The Child Ballads, nostalgia and scholastic research

Originally published in FoT Issue 99: Apr-Jun 2004

If, like me, you long ago gave up searching second-hand book shops in the hopes of finding a Traditional Music section, let alone an affordable edition of the “Child Ballads”, I have good news. Bill Gates has yet again come to our rescue. Well, not Bill Gates exactly, but you know what I mean. An American company, The Heritage Collectors, has developed the complete set of Child’s works on CD-Rom. The digital edition offers fully searchable text of all 305 ballads and their notes, with enhanced study aids, including a glossary and a new place names index, ballad maps, computer-playable midi files and new essays on the ballads as literature, and on folk-music collectors and collecting. There is an audio CD in the package containing ballads and interviews with contemporary interpreters, preservers, and collectors of the tradition, including Jean Ritchie, Martin Carthy and Louis Killen. At the time of writing, negotiations are under way with a UK distributor. But check the web site, and if this has still not been sorted out, you can order direct from the US.

And if, like me, you frittered away your adolescence in the golden decade of the Sixties, then a few names from Fifties television - such as Prudence Kitten, Four Feather Falls and Mr Pastry - will probably ring those Pavlovian bells and take you back to a time when Blackjacks were a farthing each. Please wallow to your heart’s delight in Whirligig’s 1950s Television Nostalgia web site. See test cards, which 24-hour programming of course killed off, interludes such as the potter’s wheel or London to Brighton in four minutes, adverts (you’re never alone with a Strand) and information about the programmes themselves, in some cases with stills, clips or theme tunes. There is also a companion radio site with facts on everything from Al Read to Workers’ Playtime.

There is also a wealth of nostalgia (or social history if you are feeling serious) at the British Pathe Film Archive. You can preview items from the entire 3500-hour archive, which covers news, sport, social history and entertainment from 1896 to 1970. You can also pay for higher resolution copies. Schools can download content free of charge for use in the classroom. To steer matters back on-topic, you can download a 1962 clip of Princess Margaret watching a traditional English folk dance and then joining in. I searched the expression “folk music” and came up with 26 results, including the first National Colliery Music Festival at Harringay Arena, London, in 1948; musicians and dancers at the 1952 National Eisteddfod; and the annual blessing of the circus performers and animals at Chessington Zoo in 1955. Such are the vagaries of Internet searching.

Even more on-topic is the Traditional Music in England project at the British Library. About 1,500 hours of recordings of folk songs, sea shanties and children’s rhymes from the library’s Sound Archive are available. You can search the catalogue online - it includes various collections such as those of Bob Davenport, Carole Pegg and John Howson - but unfortunately you must travel to London or Boston Spa to listen to the songs and interviews. The web site has a couple of downloadable songs, including ‘Generals All’, sung by Walter Pardon, and the interview summaries make for fascinating reading.

Now you would hardly credit ‘The Wild Rover’ with being an object of fascination. Surely it is one of those songs that has been done to death and would arouse scorn among folk music enthusiasts. But no. For when David Dalton in a newsgroup asked: “Anybody know who wrote this or if not, approximately when it was written and maybe where? The House Band also do a slower version to a different tune, entitled Wild Roving. Jackie Sullivan does a nice version as does Dermot O’Reilly. Who else sings it to your liking?” David goes on to suggest some rather esoteric interpretations of the song. He writes: “Now in the past I speculated that “ten sovereigns bright” poetically means shamanic knowledge” and “the term landlady may mean earth goddess or Gaia or in Irish tradition maybe Anu or Danu or Eriu or Queen of the Fairies though that is debatable.” I don’t think that was what the Dubliners were thinking as they sang the version I have on CD, but not only did the posting elicit sensible replies, but also rather erudite ones.

Wade Miller wrote: “As has already been noted, it’s English and at least a couple of centuries old. At the height of their fame and influence the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem had a song-spotter working for them looking for likely material in the folk clubs of England, and it was brought to them by one of these folks who heard the great Lou Killen singing it.” And I thought it originated in an Irish theme pub. Wade continues: “It may be unfashionable to admit to a fondness for the Clancy Brothers, but the fact is that they’re the ones who put the song on the map, at least in Ireland and North America. And they do a terrific version.”

But now step forward Malcolm Douglas. This is where the erudition comes in. He wrote: “In an earlier thread on uk.music.folk, Jack Campin quoted a reference in the Bibliotheca Lindesiana Catalogue of English Ballads (#578 p211) to a broadside song entitled ‘The Good-Fellow’s Resolution,’ beginning “I have been a bad Husband this full fifteen year”, and dated 1680-82. There is a copy of this in J W Ebsworth’s “Roxburghe Ballads”, which I’ve now had a look at, and it is pretty clearly the basis of the later ‘Wild Rover’.” Malcolm goes on to quote verses 1, 8 and 9 from ‘The Good Fellow’s Resolution’ by Thomas Lanfiere - it is 13 stanzas long - but I’ll just quote from the eighth verse:

I went to an Hostiss where I us’d to resort,
And I made her believe that money was short;
I askt her to trust me, but she answered “Nay,
Enough of such Guests I can have every day.”
Then quoth she, “Pray, forbear, there’s no staying here,
Except you have money, you shall have no beer.”

And for comparison:

I went to an ale-house I used to frequent
And I told the landlady my money was spent.
I asked her for credit, she answered me “Nay
Such a custom as yours I could have any day.”

He’s not wrong, is he? And if you want to read the full thread, as usual my advice is to visit the Google Groups site and do a search on, for example, “Roxburghe Ballads”. You might be lucky. Or you might get the annual blessing of the circus performers and animals at Chessington Zoo.