit over her father's wa',
And saw three bonnie boys playing at the ba'."

Our melody is in the Phrygian mode, a scale which is extremely scarce in English folk-song. The only other example we know is in Ducoudray's book of the "Folk Melodies of Brittany."

The Scotch have two airs, one in Johnson's "Museum," the other in "The British Minstrel," Glasgow, 1844, vol. ii. p. 36, both totally distinct from ours.

That the ballad is English and not originally Scotch is probable, for Fletcher quotes it in "The Two Noble Kinsmen," 1634. He makes the crazy jailer's daughter sing us a snatch of an old ballad—

"For I'll cut my green coat, a foot above my knee,
And I'll clip my yellow locks, an inch below my eye,
Hey ninny, ninny, ninny;
He's buy me a white cut (stick) forth for to ride,
And I'll go seek him, through the world that is so wide,
Hey ninny, ninny, ninny."

In the ballad as taken down from Aggett—

"I'll cut my yellow hair away by the root,
And I will clothe myself all in a boy's suit,
And to the college high, I will go afoot."

I have had versions also from Mary Langworthy, Stoke Flemming, in the Hypodorian mode, and from W.S. Vance, Penarth, as sung by an old woman at Padstow in 1863, now dead.

Mr. Sharp gives a version in "Folk Songs from Somerset," No. 15.

5. Parson Hogg. This was sung by my great-uncle, Thomas Snow, Esq., of Franklyn, near Exeter, when I was a child. I have received it also from Mr. H. Whitfeld, brushmaker, Plymouth. The words may be found, not quite the same, but substantially so, in "The New Cabinet of Love," circ. 1810, as "Doctor Mack." In Oliver's "Comic Songs," circ. 1815, it is "Parson Ogg, the Cornish Vicar." It is also in "The Universal Songster" (1826), ii. p. 348. It is found on Broadsides.

6. Cold blows the Wind. The words originally reached me as taken down by the late Mrs. Gibbons, daughter of Sir W.L. Trelawney, Bart., from an old woman, who, in 1830, was nurse in her father's house. Since then we have heard it repeatedly, indeed there are few old singers who do not know it. There are two melodies to which it is sung, that we give here, and that to which "Childe the Hunter" is set in this collection. The ballad is always in a fragmentary condition. The ballad, under the title of "The Unquiet Grave," is in Professor Child's "British Ballads," No. 78. He gives various forms of it. The idea on which it is based is that if a woman has plighted her oath to a man, she is still bound to him, after he is dead, and that he can claim her to follow him into the world of spirits, unless she can redeem herself by solving riddles he sets her. See further on this topic under "The Lover's Tasks," No. 48. Verses 8 and 10 are not in the original ballad. I have supplied them to reduce the length and give a conclusion.

7. The Sprig of Thyme. Taken down from James Parsons. After the second verse he broke away into "The Seeds of Love." Joseph Dyer, of Mawgan in Pyder, sang the same ballad or song to the same tune, and in what I believe to be the complete form of words—

"O once I had plenty of thyme,
It would flourish by night and by day,
Till a saucy lad came, return'd from the sea,
And stole my thyme away.
"O and I was a damsel fair,
But fairer I wish't to appear;
So I wash'd me in milk, and I clothed me in silk,
And put the sweet thyme in my hair.
"With June is the red rose in bud,
But that was no flower for me,
I plucked the bud, and it prick'd me to blood,
And I gazed on the willow tree.
"O the willow tree it will twist,
And the willow tree it will twine,
I would I were fast in my lover's arms clasp't,
For 'tis he that has stolen my thyme.
"O it's very good drinking of ale,
But it's better far drinking of wine,
I would I were clasp't in my lover's arms fast,
For 'tis he that has stolen my thyme."

The song, running as it does on the same theme and in the same metre as "The Seeds of Love," is very generally mixed up with it, and Miss Broadwood calls her version of it, in "English County Songs," p. 58, "The Seeds of Love, or The Sprig of Thyme." The "Seeds of Love" is attributed by Dr. Whittaker, in his "History of Whalley," to Mrs. Fleetwood Habergham, who died in 1703. He says: "Ruined by the extravagance and disgraced by the vices of her husband, she soothed her sorrows by some stanzas yet remembered among the old people of her neighbourhood." See "The New Lover's Garland," B.M. (11,621, b 6); a Northumbrian version in "Northumbrian Minstrelsy," 1882, p. 90; a Scottish version in "Albyn's Anthology," 1816, i. p. 40; a Somersetshire in "Folk Songs from Somerset," No. 1; a Yorkshire in Kidson's "Traditional Tunes," p. 69. As the two songs are so mixed up together, I have thought it best to re-write the song.

The melody was almost certainly originally in the Æolian mode, but has got altered.

8. Roving Jack. Taken down, words and melody, from William Aggett, Chagford, and from James Parsons, Lew Down. An inferior version of the words is to be found among Catnach's Broadsheets, Ballads, B.M. (1162, b, vol. vii.), also one printed in Edinburgh, Ballads (1750-1840), B.M. (1871, f). Note what has been said relative to this tune, which is in the Æolian mode, under 1, "By chance it was," with which it is closely related.

9. Brixham Town. Words taken down from Jonas Coaker, aged 85, and blind. The melody was given us by Mr. John Webb, who had heard him sing it in former years. Another version to the same air was obtained from North Tawton. Again, another was given me by the Hon. A.F. Northcote, who took it down in 1877 from an itinerant pedlar of 90 years at Buckingham.

The words and tune were clearly composed at the time of the Commonwealth, 1649-1661.

10. Green Broom. Words and melody taken down from John Woodrich, blacksmith; he learned both from his grandmother when he was a child. The Hon. J.S. Northcote sent me another version taken down from an old woman at Upton Pyne. Again, another from Mr. James Ellis of Chaddlehanger, Lamerton; another from Bruce Tyndall, Esq., of Exmouth, as taken down from a Devonshire cook in 1839 or 1840. This, the same melody as that from Upton Pyne. Woodrich's tune is the brightest, the other the oldest. The same ballad to different tune in "Northumbrian Minstrelsy," 1882, p. 98. The song is in D'Urfey's "Pills to Purge Melancholy," 1720, vi. p. 100, in 14 verses, with a different conclusion. Broadside versions by Disley and Such. Also in "The Broom Man's Garland," in "LXXXII. Old Ballads" collected by J. Bell, B.M. (11,621, c 2). Bell was librarian to the Society of Antiquaries, Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1810-20. Mr. Kidson has obtained a version in North Yorkshire. Another is in "English County Songs," p. 88. In "Gammer Gurton's Garland," circ. 1783, are three verses.

11. As Johnny Walked Out. Words and melody from James Parsons. The original words are in six stanzas, and these I have compressed. The words with some verbal differences as "set by Mr. Dunn" are in "Six English Songs and Dialogues, as they are performed in the Public Gardens," N.D., but about 1750. Then in The London Magazine, 1754; in "Apollo's Cabinet," Liverpool, 1757; in "Clio and Euterpe," London, 1758. Our melody was obtained also by Mr. T.S. Cayzer, at Post Bridge, in 1849, and we have taken down four or five versions. The tune is totally different from that by "Mr. Dunn."

12. The Miller and his Sons. Taken down, music and words, from J. Helmore, miller, South Brent. The words occur in the Roxburgh Collection, iii. p. 681. It is included in Bell's "Songs of the English Peasantry," p. 194; and is in the "Northumbrian Minstrelsy," Newcastle, 1882. In the North of England it is sung to the air of "The Oxfordshire Tragedy," Chappell, p. 191. Our air bears no resemblance to this.

13. Ormond the Brave. This very interesting Ballad was taken down, words and music, from J. Peake, tanner, Liskeard; it was sung by his father about 1830. It refers to the Duke of Ormond's landing in Devon in 1714. Ormond fled to France in the first days of July, "a duke without a duchy," as Lord Oxford termed him, when it was manifest that the country was resolved on having the Hanoverian Elector as King, and was unwilling to summon the Chevalier of St. George to the throne. At the end of October the Duke of Ormond landed in Devon at the head of a few men, hoping that the West would rise in the Jacobite cause, but not a single adherent joined his standard, and he returned to France. The Devonshire squires were ready to plant Scotch pines in token of their Jacobite sympathies, but not to jeopardise their heads and acres in behalf of a cause which their good sense told them was hopeless. I have met with the ballad in a Garland, B.M. (11,621, b 16). This, however, is imperfect. It runs thus—

"I am Ormond the brave, did you ever hear of me?
Who lately was banished from my own country.
They sought for my life and plundered my estate,
For being so loyal to Queen Anne the Great.
I am Ormond, etc.
"Says Ormond, If I did go, with Berwick I stood,
And for the Crown of England I ventured my blood,
To the Boyne I advanced, to Tingney (Quesnoy?) also,
I preserved King William from Berwick his foe.
"I never sold my country as cut-purses do,
Nor never wronged my soldiers of what was their due.
Such laws I do hate, you're witness above,
I left my estate for the country I love.
"Although they degrade me, I value it not a straw,
Some call me Jemmy Butler, I'm Ormond you know.
(Rest of verse missing.)
"But in the latter days our late Mistress Anne,
Disprove my loyalty if you can,
I was Queen Anne's darling, old England's delight,
Sacheverel's friend, and Fanatic's spite."

When Peake sang the song to Mr. Sheppard and me, he converted German Elector into German lecturers.

The impeachment and attainder of the Duke in 1715 was a cruel and malicious act. When he was in the Netherlands acting in concert with Prince Eugene, he was hindered from prosecuting the war by secret instructions from Queen Anne. When Quesnoy was on the point of capitulating, he was forced to withdraw, as he had received orders to proclaim a cessation of arms for two months. After the death of Queen Anne, the new Whig Ministry was resolved on his destruction, and he fled to France, where, although he had been loyal to William of Orange, and had fought under him at the Boyne, and had also been one of the first to welcome George I., he threw himself into the cause of the Pretender, in a fit of resentment at the treatment he had received. He died on 16th November 1745 at Avignon, but his body was brought to England and buried in Henry VII.'s Chapel, Westminster. Swift, writing in the hour of his persecution, gives his character at great length. "The attainder," says he, "now it is done, looks like a dream to those who will consider the nobleness of his birth; the great merits of his ancestors, and his own; his long, unspotted loyalty; his affability, generosity, and sweetness of nature.... I have not conversed with a more faultless person; of great justice and charity; a true sense of religion, without ostentation; of undoubted valour; thoroughly skilled in his trade of a soldier; a quick and ready apprehension; with a good share of understanding, and a general knowledge of men and history."

Mackay, in his "Characters of the Court of Great Britain," says of him when Governor in Ireland:—"He governs in Ireland with more affection from the people, and his court is in the greatest splendour ever known in that country. He certainly is one of the most generous, princely, brave men that ever was, but good-natured to a fault."

14. John Barleycorn. This famous old song has gone through several recastings. The earliest known copy is of the age of James I. in the Pepysian Collection, i. 426, printed in black letter by H. Gosson (1607-1641). Other copies of Charles II.'s reign in the same Collection, i. 470, and the Ewing Collection, by the publishers Clarke, Thackeray, and Passenger, to the tune of "Shall I lye beyond thee." Chappell concludes that this was a very early ballad. "The language is not that of London and its neighbourhood during James's reign. It is either northern dialect—which, according to Puttenham, would commence about 60 miles from London—or it is much older than the date of the printers," Roxburgh Ballads, ii. p. 327.

This ballad begins—

"As I went through the North Country
I heard a merry greeting,
A pleasant toy and full of joy—
Two noblemen were meeting."

These two noblemen are Sir John Barleycorn and Thomas Goodale.

The sixth verse runs—

"Sir John Barlycorne fought in a boule
Who wonne the victorie,
And made them all to fume and sweare
That Barlycorne should die.
"Some said kill him, some said drowne,
Others wisht to hang him hie;
For as many as follow Barlycorne
Shall surely beggars die.
"Then with a plough they plow'd him up,
And thus they did devise,
To burie him quicke within the earth,
And sware he should not rise.
"With harrowes strong they combÈd him
And burst clods on his head,
A joyfull banquet then they made
When Barlycorne was dead."

Then the ballad runs on the same as ours. Burns got hold of this ballad, and tinkered it up into the shape in which it appears in his collected works, altering some expressions, and adding about six stanzas. He in no way improved it. Jameson, in his "Popular Ballads," Edinburgh, 1806, tells us that he had heard it sung in Morayshire before that Burns' songs were published.

Dixon, in his collection of the "Songs of the English Peasantry," 1846, says that "John Barleycorn" was sung throughout England to the tune of "Stingo, or Oil of Barley," which may be found in Chappell, from the "Dancing Master," in which it occurs from 1650 to 1690. But this is not the air to which it is set in the Broadsides above referred to, nor is it that to which it is sung in the West of England.

Dr. Barrett has given a different "John Barleycorn" in his "English Folk-Songs," and another is in the Folk-Song Journal, vol. i. p. 81.

The words as now sung may be found in "The Mountain of Hair Garland," B.M. (1162, c 4), circ. 1760. It is also among Such's broadsides. Words and air were taken down by Mr. Bussell, from James Mortimore, a cripple, at Princetown, in 1890.

A version taken down in Sussex, to a different tune, is seen in the Folk-Song Journal. This begins—

"There were three men came out of the West,
They sold their wheat for rye;
They made an oath and a solemn oath,
John Barleycorn should die."

One verse is not in our version—

"And in the mash-tub he was put,
And they scalded him stark blind.
And then they served him worse than that
They cast him to the swine."

15. Sweet Nightingale. In "Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England," by Robert Bell, London, 1857, the author says: "This curious ditty, which may be confidently assigned to the 17th century ... we first heard in Germany at Marienberg on the Moselle. The singers were four Cornish miners, who were at that time, 1854, employed at some lead mines near the town of Zell. The leader, or captain, John Stocker, said that the song was an established favourite with the miners of Cornwall and Devonshire, and was always sung on the pay-days and at the wakes; and that his grandfather, who died thirty years before, at the age of a hundred years, used to sing the song, and say it was very old. The tune is plaintive and original." Unfortunately Mr. Bell does not give the tune. The air was first sent me by E.F. Stevens, Esq., of the Terrace, St. Ives, who wrote that the melody "had run in his head any time these eight and thirty years." We have since had it from a good many old men in Cornwall, and always to the same air. They assert that it is a duet, and was so set in our first edition.

Mr. Bell did not know much of the subject, or he would have been aware that so far from the song being of the 17th century, it was composed by Bickerstaff for "Thomas and Sally" in 1760, and was set to music by Dr. Arne. I have, however, adopted Bell's words instead of those of Bickerstaff, as shorter. The Cornish melody is quite distinct from that by Arne, and is not earlier or later than the second half of the 18th century.

16. Widdecombe Fair. At present the best known and most popular of Devonshire songs, though the melody is without particular merit. The original "Uncle Tom Cobley" lived in a house near Yeoford Junction, in the parish of Spreyton. His will was signed on January 20, 1787, and was proved on March 14, 1794. He was a genial old bachelor. Mr. Samuel Peach, his oldest relation living, tells me, "My great-uncle, who succeeded him, with whom I lived for some years, died in 1843, over eighty years of age; he married, but left no children." We have obtained numerous variants of the air, one taken down from R. Bickle, Two Bridges, is an early form of the melody; but as that we give is familiar to most Devonshire men, we have retained it. The names in the chorus all belonged to residents at Sticklepath.

Mr. C. Sharp has taken down a variant as "Midsummer Fair" in Somersetshire. The words so far as they went were the same, but each verse ended in a jingle instead of names.

17. Ye Maidens Pretty. The words and melody from James Parsons. The fullest Broadside version, but very corrupt, is one published at Aberdeen, Ballads, B.M. (1871, f, p. 61); another, shorter, by Williams of Portsea. In both great confusion has been made by some ignorant poetaster in enlarging and altering, so that in many of the verses the rhymes have been lost. This is how the Aberdeen Broadside copy begins—

"You maidens pretty
In country and city
With pity hear,
My mournful tale;
A maid confounded,
In sorrow drownded,
And deeply wounded,
With grief and pain."

In the third line the "pity" has got misplaced, and "sad complain" has been turned into "mournful tale," to the loss of the rhyme. Verse 4 has fared even worse. It runs—

"My hardened parents
Gave special order
That I should be
Close confined be (sic.)
Within my chamber
Far from all danger,
Or lest that I
Should my darling see."

A parody on the song was written by Ashley, of Bath, and sung in "Bombastes Furioso," Rhodes' burlesque, in 1810, to the Irish tune of "Paddy O'Carrol." This appears also in "The London Warbler," 3 vols., N.D., but about 1826, vol. i. p. 80—

"My love is so pretty, so gay, and so witty,
All in town, court, and city, to her must give place.
My Lord on the woolsack, his coachman did pull back,
To have a look, full smack, at her pretty face," etc.

A Catnach Broadside, "The Cruel Father and the Affectionate Lovers," is a new version of the original ballad. Words and melody are probably of the Elizabethan age; an air to which this ballad has been recovered from tradition in Surrey resembles ours, and is a corruption of the earlier melody.

The ballad goes back to a remote antiquity. The French have it, a "complainte romanesque," of which Tiersot says: "It was known in past ages, as is shown by a semi-literary imitation, published in a song-book of the beginning of the 17th century. And in our own day, poets and literary men, such as Gerard de Nerval, Prosper MÉrimÉe, M. Auguste Vitu, have given their names to it, having picked it up as a precious thing from oral recitations by the peasants of our provinces." It is the ballad of a princess loving a knight, "qu' n'a pas vaillant six deniers." The King Loys, her father, has imprisoned her in the highest of his towers—

"Elle y fut bien sept ans passÉs
Sans qu' son pÈr' vint la visiter;
Et quand l'y eut sept ans passÉs,
Son pÈre la fut visiter."—Tiersot, op. cit. p. 20.

There can, I think, be no doubt that it is an old troubadour lay which has been re-composed in Elizabethan times, and has since been somewhat degraded.

18. The Silly Old Man. A ballad that was sung by the late Rev. G. Luscombe something over half a century ago. He was curate of Bickleigh, and by ancestry belonged to a good old Devonshire family, and he was particularly fond of ancient West of England songs. Another version, from old Suey Stephens, a charwoman at Stowford; another, as sung in 1848, received from Dr. Reed in Tiverton. Miss Mason, in her "Nursery Rhymes and Country Songs," 1877, gives a slight variant, also from Devonshire.

The ballad is in Dixon's "Songs of the English Peasantry," 1846, as taken down by him from oral recitation in Yorkshire in 1845. It exists in a chap-book, under the title of "The Crafty Farmer," published in 1796. In Yorkshire the song goes by the name of "Saddle to Rags"; there, and elsewhere in the North of England, it is sung to the tune of "The Rant," better known as "How happy could I be with either." It has been published as a Scottish ballad in Maidment's "Ballads and Songs," Edinburgh, 1859. It is given in Kidson's "Traditional Tunes." The words also in "A Pedlar's Pack," by Logan, Edinburgh, 1849. The tune to which this ballad is sung in Devonshire is quite distinct.

19. The Months of the Year. Still a popular song among farm labourers. Three versions of the air and words were taken down—one at South Brent, one at Belstone, one at Post Bridge. The air is clearly an old dance tune. The version we preferred was that given us by J. Potter, farmer, of Merripit, Post Bridge. For like songs, see "English County Songs," p. 143, and Barrett's "Folk-Songs." Barrett has the same air as ours, but in triple time. That a similar song should be found on the Continent is not wonderful; see "Les Douze Mois de l'annÉe" in Coussemaker: "Les Flamands de France," p. 133.

20. The Chimney Sweep. Taken down from J. Helmore, miller, South Brent. The first verse occurs in one of James Catnach's chap-books: "The Cries of London," circ. 1815.

The tune is possibly based on one used by the Savoyard sweeps, for Tiersot refers to one such: "Avec sa bizarre vocalise descendante, d'un accent si Étrange dans sa rudesse montagnarde—

"Ramonez-ci, ramonez-lÀ,
Sh-a-a-a-ah
La cheminÉe du haut en bas."

And this corresponds with the passage, "Aye and there," with its curious descent in our tune: Tiersot, "Hist. de la Chanson Populaire en France," Paris, 1889, p. 143.

21. The Saucy Sailor. Words and melody taken from James Parsons. A Broadside with a different ending printed by Disley, Pitts, Such & Hodges. Also Tozer's "Forty Sailors' Songs," Boosey, No. 33. The usual air to which this song is sung in Devon is of a much earlier character; but we give this as more agreeable to modern ears. Barrett gives the song in his "English Folk-Songs," No. 32, to a different tune.

22. Blue Muslin. Taken down, words and music, from John Woodrich, blacksmith. Muslin was introduced into England in 1670, and cork in 1690. Both are spoken of as novelties, and muslin is sung to the old form of the word, mous-el-ine.

Miss F. Crossing sent me another version of the words, taken down from an old woman in South Devon, in or about 1850—

"'My man John, what can the matter be?'
'I love a lady, and she won't love me.'
'Peace, sir, peace, and don't despair,
The lady you love will be your only care;
And it must be gold to win her.'
"'Madam, will you accept of this pretty golden ball,
To walk all in the garden, or in my lady's hall?'
'Sir, I'll accept of no pretty golden ball,' etc.
"'Madam, will you accept of a petticoat of red,
With six golden flounces around it outspread?'
"'Madam, will you accept of the keys of my heart,
That we may join together, and never, never part?'
"'Madam, will you accept of the keys of my chest,
To get at all my money, and to buy what you think best?'
"'Sir, I will accept of the keys of your chest,
To get at all your money, and to buy what I think best;
And I'll walk and I'll talk with you.'
"'My man John, there's a box of gold for you,
For that which you told me has come true,
And 'twas gold, 'twas gold that did win her.'"

Another version comes from Yorkshire ("Halliwell Nursery Rhymes," 4th ed., 1846); another from Cheshire (Broadwood, "English County Songs," p. 32); another in Mason's "Nursery Rhymes" (Metzler, 1877, p. 27). Melodies different from ours.

23. The Death of Parker. Words and melody taken down from Samuel Fone, mason, Blackdown. It is identical with one obtained in Yorkshire by Mr. Kidson. "The Death of Parker" is found on Broadsides, and is in "The Lover's Harmony," N.D., printed by Pitts, of Seven Dials. It is in Logan's "Pedlar's Pack," p. 58, and in Ashton's "Modern Street Ballads," London, 1888, p. 218.

On April 15, 1797, when Admiral Bridport, commanding the line-of-battle ships at Portsmouth and Spithead, signalled for the fleet to prepare for sea, the men, by a preconcerted agreement, refused to raise anchors till they had obtained redress for their grievances, which had been sent in the form of a petition to Lord Howe, two months before, and which had remained unnoticed. The Lords of the Admiralty endeavoured for some days, but ineffectually, to reduce the men to obedience. At last the grievances complained of were redressed by the action of Lord Bridport, who also obtained his Majesty's pardon for the offenders. However, in May, the sailors at Portsmouth, thinking that the Government did not intend to keep faith with them, came ashore and committed great excesses. Shortly after this the fleet at Sheerness exhibited a mutinous spirit, and this broke out into open mutiny at the Nore. At the head of the men was Richard Parker, a Devonshire man. The obnoxious officers were sent ashore, and the red flag was hoisted. Altogether twenty-five ships were included in the mutiny. The mutineers seized certain store-ships, fired on some frigates that were about to put to sea, and blockaded the mouth of the Thames. All attempts at conciliation having failed, it became necessary to resort to stringent measures. Ships and gunboats were armed, batteries were erected on shore; the mutineers were prevented from landing to obtain fresh water and provisions; and all buoys and beacons were removed, so as to render egress from the Thames impossible. One by one the ships engaged in the mutiny began to drop off, and at last the Sandwich, Parker's flagship, ran in under the batteries and delivered up the ringleader. Parker was hung at the yard-arm on June 30. The ballad was composed at the time, and obtained a wide circulation by appearing on Broadsides.

At the Exeter Assizes in 1828, John C. Parker, son of Richard Parker, obtained a verdict against his aunts for the possession of an estate called Shute, which had belonged to his father's elder brother. The question turned upon the legitimacy of the plaintiff, which was proved by his mother, a woman who exhibited the remains of uncommon beauty, and who was a Scottish woman, married to Richard Parker in 1793.

24. The Helston Furry Dance. On May 8, annually, a festival is held at Helston, in Cornwall, to celebrate the incoming of spring. Very early in the morning a party of youths and maidens go into the country, and return dancing through the streets to a quaint tune, peculiar to the day, called the "Furry Dance." At eight o'clock the "Hal-an-tow" is sung by a party of from twenty to thirty men and boys who come into the town bearing green branches, with flowers in their hats, preceded by a single drum, on which a boy beats the Furry Dance. They perambulate the town for many hours, stopping at intervals at some of the principal houses.

At one o'clock a large party of ladies and gentlemen, in summer attire—the ladies decorated with garlands of flowers, the gentlemen with nosegays and flowers in their hats, assemble at the Town Hall, and proceed to dance after the band, playing the traditional air. They first trip in couples, hand in hand, during the first part of the tune, forming a string of from thirty to forty couples, or perhaps more; at the second part of the tune the first gentleman turns with both hands the lady behind him, and her partner turns in like manner with the first lady; then each gentleman turns his own partner, and then they trip on as before. The other couples, of course, pair and turn in the same way, and at the same time.

The dancing is not confined to the streets; the house doors are thrown open, and the train of dancers enters by the front, dances through the house, and out at the back, through the garden, and back again. It is considered a slight to omit a house. Finally the train enters the Assembly Room and there resolves itself into an ordinary waltz.

As soon as the first party is finished, another goes through the same evolutions, and then another, and so on, and it is not till late at night that the town returns to its peaceful propriety.

There is a general holiday in the town on Flora Day, and so strictly was this formerly adhered to, that anyone found working on that day was compelled to jump across Pengella, a wide stream that discharges its waters into Loo Pool. As this feat was almost impracticable, it involved a sousing. The festival has by no means ceased to be observed; it has rather, of late years, been revived in energetic observance.

The "Helston Furry Dance" is a relic of part of the Old English May Games. These originally comprised four entirely distinct parts. 1st. The election and procession of the King and Queen of the May, who were called the Summer King and Queen. 2nd. The Morris Dance, performed by men disguised, with swords in their hands. 3rd. The "Hobby Horse." 4th. The "Robin Hood."

In the Helston performance we have a fragment only of the original series of pageants; at Padstow the Hobby-horse still figures. I have given the two Padstow songs in "A Garland of Country Song," 1895, No. 42.

The Helston Furry Dance tune was printed in Davies Gilbert's "Christmas Carols," 2nd ed., 1823. His form is purer than ours, which is as now sung. Edward Jones had already published it in his "Bardic Museum," vol. ii. (1802) as "The Cornish May Song," and George Johnson in his "Welsh Airs," vol. ii. (1811).

25. Blow away, ye Morning Breezes. Taken down, words and music, from Robert Hard. This curious song was to be sung by two sopranos; that is to say, one voice taunts the other, and the second replies, then both unite in the chorus. We have omitted the retort, which consists simply in the application of the same words to the first singer. It is certainly an early composition. One passage in it occurs in "The Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter," in Percy's "Relicks," and Child's "English and Scotch Ballads"—

"Would I had drunk the water cleare
When I had drunk the wine,
Rather than any shepherd's brat
Should be a lady of mine.
Would I had drunk the puddle foule
When I had drunk the ale," etc.

The burden or chorus, "Blow away," etc., occurs also in the ballad of "The Baffled Knight."

26. The Hearty Good Fellow. Taken down, words and music, from Robert Hard. This ballad is found on a Broadside by Pitts, entitled "Adventures of a Penny." The first verse there runs—

"Long time I've travelled the North Country
Seeking for good company.
Good company I always could find,
But none was pleasing to my mind.
Sing whack, fal de ral, etc.,
I had one Penny."

The rest is very much the same as our version. I also heard it sung by a worker at the Aller Potteries, near Newton Abbot. Mr. Kidson has obtained a traditional version in Yorkshire, and Mr. C. Sharp one in Somersetshire from Eliza Hutchins of Langport. As the accent came wrong in the version we received from Hard, we have adopted that as given by Eliza Hutchins.

27. The Bonny Bunch of Roses. Of this we have taken down a great number of versions. The melody is always the same. The youth in the printed Broadside copies is always Napoleon Bonaparte. History does not agree with what is said of the hero in the song. It is almost certainly an anti-Jacobite production, adapted to Napoleon, with an additional verse relative to Moscow. In the Broadside versions the song is given "To the tune of the Bunch of Roses, O!" indicating that there was an earlier ballad of the same nature.

This was a favourite fo'castle song in the middle of the nineteenth century. There is a version of it in Christie's "Traditional Ballads." One has also been recovered by Mr. Kidson in Yorkshire. The song was such a favourite that a public-house near Wakefield bears "The Bonny Bunch of Roses, O!" as its sign.

28. The Last of the Singers. The melody taken down from William Huggins, mason, of Lydford, who died in March 1889. He had been zealously engaged that winter going about among his ancient musical friends collecting old songs for me, when he caught a chill and died. The words he gave were those of the ballad, "The Little Girl down the Lane," and were of no merit. I have therefore discarded them and written fresh words, and dedicate them to the memory of poor old Will.

29. The Tythe Pig. Words and air taken from Robert Hard. Sung also by J. Helmore. The song appears on Broadsides by Disley, Jackson of Birmingham, Harkness of Preston, Catnach, and others. There are ten verses in the original. I have cut them down to seven.

30. Old Wichet. Taken from Thomas Darke of Whitstone. He had learned it in 1835 from a fellow labourer. Sung also by James Parsons, Samuel Fone, and J. Woodrich. It is said to be still popular in the North of England. A Scottish version in Herd's Collection, 1769, and in Johnson's "Musical Museum," Edinburgh, 1787-1803, vol. v. p. 437. "Old Wichet" is in the Roxburgh Collection, and Bell has printed it in his "Ballads and Songs of the English Peasantry."

Dr. Arnold recast the song to a tune of his own in "Auld Robin Gray," 1794. The Scottish version begins—

"The good man cam hame at e'en
And hame cam he.
And there he saw a saddle horse
Where nae horse should be."

Dr. Arnold begins—

"'Twas on Christmas day, my father he did wed,
Three months after that, my mother was brought to bed."

In the original English song the final line to each stanza runs—

"Old Wichet went a cuckold out, and a cuckold he came home."

But in one version taken down—

"When honest men went out, under a horned moon."

I have thought it advisable to modify the last line of each stanza, and to compose a last stanza, so as to give to the song a less objectionable character. A somewhat similar ballad exists in France, as "Marianne," in Lemoine, "Chansons du Limousin," Limoges, 1890; in Daymard, "Vieux chants populaires de Quercy," Cahors, 1889; "Le Jaloux," in BladÉ, "PoÉsies populaires de Gascogne," 1881. But, in fact, all these songs are the versification of an old troubadour tale, that is given in Barbazan, "Fabliaux et contes des poÈtes FranÇois xi.-xiv. siÈcles," as the "Chevalier À la robe vermeille," t. iii. p. 296. Alphonse Daudet, in "Numa Roumestan," introduces a great portion of the ballad. He says, "C'est sur un air grave comme du plain-chant." In the midst of the song, the person reciting it breaks off, and transported by enthusiasm exclaims: "Ça, voyez-vous, mes enfants, c'est bo (beau) comme du Shakespeare."

31. Jan's Courtship. Words and air from Mr. R. Rowe, Longabrook, Milton Abbot. Another set, slightly different, from Mr. Crossing; another, practically identical, from Mr. Chowen, Brentor. As "Robin's Courtship," the song was recovered by Mr. E.T. Wedmore of Bristol, in Somersetshire. It has also been noted in the same county by Mr. Sharp as "William the Rose," sung to the tune of "Lillibulero." It is found in "The Universal Songster," circ. 1830, as "Poor Bob." In the "Roxburgh Ballads," vi. pp. 216-7, is what is probably the earliest form—"Come hither my dutiful son, and take counsel of me." This was sung to the air "Grim King of the Ghosts." Another version is referred to in the "Beggars' Opera," Act III. Sc. viii., "Now Roger I'll tell thee, because thou'rt my son."

Our tune is rugged, and Somersetshire in character. It is in the Æolian mode.

32. The Drowned Lover. Taken down from James Parsons. This is a very early song. It first appears as "Captain Digby's Farewell," in the "Roxburgh Ballads," iv. p. 393, printed in 1671. In Playford's "Choice Ayres," 1676, i. p. 10, it was set to music by Mr. Robert Smith. Then it came to be applied to the death of the Earl of Sandwich, after the action in Sole Bay, 1673. A black letter ballad, date circ. 1676, is headed, "To the tune of the Earl of Sandwich's Farewell." The original song consisted of three stanzas only; it became gradually enlarged and somewhat altered, and finally Sam Cowell composed a burlesque on it, which has served more or less to corrupt the current versions of the old song, printed on Broadsides by Catnach, Harkness, and others.

The black letter ballad of 1673 begins—

"One morning I walked by myself on the shoar
When the Tempest did cry and the Waves they did roar,
Yet the music of the Winds and the Waters was drownd
By the pitiful cry, and the sorrowful sound,
Oh! Ah! Ah! Ah! my Love's dead.
There is not a bell
But a Triton's shell,
To ring, to ring, to ring my Love's knell."

"Colonel Digby's Lament," 1671, begins—

"I'll go to my Love, where he lies in the Deep,
And in my Embrace, my dearest shall sleep.
When we wake, the kind Dolphins together shall throng,
And in chariots of shells shall draw us along.
Ah! Ah! My Love is dead.
There was not a bell, but a Triton's shell,
To ring, to ring out his knell."

A second version of the melody, but slightly varied from that we give, was sent us by Mr. H. Whitfeld of Plymouth, as sung by his father. Our air is entirely different from that given by Playford, and is probably the older melody, which was not displaced by the composition of Mr. R. Smith. The song is sung to the same melody, but slightly varied, in Ireland.

33. Childe the Hunter. Words taken in a fragmentary form from Jonas Coaker. He had used up the material of the ballad, incorporating it into a "poem" he had composed on Dartmoor, and vastly preferred his own doggerel to what was traditional. The Æolian melody given is that to which the Misses Phillips, who were born and reared at Shaw, on Dartmoor, informed me that they had heard the ballad sung about 1830. We also obtained this air to "Cold blows the wind." It is unquestionably an early harp tune, not later than the reign of Henry VII. For the story of Childe of Plymstock, see Murray's "Handbook of Devon," ed. 1887, p. 208; more fully and critically in W. Crossing's "Ancient Crosses of Dartmoor," 1887, p. 51.

34. The Cottage Thatched with Straw. Taken down, words and melody, from John Watts, quarryman, Alder, Thrushleton. This is one of the best known and, next to "Widdecombe Fair," most favourite songs of the Devon peasantry. Mr. Kidson has noted the song from a Worcestershire man. So far we have not been able to trace either words or melody, though neither can be earlier than the beginning of the nineteenth century, and the song has all the character of a published composition, and no spontaneous composition of a peasant.

35. Cicely Sweet. Words and air sent me by J.S. Hurrell, Esq., Kingsbridge, who had learned them in the middle of last century from Mr. A. Holoran, a Devonshire schoolmaster. It has already been published as "Sylvia Sweet" in Dale's "Collection," circ. 1790. Two verses are given by Halliwell as traditional in his "Nursery Rhymes," 4th ed., 1846, p. 223.

36. A Sweet, Pretty Maiden. Melody taken down from James Parsons. The words of his ballad were interesting and poetical, but did not fit the tune. It began—

"A maiden sweet went forth in May,
Nor sheet nor clout she bare,
She went abroad all on the day
To breathe the fresh spring air.
Before that she came back again
The maiden bore a pretty son,
And she roll'd it all up in her apron."

The theme is the same as "She roun't in her apron" in Johnson's "Musical Museum," v. p. 437; and as it was quite impossible for us to print it, I have set to the air another song.

37. The White Cockade. Words and tune from Edmund Fry. The words of this ballad are often mixed up with those of "It was one summer morning, as I went o'er the grass." The song used to be well known in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Several versions are given in Kidson's "Traditional Tunes." As we heard the song, the cockade was described as green, but there never was a green cockade. I have somewhat altered the words. The Jacobite song of the "White Cockade" is totally distinct. A Barnstaple ware punch-bowl with cover I have seen in the parish of Altarnon, Cornwall, has on the cover the figure of a piper with his dog, and the inscription, "Piper, play us the White Cockade." This can hardly refer to the Scottish song and tune.

In "Stray Garlands," B.M. (71621, a, b), is "The Blue Cockade," but this is a fusion of the two ballads.

38. The Sailor's Farewell. Words and music from J. Helmore. A Broadside version by Williams of Portsea, Wright of Birmingham, B.M. (1876, c 2). As Helmore and his wife sang the verses alternately, we have so arranged it.

39. A Maiden Sat a-Weeping. Words and melody from James Parsons. Again, from Will Aggett, Chagford, identically the same. In our opinion a delicately beautiful song. The tune probably of the sixteenth century.

40. The Blue Kerchief. Words and melody from John Woodrich, locally known as "Ginger Jack." The words have appeared, with slight variations, on Broadsides in ten verses. Catnach issued a parody on it, "The Bonny Blue Jacket." In Dr. Barrett's "English Folk-Songs," he uses this tune for "Paul Jones."

41. Come to My Window. This is a very early song, and the melody is found substantially the same from the time of Queen Elizabeth.

In Beaumont and Fletcher's "Knight of the Burning Pestle," printed in 1613 and again in 1635, the merchant sings snatches of the song—

"Go from my window, love, go;
Go from my window, my dear;
The wind and the rain
Will drive you back again,
You can not be lodged here.
"Begone, begone, my Juggy, my Puggy,
Begone, my love, my dear!
The weather is warm,
'Twill do thee no harm,
Thou canst not be lodged here."—Act III.

In Fletcher's "Monsieur Thomas," 1639, a maid sings—

In Fletcher's "The Woman's Prize," 1640, Jaques says—

It is evident that this ballad was very familiar in the latter part of the 16th century, and we find that on March 4, 1587-8, John Wolfe had a licence to print a ballad, entitled "Goe from my Window." It was one of those early songs parodied in "Ane compendious booke of Godly and Spirituall Songs," Edinburgh, 1590. This begins—

At the end of Heywood's "Rape of Lucrece," 1638, is—

And in this form it appears in "Wit and Drollery," 1661, p. 25.

In "Pills to Purge Melancholy," 1719, iv. 44, is another version of the song, beginning, "Arise arise, my juggy, my puggy." The tune is found in what is erroneously called Queen Elizabeth's "Virginal Book," and in "A New Book of Tablature," 1596; and in Morley's "First Book of Concert Lessons," 1599; and in Robinson's "Schoole of Musick," 1603. In the "Dancing Master," from 1650 to 1680, the tune is given under the title of "The New Exchange, or Durham Stable," but altered into 6-4 time to fit it for dancing.

The tune in its original form may be seen in Chappell, i. p. 141.

Chappell has also given a traditional form of the air as obtained at Norwich. Dr. Barrett has given another in his "English Folk-Songs," No. 46, but without saying where he picked it up.

We obtained ours from John Woodrich; he heard it in an ale-house near Bideford in 1864, from an old man, who recited a tale, in which the song comes in in snatches. He had been soaked by the rain, and he told the tale as he dried himself by the kitchen fire. The story is this—

Two men courted a pretty maid; one was rich, the other poor; and the rich man was old, but she loved the young poor man. Her father, in spite of her tears, forced her to marry the rich man; but her other suitor came under her window and tapped, and when the husband was away she admitted him. So passed a twelvemonth, and she had a little child. Then, one night, the lover came under the window, thinking her goodman was from home. With his tapping the husband awoke, and asked what the sound was. She said that an ivy leaf, fluttered by the wind, struck the pane.

But fearing lest the lover should continue to tap, she began to sing, as she rocked the cradle—

Again the lover tapped, and the husband asked what that meant. She said that a bat had flown against the window. Then she sang—

Then the lover called, and the husband asked what that was. She said it was the hooting of an owl; and then she sang—

Again the lover rapped; then she sprang out of bed, threw abroad the casement, and sang—

This is almost certainly the original framework to which these snatches of song belong. But there was another version of the story in a ballad entitled "The Secret Lover, or the Jealous Father beguil'd, to a West Country tune, or Alack! for my love and I must dye," printed by P. Brooksby, between 1672 and 1682, given by Mr. Ebsworth in the "Roxburgh Ballads," vi. p. 205. This begins—

Here the father, and not the husband, is the person who is troublesome to the lovers.

That this is an adaptation, and not the original form of the story, is obvious from the line—

"And the cuckoo's in his nest,"

a play on the word cuckold.

A still later version, circ. 1770, is given by Ebsworth, "Roxburgh Ballads," vi. p. 205.

Messrs. Moffat and Kidson have given the song in the "Minstrelsy of England," N.D., but 1903, p. 24. So also Dr. Barrett in his "English Folk-Songs," No. 26. I have recast the words. The song may derive from a tale used by Boccaccio in his "Decameron," vii. 1.

42. Tommy a Lynn. This song is alluded to in the "Complaynt of Scotland," 1549; it is probably the "Ballett of Tomalin," licensed to be printed in 1557-8. A snatch of it occurs in Wager's play: "The longer thou livest the more fool thou art," circ. 1560—

It was printed in Ritson's "North Country Chorister," Durham, 1802; and it occurs in "The Distracted Sailor's Garland," B.M. (11,621, c 3). "Bryan o' Lynn was a gentleman born," as sung by "Mr. Purcell's celebrated Irish vocalists," is in the "Dublin Comic Songster," Dublin, 1841. Halliwell gives the song in his "Popular Rhymes," 1849, p. 271, and one verse in his "Nursery Rhymes," No. 61.

Mr. J. Phillips, who founded the Aller Vale potteries, in a lecture on the condition of Dartmoor in 1837, says: "For roughing it on the moor, warm waterproof coats were made by using a sheep's skin, the wool on the inside. Warm caps of rabbit skin were common, with lappets over the ears. An old rhyme sung by the boys was—

We have taken down the song twice from Thomas Dart and from James Parsons. What "A Bone of my stover" signifies I am unable to say.

43. The Green Bushes. Words and melody taken down from Robert Hard. Another sent me by Mr. Crossing, heard by him on Dartmoor from a labouring man in 1869. The same as this taken down from James Parsons. This latter sent by me to Miss Broadwood, who has published it in her "County Songs," p. 170. In Buckstone's play of "The Green Bushes," 1845, Nelly O'Neil sings snatches of this song, one verse, "I'll buy you fine petticoats," etc., in Act I., and that and the following verse in Act III. Nowhere is the complete ballad given. That, however, owing to the popularity of the drama, was published soon after as a "popular Irish ballad sung by Mrs. FitzWilliam." Later it was attributed to the husband of that lady, Mr. E.F. FitzWilliam, but it was not published in his lifetime. The words are substantially old, in this form are a softening down of an earlier ballad which has its analogue in Scotland, "My daddie is a cankered carle," each verse of which ends—

The English form is "Whitsun Monday," an early copy of which is in one of the collections in the British Museum, date about 1760. Each verse ends—

Broadsides by Disley and Such. In a collection of early ballad books in the British Museum is "The Lady's Book of Pleasure," printed in Cow Lane, circ. 1760. This contains a ballad that begins—

Another, with Green Bushes in place of Green Hay, published by Hodges of Seven Dials, B.M. (1875, b 19). For other versions, see Kidson's "Traditional Tunes"; Joyce's "Ancient Irish Music," 1873; Petrie's "Ancient Music of Ireland," 1855. The Irish air is not the same as ours.

44. The Broken Token. Words and melody from Robert Hard. Broadside forms as "The Brisk Young Sailor," or as "Fair Phoebe"; as "The Dark Eyed Sailor," by Such, and Wheeler of Manchester; and as "The Sailor's Return," by Catnach. A version is published in Christie's "Traditional Ballads," and Mr. Kidson obtained it in Yorkshire to a tune different from ours. The same as ours was noted down by Mr. S. Reay about 1830-5 from a ballad singer at Durham.

45. The Mole Catcher. Taken down from J. Hockin, South Brent, by H. Fleetwood Sheppard in 1888. The original words were very gross, and I did not note them. In the British Museum is an early Garland, and in the list of contents on the cover is "The Mole Catcher," but the song has been torn out, probably for the same reason that prevented me from taking it down. All I copied was the beginning of the song. I have supplemented this with fresh words.

46. The Keenly Lode. Mr. Bussell and I spent a week in 1894 at the Lugger Inn, Fowey, collecting songs. We met there one day an old miner, who asked us if we knew "The Keenly Lode," and on our saying that we did not, he gave us a long song on mining, that, however, lacked point. I have therefore re-composed the song. The air is that employed for "The Crocodile," an extravagant ballad, which has been published by Miss Broadwood in her "County Songs." Her tune is practically the same as ours, but there are some differences. "The Crocodile" is a very popular ballad among old song-men, but no one would care to sing it in a drawing-room or at a concert, because it is vastly silly.

"A Keenly Lode" is a lode that promises well. A "BÂll" is a mine in Cornish. In Cornwall every old man is termed "Uncle."

We have taken down "The Meat Pie" to the same air.

47. May Day Carol. Melody and words noted down a good many years ago by J.S. Cayzer, Esq. It was sung, till of late years, in my neighbourhood, where a bunch of flowers at the end of a stick was carried about by children. It was customary in England for a lover on May morning to take a green bough to the house of the beloved. If she opened the door and took it in, this was a token of acceptance. At the Puritan epoch this custom was altered, and the song was converted into a carol with a moral to it, see "Notes and Queries," Third Series, ix. p. 380; Hone's "Every Day Book," 1826, i. p. 567; Chambers' "Book of Days," i. p. 578. Herrick refers to the custom of youths bringing their May bushes to the maids of their choice:—

The melody is a very early one in the Dorian mode, and resembles that of the carol, "The Moon shines bright," Broadwood's "County Songs," p. 108. The carol is still sung in Cornwall.

48. The Lovers' Tasks. This very curious song belongs, as I was told, in Cornwall, to a sort of play that was wont to be performed in farmhouses at Christmas. One performer, a male, left the room, and entered again singing the first part. A girl, seated on a chair, responded with the second part. The story was this. She had been engaged to a young man who died. His ghost returned to claim her. She demurred to this, and he said that he would waive his claim if she could perform a series of tasks he set her. To this she responded that he must, in the first place, accomplish a set of impossible tasks she would set him. Thus was he baffled.

"In all stories of this kind," says Professor Child, "the person upon whom a task is imposed stands acquitted if another of no less difficulty is devised which must be performed first."

This ballad and dramatic scene corresponds with that in "Cold blows the wind" (No. 6). There, in the original, the ghost desires to draw the girl underground, when she is seated on his grave. She objects, and he sets her a task—

She answers the requirement—

Icebell is icicle. By this means she was quit. In the version I have given I have altered this to suit the song for modern singing.

In "The Elfin Knight," Child's "British Ballads," No. 2, an elf appears to the damsel and sets her tasks. If she cannot accomplish these, she must accompany him to the elf world. Here we have a substitution of a fairy for a ghost.

In an Ulster Broadside in the British Museum (1162, k 5) we have a later substitution. A low-born gamekeeper gets a damsel of high degree into his power, and will not release her unless she can solve a series of riddles. This she does, and so makes her escape.

Of the Northumbrian ballad, "Lay the Bent to the Bonny Broom," Child, No. 1, there are two versions. In one given by Miss Mason, "Nursery Rhymes and Country Songs," a stranger comes to the door of a house where are three sisters, and demands that one shall follow him or answer a series of riddles. Then ensues a contest of wit, and the girl escapes the obligation of following the mysterious stranger. Who he is is not ascertained. In the other version it is different; he is a knight, and he offers to marry the girl who can solve his riddles. The youngest sister effects this, so he marries her. It is the same in the corresponding Cornish ballad of "Genefer Gentle and Rosemarie," originally given by Gilbert in his "Cornish Christmas Carols," 2nd ed., p. 65, and reprinted by Child.

To the same category belongs the song, "Go no more a-rushing, Maids, in May," that we have taken down from several singers, and which is given as well by Miss Mason, and by Chappell, i. p. 158, where the task is to solve riddles—

The solution is—

But the story about the setting of the puzzle has fallen away.

We did obtain a ballad in Cornwall about the ghost visiting the damsel and demanding that she should keep her engagement, but the metre was not the same as that of the "Lovers' Tasks."

Apparently at some remote period a maiden who was pledged to a man was held to belong to him after he was dead, and to be obliged to follow her lover into the world of spirits, unless she could evade the obligation by some clever contrivance. When this idea fell away, either an elf was substituted or a man of low birth, or else the whole story was dropped; or, again, it was so altered that a knight was put in the place of the ghost, and it became the privilege of the shrewd girl who could answer the riddles to be taken as his wife.

The setting of hard tasks occurs in German folk-tales, as in "Rumpelstiltskin," where the girl has to spin straw into gold.

In the "Gesta Romanorum," ed. Osterley, p. 374, one of the most popular collections of stories in the Middle Ages, is a corrupt reminiscence of the tale. A king delayed to take a wife till he could find one sagacious enough to make him a shirt without seam out of a scrap of linen three inches square. She retorts that she will do this when he sends her a vessel in which she can do the work. Jacques de Voragine wrote his "Golden Legend" in or about 1260. In that he tells this tale. A bishop was about to succumb to the blandishments of the devil in female form, when a pilgrim arrived. Either the damsel or the palmer must leave, and which it should be was to be determined by the solution of riddles. The pilgrim solved two. Then the fiend in female form asked: "How far is it from heaven to earth?" "That you know best, for you fell the whole distance," replied the palmer, and the fiend vanished. Then the pilgrim revealed himself as St. Andrew, to whom the bishop had a special devotion.

The classic tale of Œdipus and the Sphinx will be remembered in connection with delivery from death by solving riddles. In Norse mythology we have the contest in conundrums between Odin and the giant Vafthrudnir. The Rabbis tell of the Queen of Sheba proving Solomon with hard questions, which are riddles.

The historians of Tyre, as Josephus informs us, recorded that an interchange of riddles went on constantly between Solomon and Hiram, each being under an engagement to pay a forfeit of money for every riddle that he could not solve. Solomon got the best of Hiram, till Hiram set a Tyrian boy to work, who both solved the riddles of Solomon, and set others which Solomon could not answer. We have a later version of this story in the ballad of King John and the Abbot of Canterbury, who, unable to solve the king's riddles, set his cowherd to do this, and he accomplished it successfully.

We took down the ballad and air from Philip Symonds of Jacobstow, Cornwall, also from John Hext, Two Bridges, and from James Dyer of Mawgan. The burden, "And every grove rings with a merry antine," is curious; antine is antienne—anthem. In "Gammer Gurton's Garland," 1783, the burden is "Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme." In one of Motherwell's MSS. it stands, "Every rose grows merry wi' thyme." These are attempts made to give sense where the meaning of the original word was lost.

In Folk-Song Journal, vol. i. p. 83, is a version from Sussex: "Sing Ivy, Sing Ivy."

49. Lullaby. Noted by me from recollection, as sung by a nurse, Anne Bickle of Bratton Clovelly, about 1842. James Olver of Launceston also knew the tune. The words I have re-composed to the best of my ability.

50. The Gipsy Countess. The melody of the first part from James Parsons, that of the second from John Woodrich. Versions also from Peter Cheriton, shoemaker, Oakford, near Tiverton; William Setter and George Kerswell, Two Bridges, Dartmoor. Robert Browning composed on this theme his poem, "The Flight of the Duchess," having heard a beggar woman sing the ballad. Mrs. Gibbons told me she heard the whole ballad sung by her nurse in Cornwall, about 1830.

The Scottish version of the ballad is that of "Johnny Faa," in Allan Ramsay's "Tea-Table Miscellany," 1724, from which it passed into all collections of Scottish songs. Allan Ramsay's version turns on a story—utterly unhistorical—that Lady Jean Hamilton, married to the grim Covenanter, John, Earl of Cassilis, fell in love with, and eloped with, Sir John Faa of Dunbar, who came to the castle disguised as a gipsy along with some others. She was pursued, and Faa and his companions were hung. No such an event took place. The Scotch are wont to take an old ballad, give it local habitation and name, and so make it out to be purely Scottish. My impression is that this was an old English ballad dealt with by Ramsay. It may have been so adapted for political purposes, as a libel on Lady Cassilis, who was the mother of Bishop Burnet's wife. An Irish form of the ballad in the British Museum (1162, k 6). For a full account of the "Johnny Faa" ballad, see Child's "English and Scottish Ballads," No. 200. He is of opinion that the English ballad is taken from the Scottish. I think the reverse is the case. Parsons sang right through without division of parts. I have made the division, so as to allow of the use of both airs; but actually the second is a modern corruption of the first, and is interesting as showing how completely a melody may undergo transformation. Mr. Sharp has given a Somersetshire version of the ballad in his "Folk Songs from Somerset," No. 9.

51. The Grey Mare. The melody and a fragment of the song were taken down from J. Hockin, South Brent, and again from James Olver. Neither could recall all the words. There are two forms of the ballad on Broadsides. Both are printed by Mr. Kidson in his "Traditional Tunes." Mr. Sheppard recast the words.

52. The Wreck off Scilly. Words and melody from James Parsons. The ballad as sung consisted of seven verses. Broadside by Catnach. The last verse in this is nonsense, and I have re-written this verse. Under the title "The Rocks of Scilly," it occurs, in twenty-two verses, in "The Sailor's Tragedy," Glasgow, 1802.

53. Henry Martyn. Words and melody from Roger Luxton, Halwell. Again, from Matthew Baker, James Parsons, and from a shepherd on Dartmoor. The versions slightly differed, as far as words went. In one, Henry Martyn receives his death-wound; in another, it is the king's ship that is sunk by the pirate.

Mr. Kidson has printed two versions of the song in his "Traditional Tunes," from Yorkshire sources. Miss Broadwood has also collected it, Folk-Song Journal, vol. i. p. 162, in Sussex.

Henry Martyn is a corruption of Andrew Barton. In 1476, a Portuguese squadron seized a richly laden ship, commanded by John Barton, in consequence of which letters of reprisal were granted by James IV. to the three sons, Andrew, Robert, and John, and these were renewed in 1506. Hall, in his "Chronicle," under 1511, says that King Henry VIII. being at Leicester, tidings reached him that Andrew Barton so stopped the king's ports that the merchant vessels could not pass out, and he seized their goods, pretending that they were Portuguese. Sir Edward Howard, Lord High Admiral, and Sir Thomas Howard were sent against him. Their two ships were separated, but a fight ensued, in which Andrew was wounded, and his vessel, the Lion, was taken. He died of his wounds.

The ballad was re-composed in the reign of James I., and this is published in Percy's "Relicks" and in Evans' "Old Ballads." For an account of Sir Andrew Barton, see Child's "English and Scottish Ballads," No. 167. The ballad in full in Percy's MS. book is in sixty-four stanzas. Our form of the ballad is probably earlier, but it is incomplete. I have added the last verse to give a finish to the story. The tune is in the Æolian mode.

54. Plymouth Sound. Melody taken down from Roger Luxton to a song of this name. There are three songs that go by the title of "Plymouth Sound" on Broadsides, by Keys, of Devonport, and by Such; but all are coarse and undesirable. I have therefore written fresh words to this delicious air.

55. The Fox. In the early part of last century this song was sung at all harvest suppers in the West of England. It is known elsewhere, but not to the same tune. A version of "The Fox" in the tenth volume of "Notes and Queries," 1854, is spoken of as "an old Cornish Song." In "Gammer Gurton's Garland," circ. 1783, is one verse of the song. It occurs in "The Opera, or Cabinet of Song," Edinburgh, 1832. Halliwell, in his "Nursery Rhymes," Percy Soc., 1842, gives a fuller version than ours. He begins—

In a collection of songs in the British Museum is the ballad on a Broadside by Harkness of Birmingham. It begins—

The tune we give was taken down from James Parsons. There were two other airs to which it was sung in other parts of England. These I give—

Music: The Fox, II.

[Listen] [XML]

Music: III.

[Listen] [XML]

56. Furze Bloom. The melody from Roger Luxton to the words of the ballad, "Gosport Beach," which could not possibly be inserted here. I have accordingly written fresh words to it, embodying the folk-saying in Devon and Cornwall—

57. The Oxen Ploughing. This song was known throughout Devon and Cornwall at the beginning of the 19th century. It went out of use along with the oxen at the plough. We found every old singer had heard it in his boyhood, but none could recall more than snatches of the tune and some of the words. We were for three years on its traces, always disappointed. Then we heard that there was an old man at Liskeard who could sing the song through. Mr. Sheppard and I hastened thither, to find that he had been speechless for three days, and that his death was hourly expected. One day I found an old white-headed and white-bearded man cutting ferns in the hedges at Trebartha in Cornwall. His name was Adam Landry. We got into conversation. I had heard he was a singer, and I asked after this especial song. He knew it. I sat down among the cut fern and learned it from him, singing it over and over till I had it by heart, and then drove home eighteen miles, warbling it the whole way, and went to my piano and fixed it. Later we found a labouring man, Joseph Dyer, at Mawgan-in-Pyder, who could sing the song through.

Mr. Sharp has also taken this down note for note in North Devon from an old farmer, Mr. Lake of Worlington, who remembered the use of oxen ploughing.

A very similar folk-song is found in France, with its refrain, naming the oxen—

See George Sand's account of the song in "Le mare au diable," c. 2; Tiersot, op. cit., p. 157.

58. Flora, The Lily of The West. Two melodies have been noted down to this ballad, one from Matthew Baker, the old cripple on Lew Down, the other from Samuel Fone. The first is identical with one obtained in Yorkshire by Mr. Kidson.

The words are on Broadsheets by Such, Fortey, Barr of Leeds, etc.

In the original the lover betrayed by Flora stabs to the heart the "lord of high degree" who has supplanted him—

He is tried for murder, but "a flaw was in the indictment found," and he escapes the gallows. And the ballad winds up—

I have thought it well to cut out the murder and the trial.

The ballad has clearly an Irish origin, what air is used for it in Ireland I am unable to say. It has been generally accepted that the ending of a phrase on the same three notes is characteristic of Irish music. It is not more so than of English folk airs. "Flora, the Lily of the West" was wont to be sung annually at the Revel at St. Breward's on the Bodmin Moors, and can be traced back there to 1839. There Henry Hawken, sexton at Michaelstow, hard by, acquired it, and from him the first melody was taken down as well by the Rev. W.J. Wyon, vicar of St. Issey, in 1899.

59. The Simple Ploughboy. This charming ballad was taken down, words and music, from J. Masters, Bradstone. The Broadside versions that were published by Fortey, Hodges, Taylor of Spitalfields, Ringham of Lincoln, and Pratt of Birmingham, are all very corrupt. The version of old Masters is given exactly as he sang it, and it is but one instance out of many of the superiority of the ballads handed down traditionally in the country by unlettered men, to those picked up from the ballad-mongers employed by the Broadside publishers.

A version of the song, "It's of a Pretty Ploughboy," is given in the Folk-Song Journal, vol. i. p. 132, as taken down in Sussex. The words are very corrupt, and they closely resemble those on Broadsides.

60. Fair Lady Pity Me. Taken down from a labouring man at Exbourne. The melody is ancient and dates from the Tudor period. The words are a fragment from "The Noble Lord's Cruelty," "Roxburgh Ballads," ed. Ebsworth, vi. 681-3. Its date is before 1624. But that was to be sung to the tune, "Dainty come Thou to Me," which is in Chappell, ii. p. 517. A ballad, "The Four Wonders of the Land," printed by P. Brocksby, 1672-95, was set to the tune, "Dear Love Regard My Grief," which are the initial words of this song, and shows that already the long ballad had been broken up.

This song has already been given, arranged by Dr. Bussell, who took it down, in "English Minstrelsie," iv. p. 84.

61. The Painful Plough. Words and melody from Roger Huggins, mason, Lydford. It is in reality a much longer song. Under the title of "The Ploughman's Glory" it runs to 25 verses. Bell gives 9 in his "Ballads of the English Peasantry." It is found on Broadsides. In the original it consists of a contention between a ploughman and a gardener as to which exercises the noblest profession. Our air is not the same as that to which the song is sung in the Midlands and south-east of England. Dr. Barrett gives the song in his "English Folk-Songs," No. 3, to a North Country air.

62. At the Setting of the Sun. This very curious ballad has been taken down twice, from Samuel Fone by Mr. Sheppard, and again by Mr. Cecil Sharp from the singing of Louie Hooper and Lucy White at Hambridge, Somerset, to a different air. Fone had forgotten portions of the song. The man who mistakes his true love for a swan because she had thrown her apron over her head as a protection from the rain is tried at the assizes for the murder—

And he is, of course, acquitted.

In Fone's version she appears in dream to her lover as a swan, and comforts him, but the sequel of the story he could not recall.

The ballad is found in a fragmentary condition in Kent—

And the apparition of the girl says—

This was heard in 1884, sung by a very old man at a harvest supper at Haverstall Doddington, near Faversham.

The transformation of the damsel into a swan stalking into the Court is an early feature, and possibly the ballad may be a degraded form of a very ancient piece.

This ballad, arranged as a song with accompaniment by Mr. Ferris Tozer, has been published by Messrs. Weeks.

Mr. Sharp has given the song to a different air in his "Folk-Songs from Somerset," No. 16.

63. All Jolly Fellows that follow the Plough. This song is very generally known. We have picked up four variants of the tune. Miss Broadwood gives one from Oxfordshire and one from Hampshire, but hers lack the chorus. Mr. C. Sharp has also gathered three. He says: "I find that almost every singer knows it, the bad singers often know but little else. Perhaps it is for this reason that the tune is very corrupt, the words are almost always the same."

In the second verse we have the breakfast described as consisting of bread and cheese and stingo. In Miss Broadwood's version the breakfast consists of cold beef and pork; the drink is not specified.

64. The Golden Vanity. Taken down, words and air, from James Oliver. The ballad was printed as "Sir Walter Raleigh sailing in the Lowlands, showing how the famous ship called the Sweet Trinity was taken by a false galley; and how it was recovered by the craft of a little sea-boy, who sunk the galley," by Coles, Wright, Vere, and Conyers (1648-80). In this it is said that the ballad is to be sung "to the tune of The Lowlands of Holland," and in it there is ingratitude shown to the poor sea-boy of a severe character. In this version there are fourteen verses. It begins—

It has been reprinted in Child, No. 286, as also the earliest form of the ballad from the Pepys Collection. By writing some of the words as "awa'" and "couldna'," it has been turned into a Scottish ballad. Under the form of "The Goulden Vanity," it is given with an air (of no value) in Mrs. Gordon's "Memoirs of Christopher North," 1862, ii. p. 317, as sung at a convivial meeting at Lord Robertson's, by Mr. P. Fraser of Edinburgh.

We obtained the same ballad at Chagford as "The Yellow Golden Tree." "Sir Walter Raleigh," says Mr. Ebsworth, in his introduction to the ballad in the "Roxburgh Ballads" (v. p. 418), "never secured the popularity, the natural affection which were frankly given to Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex. Raleigh was deemed arrogant, selfish, with the airs of an upstart, insolent to superiors, unconciliating with equals, and heartlessly indifferent to those in a lower position. The subject of the ballad is fictitious—sheer invention, of course. The selfishness and ingratitude displayed by Raleigh agreed with the current estimate. He certainly had a daughter."

In the ballad in the Pepys Collection the Sweet Trinity, a ship built by Sir Walter Raleigh, has been taken by a galley of a nationality not specified. He asks whether any seaman will take the galley and redeem his ship: the reward shall be a golden fee and his daughter. A ship-boy volunteers and with his auger bores fifteen holes in the galley and sinks her, and releases the Sweet Trinity. Then he swims back to his ship and demands his pay. The master will give golden fee but not his daughter. The ship-boy says, Farewell, since you are not so good as your word.

In the stall copy of the ballad, the master refuses to take the boy on board after he had sunk the galley, and threatens to shoot him, and the boy is drowned. Then he is picked up, is sewed in a cow-hide and thrown overboard.

Mr. Kidson has obtained no less than four different versions from sailors.

A version from Sussex is in Folk-Song Journal, vol. i. p. 104. Another in Miss Broadwood's "English County Songs." It is also in Ferris Tozer's "Sailors' Songs and Chanties." The black letter ballad of "Sir Walter Raleigh Sailing in the Lowlands low ... or the Sweet Trinity" was priced in Russell Smith's catalogue, £1, 5s.

65. The Bold Dragoon. Words and melody taken down by W. Crossing, Esq., many years ago, from a labouring man on Dartmoor, now dead. The words were very corrupt. We took down the words and tune from Moses Cleve at Huckaby Bridge, Dartmoor. An early version of the words as "The Jolly Trooper," in "The Lover's Garland," N.D., but of the beginning of the 18th century. The original is too coarse for reproduction and is lengthy. I have condensed the ballad and softened it down. The press mark in the British Museum is 11,621, c 5.

66. Trinity Sunday. Melody noted down by T.S. Cayzer, Esq., in 1849, at Post Bridge, from a moor man. The original words were unsuitable, a Broadside ballad of a murder.[32] I have written fresh words.

In connection with this charming air, I will give Mr. Cayzer's account of taking it down in 1849, which he has kindly extracted for me from his diary:—"This air, together with 'As Johnny walked out' (No. 11), I got from Dartmoor; nor shall I soon forget the occasion. The scene was a lonely one (I think Two Bridges, but it may have been Post Bridge). It had been raining all day. There was not a book in the house, nor musical instrument of any kind, except two hungry pigs and a baby that was being weaned. Towards nightfall there dropped in several miners and shepherds, and I well remember how the appearance of these Gentiles cheered us. We soon got up a glorious fire—such a fire as peat only can make, and drew the benches and settles round. By the friendly aid of sundry quarts of cyder I, before long, gained the confidence of the whole circle, and got a song from each in turn; and noted down two that were quite new to me: no easy matter, considering that they were performed in a strange mixture of double bass and falsetto. The action with which they accompanied the singing was extremely appropriate. They always sing standing."

Many a similar evening have Mr. Sheppard, Mr. Bussell, and I spent in like manner over the peat fire with the burly, red-faced moor men and shepherds, standing to sing their quaint old songs, and very happy evenings they have been.

The same melody was taken down by Miss Wyatt Edgell from an old woman near Exeter, in 1891. The words sung to it related to the same Oxford Tragedy, but were a version different from the stall copy.

67. The Blue Flame. Melody taken down by Mr. W. Crossing, from an old moor man, to "Rosemary Lane." Roger Luxton and James Parsons also sang "Rosemary Lane" to the same air. The words are objectionable. Moreover, in other parts of England, this Broadside song is always sung to one particular air. We therefore thought it well to put to our melody entirely fresh words.

It was a common belief in the West of England that a soul after death appeared as a blue flame; and that a flame came from the churchyard to the house of one doomed to die, and hovered on the doorstep till the death-doomed expired, when the soul of the deceased was seen returning with the other flame, also as a flame, to the churchyard.

68. Strawberry Fair. Melody taken down from James Masters. This is a very old song. It is found with music in "Songs and Madrigals of the 15th Century," published by the Old English Plain-Song Society, 1891. The ballad was recast "Kytt has lost her Key," which is given by Dr. Rimbault in his "Little Book of Songs and Ballads gathered from Ancient Music Books," 1851, p. 49. We have been forced to re-write the words, which were very indelicate. The air was used, in or about 1835, by Beuler, a comic song writer, for "The Devil and the Hackney Coachman"—

"Ben was a Hackney coachman sure,
Jarvey! Jarvey!—Here I am, your honour."

I have never found a singer who had any knowledge of Beuler's song, but all have heard "Strawberry Fair," and some men of seventy or eighty years of age say they learned it from their fathers.

69. The Country Farmer's Son. Taken down from James Woolrich, a labourer, at Broadwood Widger. The original ballad, "The Constant Farmer's Son," is found on a Broadside by Ross of Newcastle. I have re-written the song. The fine, robust tune belongs to the end of the 18th century. See Folk-Song Journal, i. p. 160.

70. The Hostess' Daughter. Taken down from J. Masters, Bradstone. The coarseness of the original words obliged me to re-write the song.

71. The Jolly Goss-hawk. Melody taken down from H. Westaway to "The Nawden Song," which begins—

To the 2nd of May is "a two twitty bird," then "a dushy cock," a "four-legged pig," "five steers," "six boars," "seven cows calving," "eight bulls roaring," "nine cocks crowing," "ten carpenters yawing," "eleven shepherds sawing," "twelve old women scolding." Mr. C. Sharp has taken it down in Somersetshire. A Scottish version in Chambers' "Popular Rhymes of Scotland," 1842; as "The Yule Days," a Northumbrian version; "The XII. days of Christmas," with air not like ours, in "Northumbrian Minstrelsy," Newcastle, 1882, p. 129.

A Breton version, "Gousper ou ar Ranad" in "Chansons Populaires de la Basse Bretagne," by Luzel, 1890, p. 94. The West of England song has got mixed up with the "Goss Hawk," another song. See "The Fond Mother's Garland," B.M. (11,621, c 5). A companion song to this is "The Bonny Bird," given further on in this collection, No. 106. The song, in Devonshire, goes by the name of "The Nawden Song."

72. The Song of the Moor. The melody was taken down at Merrivale Bridge, Dartmoor, from a quarryman named Nankivel, commonly known as "Old Capul." To this air he sang a farcical ballad, "The Infant," quite unworthy of it. I have, accordingly, written fresh words to a really good swinging tune.

The original began as follows—

And so on through a string of absurdities. It is apparently a modernised version of "The Jovial Broomman," by R. Climsall, published by R. Harper, 1635-1642. "Roxburgh ballads," ed. Chappell, i. p. 500.

73. On a May Morning so Early. This melody belongs to the ballad "I'm Seventeen on Sunday." This begins—

For good reasons we could not give the words as taken down, so Mr. Sheppard wrote fresh words to the tune. The ballad was obtained from Roger Huggins, Lydford, and from William Bickle, Bridestowe, but it is known and sung throughout Devon and Cornwall. The original ballad was altered by Burns to "The Waukrife Mammy" for Johnson's "Museum," iv. p. 210, and Allan Cuningham also arranged a song on the same theme, as the original was objectionable. Lyle gives it in his "Ballads," 1827, saying: "This ballad, in its original dress, at one time, from my recollection, was not only extremely popular, but a great favourite among the young peasantry of the West of Scotland. To suit the times, however, we have been necessitated to throw out the intermediate stanzas, as their freedom would not bear transcription, whilst the second and third have been slightly altered from the recited copy." An Irish version (re-written) to the Irish air, by Joyce, "Ancient Irish Music," 1873, No. 17. He says: "I cannot tell when I learned the air and words of this song, for I have known them as long as my memory can reach back. For several reasons [the original words] could not be presented to the reader."

Burns, when forwarding the ditty to Johnson, said of it: "I picked up this old song and tune from a country girl in Nithsdale; I never met with it elsewhere in Scotland." The words may be found on Broadsheets, printed by Such and by Bebbington, Manchester. Mr. Kidson has recovered several versions in Yorkshire, and one is given in the Folk-Song Journal, vol. i. p. 92, as taken down in Sussex, and two were in vol. ii. p. 9 noted down by Mr. Sharp in Somerset. Our tune is in the Dorian mode.

74. The Spotted Cow. Words and air from James Parsons, J. Helmore, H. Smith, and J. Woodrich. Mr. Sharp has also taken it down in N. Devon and in Somerset.

The earliest form of the words is found in a garland printed by Angus of Newcastle, B.M. (11,621, c 4). There are later Broadside versions. The words also in Fairburne's "Everlasting Songster," circ. 1825. Mr. Kidson gives the song in his "Traditional Tunes," p. 70, but to a melody different from ours. About 1760 Dr. Berg set the song, recast in a Scotch form: "As Jamie gang'd blithe his way along the banks of Tweed," to be sung at Ranelagh. As sung, the ballad consists of four lines in a stanza, and the two last are repeated; and it is in seven stanzas. To shorten the ballad I have made each stanza consist of six lines. Our tune is not that of Dr. Berg. But it is redolent of the art-music of the 18th or early 19th century, and hardly possesses the character of folk-made song. Still, it is very freely sung by old people in Devon and Somerset.

75. Three Jovial Welshmen. Taken down from "Old Capul," Nankivel, Merrivale Bridge. The song is given in Halliwell's "Nursery Rhymes of England," 290. It is probably a very old ballad, for in a ballad, "Choice of Inventions," printed by F. Coles, 1646-74, in the Roxburgh Collection (ed. Chappell, i. p. 105), is given a pot-pourri of scraps, "several sorts of the figure three," and it begins—

The tune to which it was to be sung was "Rock the Cradle, sweet John," for which, see Chappell, i. p. 189.

Another, and more modern version, is that of "The Three Jovial Huntsmen"—

which has been illustrated by Caldecott.

The original ballad is in "The Woody Chorister," B.M. (1162, e 2).

This is one of the ballads Mr. Incledon Johns heard sung on the outskirts of Dartmoor in 1830, mentioned in his book, already noticed, published in 1832.

A version, "Six Jovial Welshmen," is given in vol. i. p. 128, Folk-Song Journal, from Sussex. It runs—

This is probably a re-edition of the older song.

76. Well met, well met, my own true Love. The words are a cento from the lengthy ballad of the "Carpenter's Wife," which, as we have taken it down, consists of twenty verses. The black letter Broadside, "The Carpenter's Wife," is a peculiarly interesting ballad. It is the story of one Jane Reynolds of Plymouth, who had plighted her troth to a seaman. As they were about to be married, he was pressed and carried off to sea. Three years later, news arrived that he was dead, and then she married a carpenter, and lived with him for five years, and bore him three children. At the end of seven years an evil spirit assumed the likeness of her dead lover, and appeared to her, and induced her to leave with him. He carried her off, and she was never seen again. The husband, in despair, hung himself. Such is the theme of a lengthy ballad in the Roxburgh Collection, ed. Chappell, iii. p. 200. There are copies as well in the Pepys and Ewing Collections. It was printed by F. Coles (1646-1674), Gilbertson (1654-1663), Vere (1640-1680), and W. Oney (1650-1702). It was a sorry composition.

Now, the traditional ballad, as compared with the printed ballad, is superior at every point. It begins abruptly with the address of the sailor to the carpenter's wife, without the long story that precedes his attempt to cajole her to elope. Moreover, there is in it no intimation that the tempter is an evil spirit in the form of the dead lover, and when she has eloped, she pines not for three, but for her one babe, whom she has deserted.

Thirteen of the verses of the traditional ballad are found in "The Rambler's Garland," B.M. (1162, c 2). A form closely resembling our Devon ballad is in Buchan's "Ballads of the North of Scotland," i. p. 214, but is longer, consisting of twenty-six stanzas. Kinloch, Motherwell, and Laidlaw have also portions of it. Laidlaw, in a letter to Scott, January 3, 1803, says of the ballad, as sung to him by Walter Grieve: "He likewise sung part of a very beautiful ballad which I think you will not have seen.... The tune is very solemn and melancholy, and the effect is mixed with a considerable proportion of horror." See Child, No. 243.

The printed ballad that is in the Roxburgh Collection is, I feel convinced, a clumsy re-writing of the earlier ballad, so as to convey a moral, as its title implies, "A Warning to Married Women." James Harris is the demon lover. In the traditional ballad, when the carpenter's wife has eloped, she falls into deep depression—

There is another ballad running on somewhat similar lines, "The Undutiful Daughter," who is in like manner enticed away; but the ship will not proceed, and lots are cast who is to be thrown overboard. The lot falls on the girl, and she is cast into the sea, but the body swims before the ship and reaches land first. This ballad we have taken down several times.

The last verse (six) I have added to make some sort of conclusion to the song.

What the air is to which the ballad is sung in Scotland I do not know.

77. Poor Old Horse. Words and melody from Matthew Baker. The song is given in Bell's "Ballads of the English Peasantry," p. 184, as sung by the mummers in the neighbourhood of Richmond, Yorkshire. He says: "The rustic actor who sings this song is dressed as an old horse, and at the end of every verse the jaws are snapped in chorus. It is a fine composition, and is now (1864) printed for the first time." This is not so; it has long existed on Broadside by Hodges of Seven Dials, and Such, etc. The Midland air of the song in Mason's "Nursery Rhymes and Country Songs," 1877. Mr. Kidston has obtained several versions of the song in Yorkshire and Lancashire. A fine setting was sung at the Folk-Song Competition at Kendal in 1903. It is given in Folk-Song Journal, vol. i. pp. 75 and 260.

In "Sailors' Songs and Chanties," Boosey & Co., the song is given under the title of "The Dead Horse." In Derbyshire, at Christmas, boys and young men were wont, and may be still are wont, to go about, one dressed as a horse, with a horse's skull in his hands or affixed to his head; then this song was sung by the attendants and money asked for the feeding of the beast, and the head was made to snap its jaws. The song is also given in Topcliff's "Melodies of the Tyne and Wear," N.D., but circ. 1815, and is also found on Broadsides by Such.

Mr. Sharp has given a version in his "Folk-Songs from Somerset," No. 27.

78. The Dilly Song. An almost endless number of versions of this song have been taken down, and have been sent to us. It is known throughout Cornwall, and is, indeed, still sung in the chapels. When a party of amateurs performed the "Songs of the West" in Cornwall, 1890, the Dilly Song always provoked laughter among the good folk at the back of the halls. This puzzled the performers, till they learned that folk laughed because this was their familiar chapel hymn. In the text I have given the version of the words with least of the religious element in them. Here are some of the other versions—

2. "God's own Son, or Christ's Natures"; or "The strangers o'er the wide world rangers"; or "The lily-white maids."

3. "Three is all eternity"; "Three are the Thrones." The strangers are probably the Wise Men from the East.

4. "The Gospel Preachers"; "The Evangelists."

5. "The Ferryman in the Boat"; "The Nimble Waiters."

6. "The Cherubim Watchers"; "The Crucifix"; "The Cherrybird Waiters."

7. "The Crown of Heaven"; "The Seven Stars."

8. "The Great Archangel"; "The Angels"; "The Daybreak."

9. "The Nine Delights," i.e. the Joys of Mary; "The Moonshine."

10. "The Commandments"; "Begin Again."

11. "The Eleven Disciples"; "They that go to Heaven."

There are similar verses in German and Flemish; a Scottish version in Chambers' "Popular Rhymes," 1842, p. 50. Also found in Brittany: Luzel, "Chansons Populaires," 1890, p. 88. There is a MediÆval Latin form, beginning "Unus est Deus." A Hebrew form is printed in Mendez: "Service for the First Night of the Passover," London, 1862; a Moravian form in Wenzig: "Slavischer MÄrchen-Schatz," 1857, p. 295. It is also sung in the Eifel, Schmitz: "Sitten u. BrÄuche des Eifler Volkes," Trier, 1856, p. 113. A Greek form is in Sanders: "Volksleben der Neugriechen." See also: Coussemaker, "Chants populaires des Flamands," Gand, 1850; VillemarquÉ, Barzas Breis, 1846, and later editions.

The lily-white boys are probably the Gemini, or sign for Spring. In the "Queen-like Closet, or Rich Cabinet," 1681, are instructions for embroidering emblems of the months. "May is to be clothed in a robe of white and green, and his sign must be Gemini."

"The Ferryman in the Boat" is perhaps Charon. In other versions Five is the Dilly-bird, or the Dilly-hour, "when blooms the dilly-flower."

Some are obviously merely adopted as rhymes, as "six the crucifix."

In Cornwall and Devon the song goes by the name of "The Dilly Song." What the meaning of "Dilly" is must remain uncertain. Possibly it signifies the Festal Song (Welsh, dillyn, pretty, gay).

The song used to be sung by Eton boys. It was introduced by Sir Arthur Sullivan into "The Yeomen of the Guard"; he, I believe, heard it sung by a sailor. His melody bears a certain relationship to ours. The song requires to be sung by at least two persons, a questioner and the responder.

79. Country Dance. This dance tune, called "The Mallard," because of some silly words that go to it relative to the gobbling up of a mallard. It begins—

The singer proceeds to eat the foot, then the leg, the thigh, the rump, the wing, the back, the breast, the neck, the head; and then the dance was concluded. A Breton version in Luzel, p. 80. I have written fresh words to the tune.

This tune is in the Dorian mode. As sung by J. Masters, the E was sharpened in the 3rd bar but flattened on the repetition of the same phase in the penultimate bar. Mr. Sheppard, when arranging the song, flattened the E throughout. It must be one thing or the other. Flattened throughout, it makes a charming melody, but the last flattened E was probably due to the singer's memory failing him in the latter part of the air, but serving him at the beginning of the tune. Mr. Sharp has accordingly retained the E natural throughout. The opening phrase is similar to the Plain-Song Easter Carol, "O Filii et FiliÆ." This was a melody used in French folk-song for the welcoming in of spring. In fact, a May song. It forced its way into the service of the Church, and was adopted and used for the Easter Sequence. See Tiersot, op. cit., pp. 361, 391. It is certainly curious finding the same in Devonshire folk-music. Neither Mr. Sheppard nor I observed it; it was pointed out by Mr. Sharp.

80. Constant Johnny. Words and melody taken down from Roger Luxton. It was a dialogue, and so Mr. Sheppard had arranged it. Such lover dialogues are and were very commonly sung in farmhouses. Ravenscroft gives one in broad Devonshire in his "Brief Discourse," 1614, entitled, "Hodge Trellindle and his Zweethart Malkyn." Our ballad seems to be based on "Doubtful Robin and Constant Nanny," circ. 1680, in the "Roxburgh Ballads."

These dialogue songs between a lover and his lass were very popular. Addison, in The Guardian of 1713, gives snatches of a West Country ballad of this kind, and shows how vastly superior it is to the pastorals of Dresden china shepherds and shepherdesses of Pope and Philips.

81. The Duke's Hunt. Words and melody taken from James Olver, again at Stoke Gabriel, again at Mary Tavy, again at Menheniot. This is a mere cento from a long ballad, entitled "The Fox Chase," narrating a hunt by Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham, in the reign of Charles II. It is in the Roxburgh Collection, and was printed by W. Oury, circ. 1650. The ballad is there said to be sung "to an excellent tune, much in request." We suspect that the melody we give is the original tune handed down traditionally, and never before published. Mr. Sharp has noted down the same song and melody from a singer at East Harptree, Somerset.

82. The Bell Ringing. Words and air from William George Kerswell, Two Bridges, Dartmoor; sung also by James Down, blacksmith, Broadwood Widger. Broadbury Down is the highest ridge of land between Dartmoor and the Atlantic.

83. A Nutting we will go. Taken down from J. Gerrard, an old man, nearly blind, at Cullyhole, near Chagford, from Robert Hard, and again at Menheniot, and also from James Parsons. Bunting, in his "Irish Melodies," 1840, gives the same tune to a fragment of the same words, and says that he took it down in 1792 from Duncan, a harper. Duncan remembered a portion of a tune he had heard, perhaps, from English soldiers, and eked it out with some other tune. Then came S. Lover, and he took this air from Bunting, and wrote to it "The Lowbacked Car." But the original melody is found, not only in Devon and Cornwall, but also in the North, and Mr. Kidson gives it in his "Traditional Tunes," as "With Henry Hunt we'll go," a song sung in Manchester in connection with the arrest of Hunt in 1819. To the same air was set "The Plains of Waterloo." "The Lowbacked Car" has become popular through its words, and the inartistic quality of a patchwork tune has been forgiven for their sake.

The words "The Nutgirl" occur on Broadsides by Fortey, Such, etc. See Ballads collected by Crampton, B.M. (11,621, h), and (1875, b 19); but these are without the chorus. The printed Broadside has lost somewhat. For Gerard's—

it gives—

The Broadside ballad consists of fourteen verses, and is very gross. I have had to considerably tone down the words.

An earlier Broadside by Pitts has the chorus.

The same air was employed for the ballads, "In January last, on Monday at Morn," for "The Brags of Washington," 1775, for "Calder Fair," and "To Rodney we will go." It is given in the third edition of "Scotch, Irish, and Foreign Airs," Glasgow, 1788.

A version is in Folk-Song Journal, vol. i. p. 127, as taken down in Sussex. This version begins—

84. Down by a River Side. Taken down from the singing of James Townsend, Holne. He had learned it from his grandfather, who had been parish clerk of Holne for fifty years and died in 1883, over eighty years old. A version, recovered in Surrey, is given in the Folk-Song Journal, vol. i. p. 204.

85. The Barley Rakings. Taken down from Roger Hannaford, Lower Widdecombe, Dartmoor. The words exist in Broadside versions by Such, Bingham of Lincoln, Robertson of Wigton, etc. Such's version consists of six verses, the others of four. Hannaford's verses 2 and 3 were unlike those of Bingham and Robertson, but resembled 3 and 4 of Such. He had not 2 and 6 of Such. He had a curious line in verse 2: "They had a mind to style and play" (the Anglo-Saxon styllan, to leap or dance), not found in the printed copies. As none of these versions would be tolerable to polite ears, Mr. Sheppard has modified the words considerably. The melody to which "Barley Rakings" is sung in other parts of England is wholly different. Ours is probably an early dance tune, originally in the Mixolydian Mode, which has undergone modification in oral transmission.

86. A Ship came Sailing over the Sea. This curious song was obtained by the late Rev. S.M. Walker of Saint Enoder, Cornwall, from a very old man in his parish, and it was sent me by Miss Octavia L. Hoare. We heard the same from old Sally Satterley at Huckaby Bridge, Dartmoor. She was the daughter of an old crippled singing man on the moor. I have told the story of the way in which she as a young bride with her husband took possession of a house built all in one day, in my Dartmoor Idylls, "Jolly Lane Cott." Sally is now dead, and her house has been rebuilt and vulgarised. One verse, running—

is found in "The Distressed Virgin," a ballad by Martin Parker, printed by J. Coles, 1646-74. Parker seems to have taken the lines into his ballad from one previously existing. Two of the stanzas, 3 and 6, occur in the Scottish song, "Wally, wally up the Bank," in "Orpheus Caledonicus," 1733, No. 34; the stanzas 4 and 5 in the song in "The Scot's Musical Museum," 1787-1803, vi. p. 582. In "The Wandering Lover's Garland," circ. 1730, are two of the verses worked into another ballad.

We took down the song a third time from William Nichols of Whitchurch, near Tavistock. It was a song of his grandmother's, who seventy years ago was hostess of the village inn.

87. The Rambling Sailor. Words and music from Roger Hannaford. A hornpipe tune. There are several versions of this on Broadsides. Originally the song was "The Rambling Soldier," and so appears at the middle and latter end of the 18th century. Then some poetaster of Catnach's re-wrote it as "The Rambling Sailor," destroying all the point and wit of the original, which wit and point were not very choice. But as in the West, the ditty is set to a hornpipe tune, we have retained the song as one of a sailor, only modifying the words where objectionable. The earliest copy of "The Rambling Soldier" that I have seen was in the possession of Dr. Barrett; a later copy, circ. 1820, by Whiting of Birmingham, Ballads, B.M. (1876, c 2). "The Rambling Sailor," by Disley, circ. 1830, in Ballads collected by Crampton, B.M. (11,621), vol. viii.

Mr. Sharp has taken this song and air down in N. Devon and Somerset four or five times, in every case with a flattened 7th in the Mixolydian mode. Our version is clearly a modernised edition of the older tune.

88. Willie Combe. This ballad is known throughout the length and breadth of Cornwall, but it is sometimes mixed up with another, "The Alternon Volunteer." We have taken it down at least a score of times. Some of those from whom we have had it are Thomas Morris, parish clerk of Fowey; J. Libby, coachman at Tredethy, Bodmin; Anthony Pascoe, Liskeard; and Anne Painter, East Looe.

The incident referred to in the ballad is the accidental shooting of William Combe or Coome of St. Agnes, at the Revel or Village Feast at Crantock in 1721. In the parish register at this date is the entry: "William Coome of St Agnes, a youth about 20 years of age, who att the ffeast att this Parish recd his death of a shot; buried May 17."

Crantock Feast is on May 16.

There are a good many more verses in the original than are here given. They have no poetic merit; and the tune is not very original, but has a certain plaintive sweetness.

89. Midsummer Carol. Words and tune from William Aggett of Chagford. A very early and curious melody of the same date as the "May Day Carol," No. 47; and the words belong to a similar custom. Compare with this "Lemonday" in our "Garland of Country Songs." Originally doubtless an Æolian, perhaps a Dorian tune, that has been corrupted and modernised.

90. The Blackbird. The melody and words taken down from James Parson, Roger Hannaford, and John Voysey, labourer, Lew Down.

I re-wrote the ballad for the first edition, but in this I have restored the original words, only slightly modifying them.

A Broadside version has nine stanzas, and ends—

The same ballad in Lyle's Collection, 1827, "From Recollection; air plaintive and pastoral." A Broadside version of this ballad in nine stanzas by Williamson of Newcastle. Song and air are given also in Kidson's "Traditional Tunes," 1891, as taken down in Yorkshire; but that version of the melody is inferior to ours. A Welsh version of the tune comes nearer to ours.

91. The Green Bed. Taken down from J. Masters. We heard "The Outlandish Knight" sung to the same melody by Richard Gregory on Dartmoor. "The Green Bed" exists as a Broadside ballad in six double verses. Mr. Sheppard has re-written the ballad, and has condensed the story. The air somewhat resembles "The Girl I left behind me." See "Philander's Garland," circ. 1780, B.M. (11,621, c 4). See Folk-Song Journal, vol. i. p. 48.

92. The Loyal Lover. Words and air from Sally Satterley, Huckaby Bridge, again from Anne Roberts, Scobbetor, Widdecombe. The words exist in part in "Collin and Phoebe's Garland," B.M. (11,621, c 5). But this has two verses only. See also The Lover's Magazine, London, 1740, B.M. (11,621, c 26). This air has been harmonised in the Dorian mode, though as the 6th of the scale is absent, it might have been treated as an Æolian tune.

93. The Streams of Nantsian. Properly "The Streams of Lovely Nancy." Taken down by Miss Templer from the singing of harvesters in 1834; also by us from Matthew Ford, Menheniot; Matthew Baker, Lew Down; and James Oliver, Launceston. Matthew Baker said that he learned it, when aged ten, in 1827.

The ballad was printed by Keys of Devonport, circ. 1830, with four verses, of which verse 3 was an importation from another ballad. In other Broadside versions, the short original, consisting of four verses only, has been swelled out with scraps from other ballads to fill available space. Broadsides by Catnach, Whiting of Birmingham, etc.

94. The Drunken Maidens. Taken down from Edmund Fry, Lydford. This old ballad is found in "Charming Phillis' Garland," circ. 1710. It is in a Broadside by Crashaw of York, reprinted in Logan's "Pedlar's Pack," 1869, p. 241. The last verse has had to be modified.

A Breton version, "Merc'hed Caudan," is given by Luzel, ii. 142.

95. Tobacco is an Indian Weed. This old and famous song was written, it is thought, by George Withers, as Mr. Collier found a copy of it in MS. of the date of James I., with his initials to it. It is found in "Merry Drollery Complete," 1670, and on a Broadside dated 1672. We give the tune to which it is sung around Dartmoor and in Cornwall; this is entirely distinct from that to which it is sung elsewhere, as printed by Chappell, ii. p. 564, which is the air given by D'Urfey in his "Pills to Purge Melancholy," 1719, iii. 292. A Somerset version was sung at the Folk-Song Competition at Frome, 1904. Snatches of the song are given in "Handy Andy," so that we may assume that it is also well known among the Irish peasantry; another instance of the way in which English songs have travelled into Ireland. We took down our tune from John Potter, Merripit, Postbridge, and from Anne Roberts, Scobbetor, and H. Westaway, Belstone; also one obtained from an old man at Newton Abbot, sent to me.

In the original ballad, reprinted in Bell's "Songs and Ballads of the English Peasantry," there are many more stanzas than we can give here.

96. Fair Susan Slumbered. Music taken down from George Cole, quarryman, Rundlestone, Dartmoor. The words were so utterly worthless that Mr. Sheppard wrote a fresh copy of verses to the melody. Cole's first verses ran—

The original words are to be found in "The Vocal Library," London, 1822, No. 1,421: "As a Fair Maid walked."

97. The False Bride. Words and music taken down from old Sally Satterley.

The earliest copy in print with which I am acquainted is in "The New Pantheon Concert," 1773, B.M. (11,621, e 6). A re-writing of the theme is on a Broadside by Such, "When I heard he was married I stood not alone"; it is No. 592. See also a "Collection of Old Ballads," in the B.M., vol. i. p. 490, "The Forlorn Lover."

Mr. C. Sharp has obtained a fine air to the same words, and has published it in "Folk-Songs from Somerset," No. 20.

98. Barley Straw. Taken down from the singing of Mr. G.H. Hurell, the blind organist at Chagford, as he heard it sung by a carpenter, William Beare, in 1875. The words were very coarse, consequently Mr. Sheppard re-wrote the song. The air was used by A.S. Rich, without its most characteristic passages, for Hunneman's comic "Old King Cole," pub. circ. 1830. Much the same tune is in Akerman's "Wiltshire Tales," 1853, as a Wiltshire Harvest Home, p. 132. Harmonised in the Æolian mode, though the seventh of the scale is absent.

99. Death and the Lady. This was first sent to me by Captain Hall Munro, of Ingesdon House, Newton Abbot, as sung by an old man there. Subsequently we obtained the same from Roger Hannaford. This is quite different from the "Dialogue of Death and the Lady," found in black letter Broadsides, and given by Bell in his "Songs of the English Peasantry," p. 32. The tune to this latter is given by Chappell, i. p. 167. In Carey's "Musical Century," 1738, is given the air of "Death and the Lady" as "an old tune." But this melody and ours have nothing in common.

What is the signification of "branchey tree" in connection with Death, I am at a loss to say. "Death and the Lady" was one of the ballads sung by Farmer Williams in "The Vicar of Wakefield."

100. Both Sexes Give Ear to My Fancy. This old song is a favourite with the peasantry throughout England. The words are printed in Bell's "Songs of the English Peasantry," p. 231. He says, "We have had considerable trouble in procuring a copy of the old song, which used, in former days, to be very popular with aged people resident in the North of England. It has been long out of print, and handed down traditionally. By the kindness of Mr. S. Swindells, printer, Manchester, we have been favoured with an ancient printed copy." In the original the song consists of ten verses. The earliest copy of it that I know is in "The Lady's Evening Book of Pleasure," about 1740. It will be found in a collection of garlands made by Mr. J. Bell about 1812, and called by him "The Eleemosynary Emporium." It is in the British Museum. The air is found in "Vocal Music, or the Songster's Companion," 2nd ed., 1772, to the song, "Farewell, Ye Green Fields and Sweet Groves," p. 92. It was taken into "The Tragedy of Tragedies, or Tom Thumb," 1734, as the air to "In Hurry, Posthaste for a Licence," and was attributed to Dr. Arne. In "Die Familie Mendelssohn," vol. ii., is a scrap of music written down by Felix Mendelssohn, dated Leipzig, 16th August 1840, which is identical with the first few bars of this melody. But the earliest form of the air is in J.S. Bach's "Comic Cantata," where a peasant sings it.

We took the song down from John Rickards, Lamerton, and again from J. Benney, Menheniot. Mr. Kidson prints a Yorkshire version in his "Traditional Tunes," 1891. Miss L. Broadwood has noted it down from the singing of a baker at Cuckfield, Sussex. Dr. Barrett gives our melody to "The Gallant Hussar," No. 13. We have also taken it down to this ballad; so has Mr. Sharp in Somerset.

101. I Rode My Little Horse. Words and music from Edmund Fry, Lydford, and again from John Bennett, a labourer at Chagford, and from John Hunt, a shepherd, Postbridge.

Compare with this the ballad in d'Urfey's "Pills to Purge Melancholy," named "Jolly Roger Twangdillo," 1719, i. p. 19. A Broadside copy of the ballad exists, printed by Jennings, of Waterlane, London, circ. 1790.

The same theme is used in a ballad in the Pepysian Collection. See Ebsworth, "Roxburgh Ballads," vii. 231. Each verse ends—

"I vow I will marry, but I know not when."

102. Among the New-Mown Hay. Bell, in his "Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry," p. 223, gives this song. He says that it is "a village version of an incident which occurred in the Cecil family." Tennyson composed his "Lord of Burleigh" on the same topic. So did Moore his song, "You remember Helen, the hamlet's pride." But it may well be questioned whether either of these compositions comes up to the grace of the little "village version" of the tale.

The ballad, however, is probably earlier than the Cecil marriage, and refers to some other legendary mÉsalliance. Henry Cecil, afterwards Earl and still later first Marquis of Exeter, saw, loved, and married a farmer's daughter named Sarah Hoggins, at Bolas Magna in Staffordshire, in 1790, he under the assumed name of John Jones. She was then aged seventeen, and he aged thirty-seven. Moreover, he was married at the time to Miss Vernon, a Worcestershire lady, to whom he had been united in 1776. In 1791, Henry Cecil obtained a divorce from his wife, Emma Vernon, and then was married in his proper name to Sarah Hoggins, at St. Mildred's, Bread Street, in the City of London. Not fully six years later the "Cottage Countess" died; and after three years the widower espoused a divorcÉe, sometime wife of the eighth Duke of Hamilton. Happily no question as to the legitimacy of the children arose. Henry, the eldest, was not born till 1793. He died the same year; but his brother, Brownlow, born two years later, lived to succeed his father in 1804.

These plain facts take away most of the romance of the story of the "Cottage Countess." Moreover, Henry Cecil did not meet his Sarah among the new-mown hay. He arrived at Bolas in a chaise in a snow-storm, late in November 1788, and was lodged for a few nights in the farm. There he saw Sarah, who with friends was dancing. She was then only fifteen and a half years old. Cecil left, but returned in eighteen months and married her, as already said, under an assumed name, and before he was quit of his first wife. The whole story has been told in Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, part 60 (sixth series), December 1, 1902.

Melody taken down from James Dingle, Coryton.

103. I'll Build Myself a Gallant Ship. The words are a cento from a long ballad. The complete song was taken down from J. Watts, quarryman, Thrushleton. The entire ballad is in Logan's "Pedlar's Pack," p. 23. There are several Broadside versions. A Scottish version in Herd, "Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs," 1776, ii. p. 2. The air to which this is sung in Scotland is that to which Burns composed "Of a' the airts the wind can blaw." Joyce gives an Irish version in his "Ancient Irish Music," No. 68. Besides Watts' ballad, we had the fragment we give to the same air from Richard Cleave, since dead, at the "Forest Inn," Huckaby Bridge. Never shall I forget the occasion. Mr. Bussell and I drove across Dartmoor in winter in a furious gale of wind and rain to Huckaby in quest of an old man who, we had been informed, was a singer. We found the fellow, but he yielded nothing, and our long journey would have been fruitless, had we not caught Richard Cleave and obtained from him this air, which drive cost me a bronchitis attack that held me a prisoner for six weeks.

The song is given under the title "The Lowlands of Holland," in the Folk-Song Journal, vol. i. p. 97, as taken down in Sussex.

104. Colly my Cow. This is a portion of an old ballad in the Roxburgh Collection, ed. Chappell, iii. p. 601—

"Little Tom Dogget, what doest thou mean,
To kill thy poor Colly now she's so lean?
Sing oh! poor Colly, Colly my cow;
For Colly will give me no more milk now.
Pruh high, pruh hoe, pruh high, pruh hoe,
Pruh, pruh, pruh, pruh, pruh, pruh, pruh, tal-dal daw."

Printed by T. Passinger (1670-86) at the Seven Stars on London Bridge. The ballad is also found in the Rawlinson Collection and elsewhere. It was afterwards sung in a shortened form at the concerts in Marylebone Gardens, and is printed in "The Marylebone Concert," N.D.

In the heading to the old ballad we have—

But it is probable that the song originally turned on a different theme. On the 9th September 1605, a man was killed by a Protestant in the Rue de la Harpe, at Paris, for singing the song "De Colas." This song was composed by a seditious faction, with the intent of provoking the Huguenots, upon the subject of a cow which had walked into one of their conventicles during the performance of divine service. The cow, which belonged to a poor peasant named Colas, was killed by the Huguenots for her sacrilegious act. Thereupon the Catholics made a collection in every town and village in France to raise a sum for the indemnification of Colas. The day after the murder the singing of the song of "Colas his Cow," was forbidden under the penalty of the gallows, and it was even dangerous for anyone to hum the tune in the street ("Concert Room Anecdotes," 1825, ii. p. 230). The song must have been brought to England and adapted to English words after the Restoration, and as the story of the occasion of the killing of the cow was forgotten, it was altered. The tune is very old, and we had it from an aged woman at Kingsweare, who sang "The Abbot of Canterbury" to it. But this has its own tune, given by Chappell, i. p. 348. I have added the final verse.

105. Within A Garden. Taken down from Harry Smith, Two Bridges, Dartmoor. The original words were so poor, and so closely resembled those of "The Broken Token" (No. 44), that Mr. Shepherd wrote fresh words. The original began—

The ballad is published by Such as "The Young and Single Sailor," No. 126. It is also in "The Vocal Library," London, 1822, p. 525. It was printed on Broadside by Catnach as "The Sailor's Return." We obtained it again from James Parsons.

106. The Bonny Bird. Always sung as "My Bonny Boy." It is the companion song to the "Jolly Goss Hawk" (No. 71). Words and melody from Mary Langworthy, Stoke Fleming. We have taken this down from two other singers, but not to the same tune; one J. Doidge, of Chillaton, gave us an air characteristic and good. Miss Broadwood has the song in her "County Songs," pp. 146-7, but to a different melody.

In all the versions taken down from oral recitation, the word is Boy and not Bird, but Bird is the original word. The ballad was printed by J. Coles, 1646-74, and by W. Thackeray, 1660-1680, and is in the Douce Collection of early Broadsides in the Bodleian Library; also in the Pepysian Collection, and is printed by Ebsworth in the Roxburgh Ballads, viii. p. 359.

It was originally sung to "Cupid's Trepan," also called "Up the Green Forest," and "Bonny, Bonny Bird." This air is given by Chappell, ii. p. 557, but this differs from our tune entirely, as also from that given by Miss Broadwood. The ballad has not, as yet, been traced earlier than the reign of Charles II. It begins—

A later version is found, circ. 1780, in Single Sheet Broadsides, in the British Museum (11,621).

"Cupid's Trepan or Up the Green Forest" was priced in Russell Smith's Catalogue at £1, 11s. 6d.

107. The Lady and Apprentice. Taken down twice, the tune here given is that sung with these words by Samuel Fone. We got the melody also from Sally Satterley, but with her the words were in confusion. The ballad runs on the same lines, and is almost identical with "The Lady who fell in love with a 'Prentice Boy," printed as a Broadside by Pitts, 1790-1810; also by Harkness of Preston. A copy in the British Museum (1876, d). This ballad begins like that of "Cupid's Garden," which is well known. But the ballad is a mere cooking up by a balladmonger of the earlier theme, and very badly done.

The melody is actually the same as that of "Love's Tale" in our "Garland of Country Song."

108. Paul Jones. Taken down from a good many singers on and around Dartmoor. The melody is in the Mixolydian mode, and is very early and rugged, far older than the period of Paul Jones himself. Mr. C. Sharp says: "In my opinion the tune should perhaps never be harmonised at all. The whole air is cast in the chord of the dominant 7th, and, in the opinion of most authorities, this chord should end the song; but in view of the popular preference for a concord rather than a discord as the concluding harmony, I have ended with the usual cadence."

Paul Jones was the terror of our coasts; he was born near Kirkcudbright in 1747. His real name was John Paul. When the rupture took place between Great Britain and America, he enlisted under the Revolutionary flag, and assumed the name of Paul Jones. His daring disposition, and his knowledge of the British coast, pointed him out as a fitting leader in marauding schemes. Towards the end of 1777 he was actively employed, as commander, in fitting out the Ranger privateer, mounting eighteen guns, and manned with a crew of 150 men. We have not the space for narrating his daring exploits; his life has often been written, and a good notice of him will be found in the "Dictionary of National Biography." The fight described in the ballad took place on September 23, 1779. The body of Paul Jones was removed from Paris, where he died, to America in 1905.

The ballad is found on Broadsides. It is given by Logan in his "Pedlar's Pack," p. 32. Dr. Barrett, in his "English Folk-Songs," No. 33, has the ballad to the tune we have given here to "The Bonny Blue Kerchief," to which Paul Jones is quite unsuited.

109. The Merry Haymakers. This quaint carol-like song was taken down from John Woodrich, who learned it, about 1850, and he says that it was his father's favourite song, also from James Parsons. Neither knew the words in their entirety, but they may be found in "West Country Garlands," B.M. (11,621, b 11), and among the Broadsheets of Pitts, about the beginning of the nineteenth century, beginning "In the merry month of June." The words also in Bell's "Ballads of the English Peasantry," p. 171. Dr. Brushfield of Budleigh Salterton has kindly sent me a MS. copy of the end of the seventeenth century or early in the eighteenth. The words, however, did not fit the tune comfortably, and I was constrained to re-write the song.

"The Merry Haymakers" is in D'Urfey's "Pills," and as a Broadside printed by C.B. (Bates), 1695, was priced in Russell Smith's Catalogue, 1850, at three guineas.

110. In Bibberly Town. The air taken down from John Bennett, Chagford. In Broadsides the place is "Beverley Town," and is entitled "The Beverley Maid and the Tinker," printed by Catnach, B.M. (1876, c 2); as "The Tinker's Frolic," in a Garland in the British Museum, printed by Swindells, Manchester (11,621, b 14); as "The Tinker and Chambermaid," a Broadside by Harkness, Preston (1876, d). It begins—

It is a coarse ballad, and Mr. Sheppard re-wrote it. The first phrase in the melody is apparently a modernised edition of an older one. The rest of the air is ancient, and in the Mixolydian mode.

111. The Marigold. This ballad was first taken down by Davies Gilbert in 1830 from an old man named John Hockin, in his eighty-sixth year, at St. Erth, Cornwall. The melody, which is very early, was, curiously enough, used by William Aggett for Hook's song, "On board the ninety-eight." Hook was born in 1746, and the melody is probably two centuries earlier than his time. There was another Bristol ballad, "The Honour of Bristol, showing how the Angel Gabriel of Bristol fought with three Spanish Ships, who boarded us Seven times, wherein we cleared our Decks, and killed Five hundred of their men, and wounded many more, and made them flye into Cales when we lost but three men, to the Honour of the Angel Gabriel of Bristol," priced in Russell Smith's Catalogue at £2, 12s. 6d.

We have taken down the ballad, "Come all ye worthy Christian men," to this melody, which is in the Dorian mode. A fragment of this latter ballad is given in Folk-Song Journal, vol. i. p. 74, taken down in Sussex, in five verses. We have had it twice: once from J. Dingle, Coryton, and once as learned in 1820 by George Radford, from a blind fiddler at Washfield, near Tiverton, and "pricked down" by H. Pinkney, gardener, Washfield. Mr. Sharp has also met with it in Rackenford, N. Devon. The air in Sussex is not the same.

In "Hakluyt's Voyages," vol. iii. (1600), is an account of "The Voyage of the ship called the Marigold of Mr. Hill of Redrife unto Cape Breton and beyond, to the latitude of 44 degrees and a half, 1593, written by Rd Fisher, Master Hille's man of Redriffe."

So also Hakluyt mentions "the Marigold 70 tunnes in burthen, furnished with 20 men, whereof ten were mariners," which is stated to have "departed out of Falmouth, the 1st June, 1593," commanded by Richard Strong, "bound for an island within the straights of S. Peter on the backe side of Newfoundland to the S.W. in the lat. of 47 degrees."

In Latimer's 17th century "Annals of Bristol" is mention made of a ship "The Marigold," under the date 1627-8, of seventy tons, owned by Mr. Ellis. It was granted letters of marque to prey upon the enemy's commerce; but no mention is made of Sir Thomas Merrifield. The Redrife above is Redcliffe, Bristol. Bristol was spelled Bristow in maps of the city published in 1568 and 1610, but in one of 1671 it is spelled Bristoll.

I have been unable to find Sir Thomas Merrifield in any lists of knights; but before the reign of James I. no official record of knights was kept.

112. Arthur le Bride. Taken down from Sam Fone, Mary Tavy, by Mr. Bussell, in 1892. Sam told us that this was his father's favourite song. He had learned it from his father when he was quite a child, for the elder Fone deserted his family, and was never heard of again. But one day Sam, when aged eighteen, saw a workman standing at a cottage door, talking to someone within, and he had his hand against the door-post, clutching it as he leaned forward. Sam exclaimed: "That's my father's hand!" The man turned about, and without showing his face, walked away. When Sam came from his work in the evening he made enquiries, and ascertained that a stranger had been lodging in the cottage for a few nights, but was gone. He asked the woman of the house about her lodger. "Well," said she, "I don't know his name, nor nothing about him. But he asked me for a tallow candle, and melted it up into his boots." "That was my father. It was a trick of his," said Sam, promptly. And that was the last ever seen of the man.

There was one more verse in the original, omitted to reduce the lengthy ballad to singable proportions.

113. The Keeper. This song was taken down from Peter Sandry, St. Ervan's. He had a bad cold, and could not reach the upper notes. But we got the same tune from Mr. Jas. Ellis, Chaddlehanger, Lamerton, and also from Miss Templer, from the singing of harvesters in 1834; but in both these latter cases to the words of "Green Broom." A copy of the ballad will be found in a "Garland," B.M., 11,621, c 3; but this has a chorus to it—

I have been compelled to re-write most of the song, which in the original is very gross. It is certainly an ancient composition.

114. The Queen of Hearts. Sung by a workman engaged on the Burrow-Tor reservoir at Sheepstor, the water supply for Plymouth, 1894. A quaint little song. It has been printed on Broadside by Bachelar, B.M., in vol. vi. p. 110, of several volumes of Broadsides I gave to the B.M. This begins—

This is obviously an addition to fill out space in the Broadside. The ballad has a flavour of the period of Charles II.

115. The Owl. This song occurs in part in King Henry VIII.'s music-book, "Deuteromelia," published in 1609. It was set by Mr. Freeman as a glee in "The Essex Harmony," vol. i. 1767, p. 8. In Beaumont and Fletcher's play, "The Knight of the Burning Pestle," 1635, Old Merrythought trolls out snatches of songs, and amongst others—

Mr. Bussell noted down the melody from James Olver, tanner of Launceston, in 1889. Of the words, Olver could not recall the line that follows

"And all the day long the Owl is asleep,"

and I have had to supply what lacked.

I give this song because it is interesting to note the changes that the air has undergone since it was performed as a Three Man's song before King Henry VIII. It will be noticed that Olver has not got all that portion of the song beginning "To whom drink'st thou." Chappell has given "Of all the Birds," in i. p. 75. On the other hand, in "Deuteromelia," only the first verse is given; Olver had three. A re-writing of the song "Of all the Birds on Bush or Tree" in "The Thrush," London, 1830, has two stanzas. The second concerns the lark.

116. My Mother did so before Me. This song is based on the old English ditty "My Father was Born before Me," as may be seen at once by comparing the first few lines—

The first appearance of this ballad is in Thomas Jordan's "London Triumphant," 1672. It was taken by D'Urfey into his "Pills to Purge Melancholy," vol. i., 1699 and 1707. The air appears in the "Dancing Master" as "Jamaca," 4th edition, 1670, and in those subsequent.

The tune we give was taken down to the song from S. Fone by Mr. Sheppard in 1895.

"My Mother did so before Me" occurs without music in "The Nightingale," a song-book published in Edinburgh, 1776, and is given by Logan in his "Pedlar's Pack," 1869, from a chap-book of 1804. It occurs also on a Broadside by Pitts of Seven Dials. It is also in "The Quaver," Lond. 1831. The tune we have taken down is certainly based on the early air as given in the "Dancing Master." It is in Chappell, ii. p. 446.

117. A Week's Work well done. This popular song, relished by married men, was taken down from Richard Hard a little over a month before he died. In the original it is much longer. There are in all eleven verses. The first four are concerned with the happiness of the man previous to his marriage. But I find that most singers begin with the fifth verse.

The ballad is found in "West Country Garlands," date circ. 1760, B.M., 1161, b 11.

It actually begins thus—

118. The Old Man can't keep his Wife at Home. The curious rugged melody was taken down from a very old fiddler named William Andrews, at Sheepstor, by Mr. Bussell. The old fellow did not recall all the words, but remembered the story. According to his account this was a dance tune to which the performers sang in accompaniment to the music and tramp of feet.

I have had to re-compose the ballad from the fragment and the story. It bears a family resemblance to "The Old Couple" given in "The Garland of Country Song," p. 100. In the story the old man locks his wife out. She threatens to drown herself, and throws a stone into the well. The old man, when he hears the splash, descends, opens the door, and goes forth to see whether his wife really has drowned herself. At once she slips in at the open door and locks him out. The story is very ancient. It occurred in the lost Sanscrit book of tales of which Persian and Arabic and Turkish versions exist, and which filtered into Europe through Greek and Latin and Hebrew translations. This story came into Dolopathos and the Seven Wise Masters. The French and Latin versions were made in the 13th century. But the story had already got to Europe through the converted Jew, Peter Alphonsus, who inserted it in his "Disciplina Clericalis," written in 1062. From this it got into some of the versions of the "Gesta Romanorum," and finally into Boccaccio's "Decameron," seventh day, tale 4.

To give the whole story in ballad form would have made the ballad too long; I have therefore reduced it to three verses, and have given it, from the man's point of view, a happier termination.

The tune is clearly a bagpipe air with drone.

119. Sweet, Farewell. Taken down from Samuel Fone, of Mary Tavy, in 1889, the music noted by Mr. Bussell. Fone had forgotten the two last lines of verse 1 and the two first of verse 2. The air is pleasant, but the words are naught.

120. Old Adam, the Poacher. This curious melody was taken down by Mr. Bussell from the fiddling of William Andrews, Sheepstor. We saw the old man a little over a year before his death. He brought out and lent us a collection of MS. violin tunes, but all of these were well-known, old-fashioned dance airs. Then he played to us several not in his book that were traditional at Sheepstor. This was one of them, a dance tune; but he could not recall the words, only he knew that they told of the adventures of "Old Adam, the Poacher." Mr. Sheppard arranged this for "English Minstrelsy," but did not perceive that the first four lines of air have to be repeated to complete the tune; and in taking the melody from the fiddler, one could not detect at first, not knowing the words, where the tune precisely ended. It seems, however, obvious that there is a repeat of the first strain. I wrote the words.

121. Evening Prayer. Some fifty years ago this was the only, or almost the only, prayer used by village children. It was said or chanted far more extensively than the Lord's Prayer. The children had, however, cut down the hymn to one verse. The complete song, as "Prayer of the Week," was obtained from an old woman in the workhouse at Tavistock. Where the passage occurs purporting to come from the Epistles of St. Peter it would be hard to say. The tune, as it stands, is in the Major mode, and is so harmonised. But if the last note were G instead of E?—as, indeed, it is in the two previous repetitions of the same phrase—the melody would then be in the Phrygian mode. The termination in E? is probably a modern corruption.

Something very much like this prayer is found throughout Europe. Here is the Quercy version, sung also in Poitou, Gascony, and Brittany—

Daymard, "Chansons Populaires," Cahors, 1889. It is probably the "White Paternoster" referred to in "The Miller's Tale," by Chaucer—

White, in his "Way to the True Church," 1624, insists on "the prodigious ignorance" which he found among his parishioners when he entered on his ministrations. He gives what he calls "The White Paternoster":—

This, however, is not the same. But in the Magical Treatise, "Enchiridion PapÆ Leonis," Rome, 1660, it runs—

This was to be recited thrice at eve, thrice in the morning, and it would secure Paradise.

The White Paternoster was proscribed by the Church as superstitious: "Le Tableau de la vida del parfet Crestia," by P. Amilha, 1703, p. 234. See Victor Hugo, "Les Miserables," iv. p. 117.

A form used on the Cornish moors, and repeated by a boy at Alternon, runs—

The boy was taught this by his aunt.

In the "Townley Mysteries," p. 91, the shepherds watching their flocks by night repeat a form of this prayer. See also Ady's "Candle in the Dark," London, 1650, p. 58; also a paper in the ArchÆologia, xxvii. p. 253, by the Rev. Lancelot Sharpe; and Halliwell's "Nursery Rhymes," No. ccxl.

Songs in the first edition omitted from this are—

• Fathom the Bowl.
• The Squire and the Fair Maid.
• My Lady's Coach.
• An Evening so Clear.
• The Warson Hunt.
• The Rout is Out.
• Why should we be dullards sad?
• Nancy.
• Farewell to Kingsbridge.
• Something Lacking.
• The Wrestling Match.
• Broadbury Gibbet.
• The Orchestra.
• "Fair girl, mind this when you marry."
• Cupid, the Ploughboy.
• "Come, my Lads, let us be jolly."
• A Single and a Married Life.
• The Saucy Ploughboy.
• The Everlasting Circle.
• Hunting the Hare.
• Dead Maid's Land.
• Shower and Sunshine.

The first edition is still kept in stock, so that such persons as desire these ballads, and such others as are retained in this, but treated differently, as duets and quartettes, can obtain them from the publishers.

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