Songs of the West. S. (Sabine) Baring-Gould
them out to us.
Some forty or fifty years ago, it was customary when the corn was cut, for the young men of a parish to agree together, and without telling the farmer of their intention, to invade his harvest field, work all night and stack his corn, whilst he slept. It was allowed to leak out who had done him this favour, and in return, he invited them with their lasses to sup and dance and make merry in a lighted barn. Then famous old songs were sung. But all that good feeling is at an end, and in its place exists a rankling hostility between the tiller of the soil and his employer. Blame assuredly attaches to the farmer for this condition of affairs, in that he has done away with the farmhouse festivities in which workmen and employer took part.
One evening in 1888, I was dining with the late Mr. Daniel Radford, of Mount Tavy, when the conversation turned to old Devonshire songs. Some of those present knew "Widdecombe Fair," others remembered "Arscott of Tetcott"; and all had heard many and various songs sung at Hunt-suppers, at harvest and sheep-shearing feasts. My host turned to me and said: "It is a sad thing that our folk-music should perish. I wish you would set to work and collect it—gather up the fragments that remain before all is lost!"
I undertook the task. I found that it was of little use going to most farmers and yeoman. They sang the compositions of Hooke, Hudson, and Dibden. But I learned that there were two notable old singing men at South Brent, and I was aware that there was one moorland singing farmer at Belstone, I was informed of this by J.D. Prickman, Esq., of Okehampton. This man, Harry Westaway, knew many old songs. Moreover, in my own neighbourhood was a totally illiterate hedger, in fact, he could neither read nor write. He enjoyed no little local celebrity as a song-man. His name was James Parsons, aged seventy-four, and a son of a still more famous singer called "The Singing-machine," and grandson of another of the same fame. In fact, the profession of song-man was hereditary in the family. At every country entertainment, in olden times, at the public-house almost nightly, for more than a century, one of these men of the Parsons' family had not failed to attend, to sing as required for the entertainment of the company. The repertoire of the grandfather had descended to old James. For how many generations before him the profession had been followed I could not learn. James Parsons' ballad tunes were of an early and archaic character. In fact, with few exceptions his melodies were in the Gregorian modes. At one time Parsons and a man named Voysey were working on the fringe of Dartmoor, and met in the evening at the moorland tavern. Parsons boasted of the number of songs he knew, and Voysey promised to give him a glass of ale for every fresh one he sang. Parsons started with "The Outlandish Knight," one song streamed forth after another, one glass after another was emptied, and these men sat up the whole night, till the sun rose, and the song-man's store was not then exhausted, but Voysey's pocket was. I could hardly credit this tale when told me, so I questioned Voysey, who had worked for my father and was working for me. He laughed and confirmed the tale. "I ought to remember it," he said, "for he cleared me clean out."
Many a pleasant evening have I spent with old Parsons, he in the settle, sitting over the hall fire, I taking down the words of his ballads, Mr. Sheppard or Mr. Bussell noting down his melodies.
But one day I heard that an accident had befallen Parsons. In cutting "spears," i.e., pegs for thatching, on his knee he had cut into the joint; and the village doctor told me he feared Parsons at his age would never get over it. I sent for Mr. Bussell, and said to him: "We shall lose our old singer, before we have quite drained him. Come with me, and we will visit his cottage, and see what more we can get from him." We went, and very pleased he was to sing to us from his bed. "Old Wichet," No. 30, was one of the songs we then acquired from him. Happily, the sturdy constitution of the man caused his recovery, and he lived on for three years after this accident.
One day in November, I got a letter from the Vicar of South Brent, in which he informed me that Robert Hard, a crippled stone-breaker there, and one of my song-men, was growing very feeble. Without delay I took the train, and arrived at South Brent Vicarage, just as the party had finished breakfast. "Now," said I to the Vicar, "Lend me your drawing room and the piano, and send for old Hard."
The stone breaker arrived, and I spent almost the whole day, that is, till the dusk of evening fell, taking down his songs and melodies. From him then, I had "The Cuckoo," that I have published in my "Garland of Country Songs." A month later, poor old Hard was found dead in a snowdrift by the roadside.
I had enlisted the services of such excellent musicians as the late Rev. H. Fleetwood Sheppard, of Thurnscoe, Yorkshire, and Mr., now the Rev. Doctor Bussell, Mus. Doc., and Vice-principal of Brazennose College, Oxford, and we worked at collecting, at South Brent, where besides Robert Hard, was John Helmore, a miller, who died in the Ivy Bridge Workhouse in 1900; also at Belstone, and we worked through the length and breadth of Dartmoor. James Coaker,1 a blind man of 89, in the heart of the moor, very infirm, and able to leave his bed for a few hours of the day only, was unable to sing, but could recite the words of ballads; but Mr. J. Webb, captain of a mine hard by, knew his tunes, and could very sweetly pipe them. On Blackdown, Mary Tavy, lived a mason, Samuel Fone, he died in 1898. He had an almost inexhaustible supply. Further songs were yielded by a singing blacksmith, John Woodrich, of Woolacott Moor, Thrushleton, commonly known as "Ginger Jack"; also by Roger Luxton, of Halwell, by James Olver, Tanner, Launceston, a native of S. Kewe, Cornwall; by John Masters, of Bradstone, aged 83; by William Rice and John Rickards, both of Lamerton; by William Friend, labourer, Lydford; Edmund Fry, thatcher, a native of Lezant, Cornwall; Roger Hannaford, Widdecombe; Will and Roger Huggins, Lydford; W. Bickle, Bridestowe; Matthew Baker, a poor cripple, Lew Down; John Dingle, Coryton; J. Peake, tanner, Liskeard; and Mr. S. Gilbert, the aged innkeeper of the "Falcon," Mawgan, in Pyder. More were obtained from old singers at Two Bridges and Post Bridge on Dartmoor, from others at Chagford, at Holne, and at South Brent. From others again at Menheniot, Cornwall, and at Fowey. Some songs taken down from moor men on Dartmoor, in or about 1868, were sent me by W. Crossing, Esq., who knows Dartmoor better than any man living; others by T.S. Cayzer, Esq., taken down in 1849. Miss Bidder, of Stoke Flemming, most kindly searched her neighbourhood for old women who knew ancient songs, and sent me what she obtained. We had several rare old melodies from Sally Satterley,2 now dead, of Huccaby Bridge, Dartmoor. She had acquired them from her father, a crippled fiddler.
Of the vast quantities of tunes that we have collected, perhaps a third are very good, a third are good, and the remainder indifferent. The singers are almost invariably illiterate and aged, and when they die the tradition will be lost, for the present generation will have nothing to do with these songs, especially such as are modal, and supplant them with the vulgarest music hall compositions. The melodies are far more precious than the words, and we have been more concerned to rescue these than the words, which are often common-place, and may frequently be found on broadside ballad sheets. The words are less frequently of home growth than the airs, and over and over again we came upon ballads already in print, but not to the tunes to which they are sung elsewhere. There are, in fact, only a few, such as "Cupid's Garden," "Bold General Wolf," "Lord Thomas and the Fair Eleanor," "Barbara Allen," "Outward Bound," "The Mermaid," that retain the melodies to which sung in other parts of England. But, "Tobacco is an Indian Weed," "Joans' Ale is New," "The Fox," and many others have tunes to which sung in Devon and Cornwall that are quite different and local. A remarkable instance is that of "Sweet Nightingale." This appeared in 1761 with music by Dr. Arne. The words travelled down to Cornwall, not so Arne's tune, and they were there set to an entirely independent melody. Then again, when a tune did travel West, and was heard by some of the peasant singers, if it did not commend itself to their taste, they altered it, perhaps quite unconsciously into a form more satisfactory to their minds. I have given a very curious example of this, "Upon a Sunday Morning."
Our folk music is a veritable moraine of rolled and ground fragments from musical strata far away. It contains melodies of all centuries from the days of the minstrels down to the present time, all thrown together in one heap. It must be borne well in mind that to the rustic singer, melody is everything. It was so in the days before Elizabeth. The people then did not want harmony; to them harmony is quite a modern invention and need.
At the present day, we are so accustomed to choral and concerted music that we have come to care little for formal melody,