These have always been welcome among English singers, and our nation has a plenitude of fine ones. In folk-song they generally take a narrative form and treat of adventures with pirates, and the like. Examples of this type are “Paul Jones,” “Ward the pirate,” “Henry Martin,” “The bold Princess Royal,” and some others. The pressgang songs might, in a sense, go under the heading “sailor songs,” and, certainly, the Chanty, but these are dealt with separately. “The Golden Vanity” is popular, so is “The Mermaid,” and both are well known to modern singers. “The Greenland Whale Fishery” is a fine example of a genuine whaling ditty (see A Garland of Country Songs), and “All on Spurn Point” is a narrative of a wreck.
The charming song “Stowbrow,” or the “Drowned Sailor,” is chiefly known on the Yorkshire coast.
“The Cruel Ship’s Carpenter” is a story of a murder and a ghost, which follows the murderer to sea and denounces him. “William Taylor” (of which a parody exists) is fairly well known.
“The Coasts of Barbary” is a fine sea song, and “The Indian Lass,” “Just as the tide was flowing,” “On board a man-of-war,” “Outward bound,” and “The bold privateers” are sea songs that are commonly known but can boast no great degree of antiquity. “Fair Phœbe and her dark-ey’d sailor,” and “The broken token”—the one being a variation of the other—are songs that fall under the heading “Love Songs.”
These have a greater dramatic effect than any other type before dealt with. In the eighteenth century, when the constant war with France demanded a supply of men to man the navy, the pressgang was a very vital thing in the lives of the humbler classes. The law empowered (under a press warrant) officers of the King’s Navy to seize any man, with few exceptions, and then and there remove him to a King’s ship to serve as a common sailor. Violence was freely used, and at dead of night whole villages were cleared of their male inhabitants, and husbands and bread-winners dragged away, never, in most cases, to return. Such occurrences were well within the memory of those only just passed away. With such happenings in their midst, the folk-song makers had no lack of thrilling and appealing material. The romantic element was not absent, for it was quite possible, as the folk-song generally makes it, for an irate father to bribe the pressgang for the removal of an undesirable young ploughman, and so put an end to the love passages that existed between his daughter and him, thus leaving the ground clear for a wealthier or more favoured suitor. Poetic justice is almost always satisfied in the song by the lady seeking her true love on shipboard, and, by the production of “gold,” reclaiming him. “The Banks of Sweet Dundee,” which is widespread and a universal favourite, affords an excellent example of the pressgang song.
The beautiful song beginning—
and that one called “The Nightingale,” are earlier in date and quite charming specimens of the class.
The folk-singer does not lack songs dealing with the sports he loves. The fox-and hare-hunting songs are in a degree reflexes of the eighteenth century ones—of great compass, and of much allusion to the Greek gods. It is in these that Diana, Aurora and Phœbus figure so largely.
The folk-song that deals with hunting, generally is local in its narrative, and tells of some particular famous fox hunt or hare hunt, naming every squire or yeoman farmer that joined in it. “The Fylingdale Foxhunt” in Traditional Tunes is a good and typical example. In the same work will be found “The White Hare” (a description of a hare hunt), and a song of a not very frequent type detailing a cock fight.
Primitive folk appear to have always had particular songs appropriate to specific kinds of labour. Such songs seem to have been traditionally associated with each class of work, and to have been used either to give a marked rhythm, by which the efforts of a number of people are united at a certain moment (as the pull upon a rope), or generally to lighten work, an effect which song certainly has. It is well known that girls in a weaving shop, or other factory, work twice as well and feel the strain lighter while they are singing in chorus some favourite song or hymn. Soldiers on the march are less tired if the men are allowed to sing, or while the band plays. The Irish regiments marched out of Brussels before Waterloo to the strains of the then popular Moore’s “Melodies,” “The Young May Moon” being among the favourites. The men of the North during the American Civil War were cheered by the song “John Brown’s Body,” and our own soldiers in South Africa sung, with deep meaning (considering that the Boers always managed to have the advantage of the crest of the hill), “All that ever I want is a little bit off the top.” Every great river of the world has its boat songs; in most cases used by the rowers as an aid to their work. Specimens of these river boat songs have been noted in China, India, on the Nile, and elsewhere. The well-known “Canadian Boat Song,” of Thomas Moore, was adapted by him from a chant he himself heard on the St Lawrence river, the original of which chant, by the way, differs materially from the version he published.
The Sea Chanty is too wide a subject to be dealt with in this small volume. Its purpose is to give time to the pull of a rope, the thrust against a capstan bar, or on occasions when the pumps have to be used. The “Chanty” may be almost spoken of as obsolete. Its real home was the sailing vessel, but, at the present day, steam does so much of what formerly was man’s labour, that the chanty has almost died a natural death.
There were capstan, pumping, and hauling chanties, and those used in furling sail, apart from the sailors’ songs pure and simple. The sea chanty was generally commenced by a leader—the chanty man, who would perhaps string a few extemporary rough rhymes together, fitted to a well-known tune, while the men joined in a recognised nonsense chorus as they did the pulling, thrusting, or other work required.
The Chanties mostly in evidence amongst the English, or English-speaking, sailors are “Whiskey for my Johnnie,” “Haul the bowline,” “We’re all bound to go,” “The Rio Grande,” “Reuben Ranzo,” “Tom’s gone to Ilo,” “Storm Along,” “Lowlands,” “Santa Anna,” “Sally Brown,” “Banks of Sacramento,” and many others, copies of which, with most of the above, are to be found in the Folk-Song Journals. The fact cannot be ignored that there is decided American influence in most of the sea chanties, and that points to them being interchangeable between the English and the American sailor. The ships trading to San Francisco and other sailing vessels that took long voyages round the “Horn” were fit resting-places for the chanty. In former times, on the old man-of-war ships, a fiddler was frequently requisitioned, or the anchor was raised to the music of a fife.
Songs of occupation appear to have lingered longest, in the United Kingdom, in the Hebrides, and quite recently there have been published in the Folk-Song Journal a number of interesting examples collected by Miss Tolmie. Others have been obtained by Mrs Kennedy Fraser.
The boat songs, or “Iorrams,” are a feature of Gaelic music, as are the “luinigs” sung by the women as songs to lighten work where there are a number of people employed at any one occupation.
Gaelic music and song is outside the scope of this manual; although the subject of the work-songs used in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland is here lightly referred to for the purpose of indicating to the student that such a class of song is still in existence in the British Isles.
That a large number of carols existed in a purely traditional form was somewhat of a revelation, even to the folk-song collector, when Miss Lucy Broadwood, Mr Cecil Sharp, and Dr Vaughan Williams published their “finds” in the Folk-Song Journal. Mr Robin H. Legge, as early as 1890, or before, had collected a number of traditional carols in Cornwall, but his valuable manuscript collection of them was accidentally destroyed.
Some of the folk-carols that have lately been recovered embody curious legends, the origin of which is difficult to trace. “The Bitter Withy” is one of these, and of this particular carol several variants have been obtained, chiefly in the Midland Counties. The story is to the effect that the infant Jesus being reproached for His humble birth by His play-fellows, “lords’ and ladies’ sons,” makes a bridge over water with the beams of the sun, and passes safely over; His companions who follow Him being drowned. His Mother, Mary, chides Him and whips Him with a bunch of the withy (willow) twigs. Jesus then lays a curse on the willow and ordains that it shall for ever be rotten at the heart.
Another singular carol noted by Miss Broadwood is “King Pharaoh.” It was obtained from the singing of gypsies in Sussex. Another version as “King Herod and the Cock” was obtained by Mr Cecil Sharp, and earlier versions, as “The Carnel and the Crane,” are to be found in Sandys’ Christmas Carols, and elsewhere. A roasted cock that crows three times and corn which is in ear and ripened the same day are the chief points in the story, as miracles that occur to testify to the divine origin of the infant Christ.
“The Moon shines bright,” “The Cherry-tree Carol,” “The joys of Mary,” with “God rest you merry gentlemen,” are all folk-carols, but words and tunes have long been in print.
There are two different types of carol—the religious, dealing with the Holy Nativity, and the festive. “Here we come a-wassailing” is a folk-carol of the latter kind, and there are many others of this character. One of the best known, which is yet sung traditionally, is the carol which, from some cause, is named as belonging to Gloucestershire—
The Gloucestershire rustics singing the song used formerly to go from house to house bearing a gaily decorated maple-wood potato bowl, which it was expected would be filled with liquor, or in lieu of this a contribution of money placed in the bowl.
The May-day carol exists in several different kinds. Copies are to be found in Dr Barrett’s collection, English County Songs, and in several other works.
William Hone, in his Ancient Mysteries, 1822, speaks of the Christmas carols that were at that time annually printed in chap-books and on broadsides. He gives a list of eighty-nine of these, some of which are still remembered among folk-singers.
The tunes used by children in the traditional singing-games rank as folk-music, and are always of the most simple and marked character. Having these qualities they are easily remembered, and capable of being passed from one generation of children to another with but little chance of corruption. Although certain games have the same rhymes and tunes in different parts of the country, yet there are others where the airs are not so fixed.
A very high antiquity has been allotted to the origin of these games. It is claimed that many are reflexes of pagan marriage and burial customs, and even of sacrificial rites. Into this question it is outside the province of this book to inquire, but whatever may be adduced as to the great age the games themselves possess, it seems doubtful whether any exceptional degree of antiquity can be safely assigned to the existing tunes, though they are all pretty and charming, and well worth preservation, apart from their antiquarian association.
Many collections of these singing-games have been published; details of these will be found in the bibliography. Miss A. G. Gilchrist, of Southport, has noted a very great number from children in different parts of the country. Her collection, up to the present, remains in manuscript.
A number of the singing-game tunes resemble in a greater or less degree certain published airs, as “Nancy Dawson,” “Sheriff Muir,” and some others. Whether the children have taken these airs for their games, or whether the composers of the printed tunes have gone to the children’s games for inspiration, is a problem not easily solved.
When the folk-song singer did not get his song by oral transmission he took it from a ballad sheet, or from those small collections of songs which, for at least three centuries, were called “Garlands.” The words of most of our folk-songs were generally printed either on the ballad sheet (otherwise “broadside”), or included among those that formed the contents of the “Garland,” and nowhere else, except in the rarest instances. Regular song books were too dignified to admit songs or ballads of the folk-song class. As a consequence the folk-songs that survive in an early printed form are chiefly found on broadsides.
Technically, the broadside is a printed piece of paper (the size is immaterial) meant to be read unfolded. A tradesman’s hand-bill, for example, is a broadside. Folded, the broadside becomes folio, quarto, or octavo. The “garlands” were small folded booklets of either eight or sixteen pages, and contained ten or twelve songs, the outer page being generally decorated with a woodcut, and having a list of the songs contained within.
The reason why the broadside ballad was printed on one side only appears to be this—It was the practice to paste them on cottage walls, inside cupboard doors, chest lids, and such like places. There are many references in literature to this method of displaying the ballad, as for example—
“I will now lead you to an honest ale-house where we shall find a cleanly room, lavender in the window, and twenty ballads stuck about the wall.”—Walton’s Compleat Angler, 1653.
No wonder that the old angler and his pupil found so many delightful snatches of quaint old song current where ballads and songs were so fostered. The Spectator shows that the usage had not died out in Queen Anne’s reign—
“I cannot for my heart leave a room before I have thoroughly studied the walls of it, and examined the several printed papers which are usually pasted upon them.”—No. 85, vol. ii.
Although the ballad was freely hawked about the streets of towns, and carried into the country by “flying stationers” and pedlars (witness Autolycus in the Winter’s Tale), yet the pastings upon walls and the constant foldings of loose ballad sheets soon destroyed existing copies, for few of the old ballad lovers were like Mr Pepys and Captain Cox. Laneham, it will be remembered, tells in his “Letter,” 1575, describing the festivities at Kenilworth Castle, that Cox’s ballads numbered more than a hundred, and were “all ancient,” and were “fair wrapt in parchment, and tied with a whip cord.” Would there had been more of the Captain’s careful disposition.
Broadside ballads must have come among the people with the first dawn of printing, and in Henry the Eighth’s reign they had become of such weight in political influence that one or more royal edicts were levied against them. The earliest known English printed ballad is, in date, about 1540. Ballad printing was generally done by small local printers, or else by those larger London printers who made a speciality of the work, and who supplied the whole country with ballads and with “garlands.”
Gough, Redman, Bankes, Walley, and many others who worked in London during the sixteenth century were noted printers of ballads. In the seventeenth century ballad printing became more general, and many of the publishers clubbed together, so that we find several names on one imprint. Henry Gosson printed in 1616, and John Trundle, his contemporary, was so noted as a ballad vendor that he is named in Ben Jonson’s play, “Every Man in His Humour.” In 1642 Francis Coles (or Coules) flourished and issued ballads in conjunction with William Gilbertson, having a shop on Saffron Hill. Of this period also were Alexander Milbourn, Francis Grove, J. Wright, William Onley, and the “Assignees of Thomas Symcocke.” At a later date William Thackeray, at the “Angel in Duck Lane,” issued, with Passenger, at the “Three Bibles on London Bridge,” many interesting ballads, garlands, and chap-books. One of their dates is 1687.
All these seventeenth century ballads, or the chief part of them, were printed in “black-letter,” a type of Gothic character which was specially reserved for law books, bibles, and romances long after its discontinuance as ordinary text. They were generally printed on rather large paper, about 14 inches by 10 inches, and, of course, only on one side of the paper. The name of the tune was frequently given, and on some a few musical notes, professing to be the tune, were appended to the verses. These musical notes, however, were a fraudulent inducement to purchasers, for they were merely set at random. Rude woodcuts, which more or less illustrated the theme of the ballad, generally headed the whole.
The most noted collections of this period of ballad are the Roxburghe collection in the British Museum, and the Pepysian at Cambridge. It must be pointed out that a great number of these ballads were scarcely folk-songs—that is, they were not “born of the people”—and only a certain proportion were current among them. There were professional ballad writers who supplied rhymed narratives to order for the ballad seller, not only upon topical events, but re-dishings of earlier romances, and other matter.
Whether at the opening of the eighteenth century printed ballads began to be out of favour, or whether the ballads have not been so carefully preserved, is not quite clear, but they are certainly more rare of this period.
The chief ballad printer of this date was John Cluer, who was printing ballads in 1720, and shortly after this date was established as a music publisher of repute. He worked in Bow Church Yard, Cheapside, and was succeeded by William Dicey, who had been in partnership with Robert Raikes, at Northampton, in the ballad and chap-book printing business. Robert Raikes removed to Gloucester, where he established the first Gloucester newspaper. He was father to Robert Raikes, the originator of Sunday Schools.
An important range of ballad sheets were those which issued from the Aldermary Church Yard press. In 1793 J. Marshall was at this address, printing engraved song sheets with pictorial headings. There was also a J. Marshall at Newcastle-on-Tyne, who published song garlands about 1820.
One of the best-known ballad printers at the end of the eighteenth century was John Evans, of 42 Long Lane, Smithfield. He printed broadside ballads, chap-books, and garlands. He and his sons at a later date printed for the Religious Tract Society, producing such quaint religious stories as The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain. The Evans family, and successors, were in full vigour as printers as late as 1815.
It was at the beginning of the nineteenth century that the great ballad printer J. Pitts appeared. It is said that “Johnny Pitts” was a female who had been a bumboat woman. The ballad sheets that issued from the Pitts’ press are all of interest, and many genuine folk-songs appear on them. A rival to Pitts came from Alnwick in the person of James Catnach, the son of a printer in that small Northumbrian town. James Catnach first commenced business in 1813, at 2 and 3 Monmouth Court, Seven Dials, and he made a complete revolution in ballad sheet printing. The early ballad-mongers used a rough grey, or blue tinted, paper and their type was none of the best, or clearest. Catnach changed the shape of the ballad sheet into Large Post Quarto (about 10 × 8 inches), used good, though thin, white paper, and clear type. Many of his wood-blocks were either by the Bewick brothers, or by their pupils. He put forth an enormous quantity of ballads and songs, and seems to have not only employed men to write songs on topical events, but also to have for the first time put into print many a stray folk-song which the ballad-singers, who flocked to buy his ballads, would recite to him. This latter fact accounts for a certain amount of ignorant mistakes that occur in the text.
After founding an immense business he retired in 1838, and died in 1841. His married sister, Anne Ryle, took over the business and advertised that she had “4000 sorts” of ballad sheets. Her manager, James Paul, appears to have been some sort of an editor for her, and it is believed that he wrote, or re-wrote, certain of the ballads and songs she printed. He was, with others, proprietor of the business at one time, but finally it became the property of W. S. Fortey, who reprinted from Catnach’s old stereotypes. T. Batchelor, Piggot, and T. Birt were other ballad printers, a little later than Catnach.
The broadsides printed by Henry Such are of considerable interest to the collector, as they contain versions of folk-songs which are generally good. He was printing in 1849, and his successors of the same surname reprinted his ballad sheets up to a recent date. Provincial ballad sheet printers are Walker of Durham (flourishing in 1839), and Harkness of Preston, of a somewhat later date. R. Barr of Leeds and J. Bebbington of Manchester were broadside printers of forty or fifty years ago, while Shelmerdine & Co. of Manchester date from about 1815.
The folk-song collector cannot ignore the ballad sheet, for upon it are found the words of many folk-songs of which he may only obtain very fragmentary versions from the singer. It is not to be understood that the ballad sheet version of a folk-song is always an accurate one, but it is worth having, for the folk-song singer has generally learned his words, or at any rate refreshed his memory, from the broadside copy.
The ballad printer was too wise a business man to print on the sheet only folk-songs. He printed a popular lyric side by side with an old traditional song, for the sheet had room for at least two sets of verses, and he, by this means, catered for two classes of customers.