Occasional Folk Songs
Rydale Waltz/Anna's Jig

Two tunes of my own composition. Rydale waltz is named after Rydale a valley at the South Western end of the North Yorkshire Moors. The River Rye passes through Helmesley and eventually joins the River Derwent. The Derwent itself rises at the South Eastern end of the North Yorkshire Moors and then flows in a Westerly direction to the south of the Moors  eventually flowing into the Humber. The pictures in the video are of Rievaulx Abbey, a former Cistercian Monastery which is in Rydale. The Cistercian Monks changed the course of the River Rye several times in order to ensure an adequate water supply for various activities carried out by the Monastery.

Anna's Jig is named after my younger daughter and originated in a tune a wrote for a poem about Christmas she wrote for me when she was about 10 or 11. I was taking a music course at the time and had been set the task of setting some words to music. The tune as originally written only had the A and part of the B music so I slightly modified and extended the B music to created two eight bar sections of a conventional jig.

The tunes are played on a Mollenhauer "Dream" tenor recorder. 

Occasional Folk Songs
The Lyke Wake Dirge

The Lyke Wake Dirge relates the journey of the soul after death through a series of trials the outcome of which are dependant on actions in life. The imagery is very much that of medieval Christianity though much of it is thought to be of heathen origin.

In times past, the body of the dead had to be taken to consecrated ground for burial and parishes were much larger in area than they are now so there were recognised routes to the parish church along which coffins were carried to the church. Such routes were often known as "coffin trods". The term "Lyke" means a dead body and survives in "Lych Gate" which is a roofed over gate at the entrance to the church ground. It is here that the coffin would rest until the time came for it to enter the church for the burial service. The opening verse refers to "Fire and fleet and candle light", namely to the essential comforts of hearth and home. The soul then met trials at Whinny Moor where if they had given a gift of shoes and stockings they could avoid being prickled by the whinnies, namely gorse, as the passed across the moor, then to the "Brig o' Dread" where if they had given alms (silver or gold) they could pass over the bridge (Brig = bridge) and finally they came to the flames of hell. If they had given food and drink in life they would not be touched by the flames and would pass to heaven. If they had failed to give alms (at Brig o' Dread) or food and drink, then the sould would burn in hell.

The song is in North Yorkshire dialect and is of considerable age. The earliest known version was collected by a 17th Century antiquarian, John Aubrey in 1686 and he records that it was known at least as far back as 1616 though it is likely much older. It seems the song continued to be sung over dead bodies in the Cleveland Area of North Yorkshire until the early years of the 19th century. More recently the song has become associated with the Lyke Wake Walk, a 40 mile treck across the North Yorkshire Moors from just above Osmotherley to near Ravenscar on the east coast. The words I sing are essentially those on the Lyke Wake Walk website.

There are a number of recordings of the song. Best known are probably those by The Young Tradition, Pentangle and Steeleye Span. Unlike the words, the tune used now is thought to be fairly modern - of late 19th or early 20th century origin.
There are number of references and descriptions of this song on the internet, including different sets of words. There is some useful background material on Wikipedia and on the Yorkshire Garland websites. There are a few Mudcat discussions on the song including here and here.

Occasional Folk Songs
Some Tunes
Johnny Cope
Johnny Cope was originally a song, written in 1745 by an Adam Skirving just after the Battle of Prestonpans when Charles Stuart's (Bonnie Prince Charlie) army defeated the government forces under Gen. Sir John Cope. The song mocks Cope and insinuates that he ran away and that he brought the news of his own defeat to Newcastle. A myth, but then who ever let the truth get in the way of a good story?

The tune, however acquired a life of its own and became the subject of sets of fiddle variations and various versions exist in manuscripts on both sides of the Anglo Scottish Border. The tune also made its way to Ireland where it became a six strain hornpipe. Although I had previously heard the song, I first heard a set of Johnny Cope variations played on fiddle by Kathryn Tickell on her album "On Kielder Side". I was bowled over by them and I promised myself I would track down and learn to play a set. Kathryn Tickell based her six strain version on several manuscripts in North East England and in Edinburgh. I eventually found a four strain set on the Farne website in the Lister Manuscript which had been compiled in County Durham some time between 1840 and 1860. It was a four strain set so I added two variations that I had composed myself sometime ago. I play it in C on a Mollenhauer "Dream" Alto recorder with a shruti box drone in the background.



Cleveland Hills/Down Along the Tees.
These two tunes are my own compositions. I was inspired to write Cleveland Hills after hearing a tune on another Kathryn Tickell Album. Rothbury Hills was written by Northumbrian Piper and Accordionist, Jack Armstrong and was the first track on the Kathryn Tickell album "Northumbrian Collection". The inspiration was to write an air celebrating the area where I live. The Cleveland Hills are almost on my back doorstep, and are part of the North York Moors National Park. I couple it with another tune of mine which I called "Down Along the Tees". It came out of my "noodling" on the recorder one day and the tune just seemed to flow so I named it after the river on which Middlesbrough is situated - and where I live. The Tees is one of only two major Yorkshire rivers not to flow into the Humber. The other is the Esk which flows into the sea at Whitby. I play the tunes on wooden flute and I am accompanied by my friend Nick on guitar who I met when I used to go to a singaround in Thirsk. This was done courtesy of the internet. I left the tune on a website, he picked it up, added the guitar and sent it back to me.



Cleveland Hills/Down along the Tees is featured on the six CD set put together by members of Mudcat.  They can be purchased through Mudcat. Information Here.

Occasional Folk Songs
I Sing of a Maiden
Fifteenth Century Carol

I had a copy of this in a poetry anthology I own together with about three other early anonymous poems (Sumer is icumen in, Adam lay ybounden and Westron winde). When my wife bought a poetry anthology recently it was also included in it with the heading "Carol" which made me think about adding a tune. When I suggested it her comment was "don't make it one of your usual dirgy ones". I think she was referring to the minor mode tunes often found in folk song. It gave me pause for thought and I realised that a jig I had written some years ago might work so I gave it a try. I found that the 15th century English did not quite fit the tune and also one verse only used half the the melody. As a result, I rewrote the poem in modern English, combining two verses into one so that it used a complete tune. By repeating the original first verse I was able to create a three verse song.



Here is the original poem

I sing of a maiden
That is makëless
King of alle kingës
To here sone she ches

He cam also stillë
There his moder was,
As the dew in Aprillë
That falleth on the grass

He cam also stillë
To his modres bowr,
As the dew in Aprillë
That falleth on the flowr

He cam also stillë
There his moder lay,
As the dew in Aprillë
That falleth on the spray

Moder and maiden
Was never non but she
Well may swich a lady
Godës moder be.

And my version (complete with the chords I used on the ukulele)

I [G] sing of a maiden that was matchless

King of all kings for her son she [D] chose

He [C] came so [G] softly where his mother [D] was

As the [C] dew in [G] April falls [D7] on the [G] grass

I sing of a maiden that was matchless

King of all kings for her son she chose

He came so softly to his mother's bower

As the dew in April falls on the flowers

He came so softly where his mother lay

As the dew in April falls on the Spray

Mother and maiden was ne'er one but she

Well may such a lady God's mother be.

Since doing this I found that the original had survived in the oral tradition and that it had been recorded by Shirley Collins but I have not heard her version.

Occasional Folk Songs
Carols
Carols are very much part of Christmas and most people know the common ones and will join in even if they are not particularly religious.

Most carols we sing nowadays date from the 19th Century and later though there are a significant number that are much older. Here is one, the Seven Joys of Mary. This carol dates from the 15th Century and exists in a number of variants. The number of "joys" vary from five to nine, though there are actually more verses than nine known and so the "joys" themselves will vary in different versions.

the word "Carol" comes from the French "caroler" which in turn came from the Latin 'choraula', and from the Greek 'choraules', meaning a flute player for chorus dancing and finally derived from the Greek word 'choros' which was originally a circling dance.

Early carols were not specific to Christmas nor sung in Church but did have religious/semi mythical themes.

Carol singing was banned by the Puritans who felt Christmas should be a solemn day.

Although no longer sung in public it seems likely that carols went "underground" and were still sung in private gatherings. Some carols in fact survived in the oral tradition and were rediscovered by late 19th. Century folk song collectors.

The revival of carols and the writing of new carols began in the mid 18th. Century but the revival really "took off" in the mid 19th. Century. However the singing of carols in church only started in 1881 when the Bishop of Truro initiated the first service of nine lessons and carols.

A number of the Carols collected by folk song collectors in the late 19th and early 20th centuries have found their way into the popular repertoire and others have remained less well known. Here is a carol that was collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams in Castleton, Derbyshire in 1908. The carol originally dates back to the 16th Century and an earlier form called the "Corpus Chrisit Carol" was included in a manuscript compiled by a Richard Hill, an apprentice grocer sometime about 1504.

The pictures in the two videos were all taken by me. In the Seven Joys of Mary they feature a Holiday in Switzerland in January 2010 and Down in Yon Forest the pictures are of the North York Moors with the buildings being from the Rydale Folk Museum at Hutton-le-Hole.

Occasional Folk Songs
Van Dieman's Land

I've not posted for a while. Here's a song about poaching and transportation.

I first came across this song in 1965 in a little red book called “101 Scottish Songs”.  In there, the song was titled “The Poachers” and the source was given as “From Ord's Bothy Ballads”. Some 20 years later, I bought a copy of Roy Palmer's “English Country Song Book” and in it found the same song with one extra verse and a different final verse and with a different tune. I later came across several other versions in the Bodleian Library's Broadside Ballad collection.

An article in Mustrad discusses ballads relating to transportation to Van Diemen's* land in general and refers to this ballad in particular. Van Diemen's land was not normally a first destination for those transported but was used as a transfer destination from other places for convicts who had transgressed further. Transporation for poaching was not common – figures given in the Mustrad article suggest that only about 300 out of about 162 000 males transported. (It seems female poachers were unknown). Roy Palmer suggested that the ballad was written in response to an act of 1828 which provided that if three men were found in a wood after dark and one of them carried a gun or bludgeon all three were liable to transportation for 14 years. Roy Palmer uses this to suggest that the ballad dates from about 1829 or 1830. The ballad gives a pretty graphic description of the conditions in Van Diemen's land and ends with an admonition to give up poaching. The song circulated widely throughout the British Isles and has been found in Ireland and Scotland as well as England. The tune I use is the one I found in 101 Scottish Songs and is a variant of “Dives and Lazarus” but in 6/8 time.

* Note: Van Diemen's land is the correct spelling for the name of the colony (later Tasmania) but the ballads nearly all spell it Van Dieman's land.

Occasional Folk Songs

The Unquiet Grave

(Child 78, Roud 51)

The unquiet grave recounts a tale of someone who mourns too long for their dead lover. The ballad has been collected many times in the oral tradition and the Roud Index contains 108 entries mainly from Southern England, the North Eastern USA and Canada.

The ballad contains two pieces of folk mythology; that mourning for too long will prevent the spirit of the departed from being at piece and a kiss from the shade of a dead lover hastens your own death.

To me this ballad contains a reminder that life carries on after a loved one has departed and that, while mourning is part of saying farewell, in the end you must get on with your own life and put what has formerly been behind you.

The version I sing here is more or less a version I heard sung on a recording by Ian Campbell and is also very close to the first version in Child. I accompanied myself on a shruti box.

There have been many recordings of this song. The song seems to tap into something deep in our psyche. One I liked was by Gryphon. They sang a different version to me using the tune "Dives & Lazarus".