From James Beale
Collected by Cecil Sharp, Warehorne, 23rd September 1908
Cecil Sharp MSS, Folk Words CJS2/9/1787, Folk Tunes CJS2/10/1929
The Moon Shines Bright
From James Beale
Collected by Cecil Sharp, Warehorne, 23rd September 1908
Cecil Sharp MSS, Folk Words CJS2/9/1783, Folk Tunes CJS2/10/1924
This was presumably one of the songs which the Beale family would sing when they went out carolling. The carol was also noted by Cecil Sharp from James Beale’s daughter Alice Harden, while his son Albert Beale was recorded singing the song in 1954.
No John No!
From James Beale
Collected by Cecil Sharp, Warehorne, 23rd September 1908
Cecil Sharp MSS, Folk Words CJS2/9/1777, Folk Tunes CJS2/10/1923
Sons of Levi
From James Beale
Collected by Cecil Sharp, Warehorne, 23rd September 1908
Cecil Sharp MSS, Folk Words CJS2/9/1775, Folk Tunes CJS2/10/1922
Cecil Sharp included this carol in his English-Folk Carols (1911) with the following note:
Sung by Mr. James Beale and Mrs. Harding at Ham Street.
The words are obviously very corrupt. The first and the last two stanzas in the text are substantially as they were sung to me, but it has been necessary to make some small alterations in the other two stanzas. In making these changes I have been guided by a broadside version of the song printed by J. Nicholson of Belfast, which however, in some places is almost as unintelligible as the Ham Street version. The Irish broadside is a Masonic song in nine stanzas beginning thus:
Come all you Craftsmen that do wish
To propagate the grand design,
Come, enter into our high temple
And learn the art that is divine.The last two stanzas given me at Ham Street are not in the broadside.
This carol is, and has been for many years, annually sung at Christmas in Ham Street and the neighbouring villages by a party of male carol singers. I have not found or heard of it elsewhere; nor can I connect the air, which is a strong one, with any other English folk-tune.
A broadside version entitled Sons of Levi, A New Masonic Song can be found on the National Library of Scotland’s Word on the Street website where it is stated that “the song was eventually inherited, from the Freemasons, by the Orange Lodge and is still part of their repertoire. The song is a description, in biblical terms, of a new member’s initiation”.
The Baffled Knight
From James Beale
Collected by Cecil Sharp, Warehorne, 23rd September 1908
Cecil Sharp MSS, Folk Words CJS2/9/1783, Folk Tunes CJS2/10/1927
Roud 11, Child 112
Cecil Sharp gave this song the title ‘The Baffled Knight’, the generic name used by F.J. Child and other folk song scholars. It is extremely unlikely that James Beale would have recognised this name, particularly as, in common with other versions collected from oral tradition, the male protagonist is not a knight, but a shepherd’s son. He more likely called the song ‘Stroll away the morning dew’.
In her collection The Crystal Spring, Maud Karpeles called the song ‘Blow away the morning dew’, having replaced “Stroll away…” in the chorus with the more usual “Blow away…”. She also omitted James Beale’s final verse, replacing it with the somewhat less problematic
My father’s got a flower,
It’s called Marigold;
And if you will not when you can
You shall not when you would.
The Woodman’s Daughter
From James Beale
Collected by Cecil Sharp, Warehorne, 23rd September 1908
Cecil Sharp MSS, Folk Words CJS2/9/1781, Folk Tunes CJS2/10/1925
Bold Fisherman
From James Beale
Collected by Cecil Sharp, Warehorne, 23rd September 1908
Cecil Sharp MSS, Sharp Folk Tunes CJS2/10/1926
Cold Blow and a Rainy Night
From James Beale
Collected by Cecil Sharp, Warehorne, 23rd September 1908
Cecil Sharp MSS, Folk Words CJS2/9/1785, Folk Tunes CJS2/10/1928