Mrs Alice Harding i.e. Alice Harden
Collected by Cecil Sharp, Ham Street, 11th October 1911
Cecil Sharp MSS, Folk Tunes CJS2/10/2705
This was presumably one of the songs which the Beale family would sing when they went out carolling.
Seven Joys Of Mary
Mrs Alice Harding i.e. Alice Harden
Collected by Cecil Sharp, Ham Street, 11th October 1911
Cecil Sharp MSS, Folk Tunes CJS2/10/2706B
This was presumably one of the songs which the Beale family would sing when they went out carolling. Sharp noted that Mrs Harden sang the “usual words” – see, for example, the verses printed in the Oxford Book of Carols, available at https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.546842/page/151/mode/1up
King Arthur
From Mr Barling
Collected by Francis Collinson, South Willesborough
Francis Collinson Manuscript Collection COL/1/41
The Thresher Man
From Mr Barling
Collected by Francis Collinson, South Willesborough, 3rd December 1942
Francis Collinson Manuscript Collection COL/1/15
This is very similar to the version of the song collected by Cecil Sharp from Clarke Lonkhurst at Hamstreet in 1908.
In Collinson’s MS the last two lines of verse 5 are highlighted and these alternative lines provided at the foot of the page (although with the note “don’t copy this”):
With my frail [sic] upon my shoulder and a bottle of strong beer
I’m as happy as those with ten thousand a year
The White Rose in the Broom
Collected by John Brune, August 1962
English Dance & Song 35:2 (1973) p.59
It seems unlikely that these words were collected from a travelling singer – they look suspiciously like the work of a modern songwriter attempting to write a romantic ballad. John Brune certainly collected songs from travellers, but he also wrote songs, and seems to have had a reputation for “improving” some of the songs he collected. There is no other entry in the Roud Index for number 3184, which tends to confirm these suspicions.
Kitty Gray
From Ted Briggs
Collected by Francis Collinson, Bethersden, 16th March 1943
Francis Collinson Manuscript Collection COL/1/1
The Sergeant in the Wagon Train
From Mrs Baker
Collected by Francis Collinson, Maidstone, Kent July 1944
Francis Collinson Manuscript Collection COL/4/24
The Gleaner
From Mrs Baker
Collected by Francis Collinson Maidstone, 16th February 1946
Francis Collinson Manuscript Collection COL/2/25A
This song began life as a poem by Jane Taylor (1783-1824), best known for having written the words of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’. The poem is included in The “Original poems” and others, by Ann and Jane Taylor and Adelaide O’Keeffe, edited by E. V. Lucas, with illustrations by F. D. Bedford, available at https://archive.org/details/originalpoemsoth00tayl/page/103/mode/1up.
The following words, noted by Alfred Williams in the Upper Thames region, are almost identical to Taylor’s original lyric:
Before the bright sun rises over the hill
In cornfields poor Mary is seen,
With patience her little apron to fill
With the few scattered ears she can glean.
She never leaves off, nor runs out of place
To play, to idle, or chat,
Except now and then to wipe her hot face,
Or to fan herself with her broad hat.
‘Poor girl! hard at work in the heat of the sun,
How tired and worn you must be!
Why don’t you leave off as the others have done,
And sit with them under the tree?’
‘Oh, no! for my mother lies ill in her bed,
Too feeble to spin or to knit;
My poor little brothers are crying for bread
And yet she can’t give them a bit.
How can I be merry, or idle at play
While they are so hungry and ill?
Oh, no! I would rather work hard all the day
My blue little apron to fill.’
‘Mary, the Gleaner’ from the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre Folk Arts collection https://apps.wiltshire.gov.uk/communityhistory/Folk/Verse/381?isCommunityPage=False
The Bold Fisherman
From Mr Baker
Collected by Francis Collinson, Maidstone, 16th February 1946
Francis Collinson Manuscript Collection COL/5/25A
Death and the Lady
From Mr Baker
Collected by Francis Collinson, Maidstone 16th February 1946
Francis Collinson Manuscript Collection COL/5/29
The song was included in the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, edited by Ralph Vaughan Williams and A.L. Lloyd, 1959, with six verses in all. In the revised edition, Classic English Folk Songs (EFDSS, 2003), Malcolm Douglas notes that verses 1, 2, 3 and 6 were as printed in the Journal, while verses 4 and 5 had probably been adapted from Alfred Williams’ Folk Songs of the Upper Thames (1923) – these had been collected from Henry ”Wassail” Harvey, of Cricklade in Wiltshire.