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No. 52. My Bonny, Bonny Boy

earliest form of the ballad is, perhaps, that which was printed in the reign of Charles II under several titles, “Cupid’s Trappan,” “The Twitcher,” “Bonny, bonny Bird,” etc. (Chappell’s Popular Music of the Olden Time, p. 555). For other versions with tunes, see the Journal of the Folk-Song Society (volume i, pp. 17 and 274; volume ii, p. 82; volume iii, p. 85); Songs of the West (No. 106, 2d ed.); English County Songs (p. 146); Folk Songs from Various Counties (No. 9). The words are also in the Roxburghe Collection and printed in black-letter by J. Coles and by W. Thackeray (17th century). Mr. Baring-Gould claims that “bird,” not “boy,” is the proper reading, and points out that it is so given in the oldest printed version. But Miss Broadwood suggests that an old ballad-title “My bonny Burd” (or young girl) may have led to the allegorical use of the bird in later forms of the ballad.

The version given in the text was recovered in London, It was necessary to make one or two slight alterations in the words. The tune, which is in the Æolian mode, contains a passage only rarely heard in folksong, in which several notes are sung to a single syllable (see English Folk Song: Some Conclusions, p. 109).

No. 53 a and b. As I walked through the meadows

For other versions, see the Journal of the Folk-Song Society (volume ii, pp. 10–12; volume v, p. 94). A few verbal alterations have been made in the words. The first tune is in the major mode and the second in the Mixolydian with, in one passage, a sharpened seventh.

No. 54. Erin’s Lovely Home

versions with tunes are printed in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society (volume i, p. 117; volume ii, pp. 167 and 211); and the Journal of the Irish Folk-Song Society (Part I, p. 11).

The words are on broadsides by Such and others.

The tune is almost invariably a modal one, either Æolian or, as in the present case, Dorian.

No. 55. The True Lover’s Farewell

other versions with tunes of this ballad and of “The Turtle Dove,” with which it is closely allied, see the Journal of the Folk-Song Society (volume ii, p. 55; volume iii, p. 86; volume iv, p. 286).

The song is clearly one of several peasant songs of the same type upon which Burns modelled his “A red, red rose” (see note to the song in The Centenary Burns by Henley and Henderson). The old Scottish tune is printed in Johnson’s Museum under the heading “Queen Mary’s Lament.” The variants of this very beautiful song that have been recently recovered in the southern counties of England prove beyond doubt that this was the source from which Burns borrowed nearly all his lines. Henderson, indeed, states that a broadside containing one of the versions of this song was known to have been in Burns’s possession. Two of the traditional stanzas are included in an American burlesque song, dating from about the middle of the last century, called “My Mary Anne” (see the Journal of the Folk-Song Society, volume iii, p. 89; volume iv, p. 288). Three stanzas in the text are similar to corresponding lines in a garland entitled “The true Lover’s Farewell,” the second of “Five excellent New Songs, printed in the year 1792.” The words have been compiled from several traditional sets that I have collected.

The tune is in the Dorian mode.

No. 56. High Germany

are two ballads of this name. The words of one of them, that given here, may be found on a broadside by Such and in A Collection of Choice Garlands, circa 1780. The second is printed on a Catnach broadside, and is entitled “The True Lovers: or the King’s command must be obeyed,” although it is popularly known as “High Germany,” For versions of both of these, see the Journal of the Folk-Song Society (volume ii, p. 25); Journal of the Irish Folk-Song Society (Part I, p. 10); and Folk Songs from Dorset (No. 6).

The words have been compiled from different versions. The tune is in the Æolian mode.