III. THE CANTE-FABLE

The existence of the “Cante-fable” has furnished another theory of folk-song origin. The Cante-fable is a traditional prose narrative having rhymed passages incorporated with the tale. These rhymes are generally short verses, or couplets, which recur at dramatic points of the story. They were probably sung to tunes, but present-day remembrance has failed to preserve more than a few specimens, and the verse, or couplet, is now generally recited.

It has been asserted that the Cante-fable is a sort of germ from which both ballad and prose narrative have evolved. Mr Jacobs, in English Fairy Tales, says—“The Cante-fable is probably the protoplasm out of which both ballad and folk-tale have been differentiated; the ballad by omitting the narrative prose, and the folk-tale by expanding it.”

Mr Cecil J. Sharp, in English Folk-song: Some Conclusions, p. 6, tells of having noted a version of the ballad “Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor”—“in which the whole of the story was sung, with the exception of three lines, which the singer assured me should be spoken. This was clearly a case of a Cante-fable that had very nearly, but not quite, passed into the form of a ballad, thus corroborating Mr Jacobs’ theory.”

The present writer is sorry to differ from Mr Jacobs as well as from Mr Sharp in this matter, but he does not think that facts quite justify the conclusion. He can but look upon the speaking of the three lines of the “Fair Eleanor” ballad, instead of singing them, as merely an individual eccentricity that has no value as pointing to a nearly completed evolution. Their theory indicates, to put it crudely, that the Cante-fable is in the condition of a tadpole which by and by will have its fins and tail turned into legs, will forsake its original element, and hop about a meadow, instead of being entirely confined to pond water.

An examination of existing Cante-fables will certainly reveal the fact that the fragments of verse are used either as a literary ornament, or to force some particular dramatic situation home to the hearer. Also, it must be noticed that the rhyme passages are not merely fragmentary parts of a prose narrative which is gradually turning wholly into rhyme, but most frequently consist of a repeated verse, or couplet, that occurs at parts of the story, which could not be so effectively told in prose.

The commonly known story of “Orange,” versions of which, all having the same rhyme passages, are to be found in English, German, and other folk-tales is a good example. With little variation the story tells of a stepmother who kills her husband’s child, makes the body into a pie, to be eaten by the father, and buries the bones in the cellar. First one member of the family goes into this place and hears the voice of the murdered child sing,—

“My mother did kill me and put me in pies, My father did eat me and say I was nice; My two little sisters came picking my bones, And buried me under cold marble stones.”

Then other members of the family go to the cellar and in turn hear the same voice repeating the rhyme (see Folk-Song Journal, vol. ii., p. 295, for a version of the tale and a tune sung to the above words learned from Liverpool children).

Another Cante-fable, surely a genuine one, is given by Charles Dickens in “Nurses’ Stories” in The Uncommercial Traveller.

In this case the rhyme—

“A lemon has pips, A yard has ships, And I’ll have Chips!”

is brought out with vivid effect by the narrator at intervals and with terror-striking force due to its expected recurrence, just as in the case of the story of “Orange.” As Dickens puts it—“I don’t know why, but the fact of the Devil expressing himself in rhyme was peculiarly trying to me.” And again—“For this refrain I had waited since its last appearance with inexpressible horror, which now culminated.” And—“The invariable effect of this alarming tautology on the part of the Evil Spirit was to deprive me of my senses.”

There can be but little doubt that this Cante-fable is a real nurse’s story, remembered by the great author from his childhood, and Dickens so well describes the feeling of terror that the rhyme inspires in the childish listener, that we cannot but grant that the original makers of Cante-fable were quite alive to the dramatic force such recurring rhymes possess.

Other examples of the Cante-fable are to be found in Chambers’ Popular Rhymes of Scotland and elsewhere. All, however, point to the verse being used as an ornamental and dramatic addition to the story, and certainly not as indicating a transitionary stage between a rhyming and a prose narrative.

The question of a Cante-fable origin of the folk-ballad is here somewhat fully dealt with, as it is a sufficiently romantic theory to lead people, who have not fully considered all the points involved, to accept it on trust.

IV. THE CONSTRUCTION OF
FOLK-MUSIC

It will be quite evident to the average hearer that much folk-music is built upon scales different from those that form the foundation of the ordinary modern tune. This fact is accounted for by the circumstance that a large percentage of folk-melodies are “modal”; i.e. constructed upon the so-called “ecclesiastical modes” which, whether adopted from the Greek musical system or not, had Greek nomenclature, and were employed in the early church services.

The ecclesiastical scales may be realised by playing an octave scale on the white keys of the piano only. Thus—C to C is Ionian, D to D Dorian, E to E Phrygian, F to F Lydian (rarely used), G to G Mixolydian, A to A Æolian, and B to B Locrian (practically unused).

Progress in harmony and polyphony gradually revealed the cramping effect of many modal intervals, and already by the beginning of the seventeenth century our modern major and minor scales (the first, however, corresponding to the Ionian mode in structure) had supplanted the rest, so far as trained musicians were concerned. Not so with the folk-tune maker; he was conservative enough to preserve that which had become obsolete elsewhere. We find a large proportion of folk-airs are in the Dorian, Mixolydian, and Æolian modes, with much fewer in the Phrygian.

When folk-music began to be first studied scientifically a theory was held that because of its modal character it was necessarily a reflex of ecclesiastical music, and that secular melodies were either church chants set to songs, or in some other way derived from them. It is known that many of the early clerics established schools for the teaching of music, with intent to enrich the services. But while this theory is temptingly plausible, yet it is incapable of proof, and a reverse one might, with equal reason, be held to maintain that the church took its music directly from the people, or at any rate adapted its form from that mostly popular.

It has also been asserted that the modal character of folk-music is a clear proof of great age. It is certainly more than likely that most of the modal tunes that are found are of considerable antiquity, but it is scarcely safe to conclude that all are so. How old any particular folk-tune may be is a problem incapable of solution, and all attempts to fix its age and period can be but, at best, mere guesswork.

We may grant that folk-music has been handed down traditionally by many generations of singers, but if it has pleased these different generations we must also admit that any new composition of folk-music, to please the people, must conform to their common demand.

Folk-music seems to have held its own traditional ideals longer and more closely than music composed for that class which has so persistently ignored it. The cultured musician is always, consciously or unconsciously, influenced by the music of his day, and as a consequence adheres to its idioms, or is genius enough to found a school of his own. His music too is far more elaborate than that produced by the rustic, or untaught musician. It has harmony, and many more points of evidence that enable us definitely to fix its period of composition.

The composer of folk-music may be compared, in a sense, to the Indian, or Chinese art-worker who repeats the class of patterns that has come down to him from time immemorial. When European influence was brought to bear on his work his patterns became debased, lost their original beauty, and gained nothing from the new source of inspiration.

There is no space in this small manual to enter into a disquisition on the Modes. The reader is referred to such a work as the new edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians (vol. iii., p. 222), to Carl Engel’s Study of National Music, and to a most valuable contribution to the subject by Miss A. G. Gilchrist, “Note on the Modal System of Gaelic Tunes,” in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society, vol. iv., No. 16.

The following are given as examples of modal folk-tunes, in the modes most frequently found:—

ONE MOONLIGHT NIGHT
DorianSung in a “Cante-Fable”
One moonlight night, as I  sat high, I looked for one, but two came by; The
boughs did bend, the leaves did shake, To see the hole the fox did make.

[Listen]

THE BONNY LABOURING BOY
Noted by Miss L. E. BroadwoodSung by Mr Lough, Surrey
Mixolydian
As I roved out one eve - ning, being in the blooming spring,
I heard a love-ly dam-sel fair most grie-vously did sing,Say-ing
“Cru-el were my pa - rents that did  me so an - noy.They
did not let me  mar-ry with my  bon-ny la-b’ring  boy.”

[Listen]
CHRISTMAS CAROL AS SUNG IN
NORTH YORKSHIRE
Æolian Mode
God rest you merry, merry gentlemen, Let nothing you dismay,Re-
member Christ our  Saviour was born on Christmas day,To
save our souls  from Satan’s pow’r that long had gone astray,Oh,
tidingsofcomfort andjoy, andjoy,and
joy,Oh,tidingsof comfort and joy,andjoy.

[Listen]

In addition to modal tunes we have a certain number of folk-airs built upon a “gapped,” or limited, scale of five notes instead of the usual seven. This “pentatonic” scale, which appears to be very characteristic of the primitive music of all nations, was formerly held as an infallible sign of a Scottish origin, and the old recipe to produce a Scottish air was—“stick to the black keys of the piano.” It is quite true that a large number of Scottish melodies have the characteristics of the pentatonic scale, but so also have the Irish tunes, and there are a lesser number that may claim to be English.

Much nonsense has been written to account for the existence of the pentatonic scale, the general conclusion arrived at being that it arose from the use of an imperfect instrument that could only produce five tones. Whatever the instrument so limited may have been, it was neither the primitive flute (like the tin whistle) of six vents, which is sufficient to produce well over an octave, nor was it the human voice. The universal use of the five note scale among many nations wide apart has never been satisfactorily explained. The following is an Irish pentatonic traditional air.

THE SHAMROCK SHORE
Pentatonic

[Listen]

V. CHANGES THAT OCCUR IN
FOLK-MUSIC

That all traditional lore is subject to change is of course a well-recognised fact, and this change is so uncertain in its effects, and so erratic in its selection that no law appears to govern it. In ballads or prose narratives that exist only by verbal transmission we may expect the dropping of obsolete words and phrases, and this usually occurs; though sometimes corruptions of such remain and are meaningless to those who repeat them.

For instance, in a certain singing-game, children of a particular district were accustomed to say—

“She knocked at the door and picked up a pin.” It is quite obvious that the original stood—

“She knocked at the door and tirled at the pin.” The “tirling pin” having completely gone out of usage, and even out of popular remembrance, in the limited area where it formerly served the purpose of attracting the attention of the householder, the phrase would have no meaning to the modern child; hence the change into something more comprehensible.

There is considerable analogy in the above to the change that takes place in folk-music. But as musical phrases do not, at any rate in folk-music, become so obsolete as words, the variation is less considerable and is probably due to different causes. These are chiefly wilful alteration for particular reasons, and unconscious change due to lapse of memory, or imperfect hearing. We may usefully consider two or three examples of these kinds of alterations. The tune “[Greensleeves]” is a very characteristic instance. The first record of the song is at the date 1580, when the ballad was entered at Stationers’ Hall. It is evident that both words and tune became immediately popular, and from that time to our own day it has always retained considerable favour, for it was one of those stock tunes used for ephemeral political ditties, and for the scraps of verse that were employed in the early ballad operas. It is easy to trace, from the eighteenth century printed copies, how the tendency has been to eliminate complex passages, and generally to simplify, while retaining the essential features of the tune. Probably this is its pure sixteenth century form—

GREENSLEEVES
(Earliest form) 16th Century 

[Listen]

It is rather a shock to find that the beautiful air has by careless transmission or wilful change got so degraded as finally to appear in a manuscript book of fiddle airs dated 1838, thus,—

GREENSLEEVES
From a Manuscript Book, dated 1838 

[Listen]

Other copies which have deplorably lost much of the purity of the original are to be seen in D’Urfey’s Wit and Mirth, The Beggar’s Opera and other early eighteenth century publications. This is from an edition of The Dancing Master, dated 1716:

GREENSLEEVES AND YELLOW LACE
Printed 1716 

[Listen]

We may trace a curious corruption in the tune as found in traditional usage in Ireland nearly eighty years ago. Thomas Moore employed this traditional version for his song, “Oh, could we do with this world of ours,” and published it united to his verses in his Irish Melodies, the tenth number dated 1834. He gives the tune the name of “[The Basket of Oysters].” The real tune which went by this title, otherwise known as “[Paddy the Weaver],” is to be seen in Aird’s Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. iii., Glasgow [1788], and elsewhere. It will be noticed that Moore’s tune is “[Greensleeves],” to which is joined a part of “[Paddy the Weaver].” It is a notable example of the manner in which traditional tunes suffer change from imperfect remembrances or other causes.

THE BASKET OF OYSTERS
Greensleeves, Irish Version, 1834 

[Listen]

A BASKET OF OYSTERS, OR
PADDY THE WEAVER
From Aird’s “Selection,” 1788 

[Listen]

Although “[Greensleeves]” is probably not a folk-tune, yet in some cases folk-tunes are apt to suffer a like degradation in character, although it must be clearly stated that tradition frequently holds them together in a wonderfully perfect manner.

In this latter case we may rank “[Joan’s placket is torn],” which survives in the modern “[Cock o’ the North],” with “Greensleeves,” and their histories are well worth recalling.

We may pass over the tradition that “Joan’s placket” was played at the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. The structure of the tune shows it to have been originally a trumpet tune, and strangely enough throughout the whole course of its existence it seems to have been used in defiance or ridicule. Mr Pepys tells us that when the English sailors left the deserted “Royal Charles” in the Medway in 1667, a Dutch trumpeter sounded the tune from the deck of the captured ship. After this period political lampoons were adapted to the melody. It is difficult to find out when the tune was first named “The Cock o’ the North,” or when, under that title, it was adopted as a British army tune, but there is a striking instance of its use during the siege of Lucknow in the Mutiny of 1857. It was the practice to signal by flag and bugle call from the City to the Residency, both in a state of siege. On one occasion a drummer boy, named Ross, after the signalling was over again climbed to the high dome from which it was conducted, and in spite of the Sepoy rifles sounded “The Cock o’ the North” as a defiance. We all know the story of the wounded piper, shot in the ankle during the rush at Dargai, crouching behind a rock and still sounding the pipe tune the “Cock o’ the North” that had inspired the onslaught. How little the traditional “Cock o’ the North” differs from “Joan’s Placket” the reader will be able to see from the following copies:—

JOAN’S PLACKET IS TORN
17th Century 

[Listen]

THE COCK O’ THE NORTH
20th Century 

[Listen]

Many other examples of traditional cohesion as regards folk-tunes might be cited did space permit.

The tune “A sailor loved a farmer’s daughter,” given in Edward Bunting’s Ancient Music of Ireland, 1840, has recently been noted from a farm labourer by Mrs Stanton of Armscott, Warwickshire, in a form practically identical with the printed version, though it is quite evident that the tune noted in Warwickshire has had a source independent of Bunting’s. Every collector could point to such instances from his own experience.

Another fact forces itself into notice. A tune may develop by traditional passage, or by wilful alteration, into several forms, and thus we get airs having points of similarity but also points of difference. In some cases the likeness may be so close that the different tunes are classed as “variants.”

It must be realised that a folk-song singer is under no bond to sing an air strictly as he has received it. Fortunately, in many cases, as shown above, he does, and religiously adheres to the melody as far as his memory, or skill, will permit. There are, however, difficult tunes to remember as well as easy ones, and this fact has considerable bearing on the question.

The reason why we find well-known folk-songs adapted to different airs is somewhat obvious, and the following explanation may be I think accepted. Where a singer reads a folk-song from a ballad sheet and does not know its particular tune, it is easy to believe that he uses one with which he is already familiar, or adapts one, or even composes an air from the stock musical phrases that he knows in other melodies. Thus we find folk-songs sung to many different airs, and this is not evolution.

It may be noticed that in the lesser marked tunes, or rather less original airs, stock musical phrases are in use just as the stock phrases of the ballad-maker are employed by him over and over again. The folk-song singer looks for and welcomes these passages. They are conventional and are the most acceptable. Just as a child gives a better welcome to a story beginning “Once upon a time” than to a less hackneyed manner of opening, and as the folk-singer demands that every girl shall be “a fair damsel,” that the incident of the song shall happen “As I was a-walking one morning in May,” and that his mode of address shall be “I stepped up boldly to her,” or the like, so there are certain inevitable musical phrases in folk-music that one meets with in a particular type of melody.

Waggish musicians are sometimes guilty of inventing “a folk-melody” for the purpose of deceiving and laughing at collectors. The collector, recognising the phrases he knows so well, may accept the tune as genuine. He is not wrong or ignorant in this; the musician has got possession of the material and spirit of folk-music, and then deception is easy. A man may have a Johnsonian method of diction without having the wit or learning of the great lexicographer, and might even pass off a short speech as a genuine one of the Doctor’s.

These stock phrases are of course freely used in folk-music, and it is quite easy for a singer of folk-song legitimately to make an air for a ballad whose proper tune he may not know. This is another way in which variation of tunes occurs, and such results are frequently very puzzling to the expert. The singer may have remembered a passage of a melody and to this he has fitted other phrases that he is also familiar with. He is probably not conscious of the composite tune he is making,—he may even think that he is singing the correct tune.

VI. THE QUALITY OF FOLK-SONG,
AND ITS DIFFUSION

The strongest and most valuable feature of folk-song is its earnestness and good faith. Though the quality of earnestness is indefinable it is the soul of art work, and its presence is ever felt.

A folk-song may be very doggerel in verse, its subject trite and trivial, yet it possesses that subtle character that has the appeal and lasting power only belonging to sincerity. The maker of a folk-song did not produce his work for professional reasons; he sang because he must, and sometimes he was very ill-fitted for the task. Yet the work, being done in good faith, has not only the power of appeal to the class for which it was made, but also to a higher culture. Work of greater cleverness if it lack this great asset of earnestness cannot do more than please a particular cult for the moment.

As with folk-music and folk-song, so with the original folk-song singer. In general he does not sing anything that is not fully in accord with his own sentiments, and this is really why folk-song not only keeps in favour with him, but also why it maintains its integrity in tradition. It is seldom, except for the reasons I have before given, that a folk-song singer wilfully alters his song. As I have said, he may, and indeed frequently does, make unconscious changes, but he has a respect for the songs handed down to him.

On the other hand a singer will without scruple rob another district of its right in a folk-song. What in one district is “Scarbro’ Fair” becomes “Whittingham Fair,” and “Birmingham Fair” becomes “Brocklesby Fair,” according to the places where the songs are current. Otherwise the song sustains no material change, and each set of singers will declare their own version is the true one.

The drawing-room vocalist has not the same constancy to his songs as the folk-song singer, nor have his songs the same stability. When the stout respectable father of a family proclaims his passion for a fascinating nymph, and entreats her to fly with him, his wife smiles approval and silently applauds his efforts. When a feeble-looking young man voices sentiments of a blood-thirsty or gruesome character nobody is expected to believe him. In fact he is not in earnest, and in neither of the two cases I have supposed do the singer’s voice their general sentiments. On the other hand, the folk-song singer really does feel the sentiments he sings. If he likes fox-hunting, he sings a fox-hunting song, and is in perfect agreement with the ditty that proclaims fox-hunting a noble sport. And the song represents his feelings when he sings of the joys of farming, or of good liquor, or any other subject that appeals to him as a man, including love. When a young girl or even an old lady sings—

“Oh, my very heart is breaking All for the love of him,”

we may be quite sure that this puts into song some sentiments that either hold possession of the soul or recalls certain sacred memories.

Such songs as voice commonly felt sentiments are quickly diffused over the countryside, and they are to be found very widely spread. Where songs deal with the usages of a district, which, from some cause or another, do not obtain elsewhere, they are less likely to travel. For example, we find few harvest-home songs current in the north of England, and not so many that deal with the joys of farming. In the south-west, where there are large tracts of agricultural land, and more organised merry-makings at the close of the harvest, or at sheep-shearing, there are plenty of songs which proclaim that the life of a farmer, or a ploughman, is all that can be desired.

In the North, where there is more grazing land, and the harvest is harder to wring from the soil, this type of song scarcely exists. The fact is therefore again forced upon us that the folk-song singer, or maker, deals with things with which he is most familiar. Except for these limitations it is unsafe to class a folk-song as “Yorkshire,” “Devonshire,” or otherwise fix it to a particular county.

There are, of course, a very small number of folk-songs that obviously belong to certain districts, but because a song is sung or noted in one county we cannot claim that such county is the place of its origin. Before folk-song collecting was so general as at present it was frequently customary to fall into this error, but as collectors and their published “finds” have increased in number, it has become apparent that folk-songs have been very widespread.

For some reason a song may linger longer in one place than another. Such a one may be compared to the snow which may have completely covered a hill-side, but ultimately melting leaves its remnants only in the sheltered nooks, to disappear last of all.

In a similar way we may find that a dialect word which might be hastily assumed to belong strictly to, say, Yorkshire, is used in another part of the country—quite remote, and is generally considered to be a local word. Instances of such might be given, and we may speculate as to how the word, or the song has got there, whether by travel, or whether, like the snowdrift, by survival.

VII. THE MOVEMENT FOR COLLECTING
ENGLISH FOLK-SONG

It remains now to consider what has been done towards the noting of traditionary songs and their airs. Little attention was paid to the songs sung by country singers prior to the first half of the nineteenth century. In England, the first step toward the recognition of country folk-song was made by the Rev. John Broadwood, squire of Lyne, on the Sussex and Surrey border. In 1843 he published (modestly keeping his name from the title page) a collection of sixteen songs which were harmonised by a country organist. The title of the Rev. John Broadwood’s book is lengthy, but so curious and explanatory that I reproduce it. The work itself is of extraordinary rarity.

“Old English Songs, as now sung by the peasantry of the weald of Surrey and Sussex, and collected by one who has learnt them by hearing them sung every Christmas from early childhood by the country people who go about to the neighbouring houses, singing, or ‘wassailing,’ as it is called, at that season. The airs are set to music exactly as they are now sung, to rescue them from oblivion, and to afford a specimen of genuine old English Melody, and the words are given in their original rough state with an occasional slight alteration to render the sense intelligible. Harmonised for the collector, in 1843, by G. A. Dusart, organist to the Chapel of Ease at Worthing, London. Published for the Collector by Balls & Co., 408 Oxford St. for private circulation (folio, pp. 32).”

It was about this time that William Chappell was bringing into notice the fine store of English melodies, which were then quite unknown save to a few musical antiquaries. He had already published a couple of volumes of airs, but in 1856 he commenced the issue of his Popular Music of the Olden Time, and among the tunes there printed he included a small number of traditional melodies which he had taken down chiefly in the South of England. Many of these have won their way into the hearts of lovers of our national music, and it seems a pity that they are omitted from the new edition of Chappell’s work. For a long time after Chappell’s publication little attention was paid to the folk-songs of our own country, though many German songs that claimed to be people’s song obtained considerable favour with us. About 1878 a revival of interest in the Northumbrian small pipes caused a search to be made for pipe tunes, and Mr John Stokoe, of South Shields, was an active worker in the field. Commencing in December 1878 he contributed to the Newcastle Courant a series of pipe and fiddle tunes once popular among Northumbrian pipers. They were chiefly taken from manuscript collections, but while the airs were, in many cases, merely transcripts from books of printed tunes for the violin or flute, published in England and Scotland during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, there remained a number of traditional melodies of purely Northumbrian usage.

In 1882, under the auspices of the Society of Antiquaries, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Mr Stokoe, in collaboration with Dr Collingwood Bruce, published a volume entitled Northumbrian Minstrelsy, and here the Courant tunes were republished with other material. The work has the fault of including as fresh material much of what had already been printed in early dance collections and elsewhere, but having small claim to be considered as of Northumbrian origin.

A book of traditional nursery rhymes, chiefly from a Northumbrian source, had already been issued (in 1877) by Miss M. A. Mason. In 1888 a small illustrated booklet, The Besom Maker and other Country Folk-Songs, containing nine songs, was issued by Mr Heywood Sumner.

It was about this period that a wave of sympathy impelled several persons to turn their attention to the consideration of the songs sung by rustics and other persons who remembered the songs sung by their parents or elders. Most persons were under the impression that these country songs were merely remembrances from printed sources, and that practically little, or nothing, existed purely traditionary.

A little study of the question, however, soon convinced Miss Lucy E. Broadwood, Dr William Alexander Barrett, the Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, and the present writer to the contrary.

Miss Broadwood, then living at Lyne in Sussex, found an unworked mine of great richness among the country people of her district. The late Dr Barrett had already gathered much, chiefly in the South of England, while a chance suggestion at a dinner-table caused Mr Baring-Gould to turn his attention to the collecting of the song current in Devonshire and Cornwall. Mr Baring-Gould absolutely revelled in this work, and his wild journeys over Dartmoor, with periods of settling down for a time at village inns, brought him in a plentiful harvest of charming songs and delightful melody. In this task he was associated with the Rev. H. Fleetwood Sheppard and Mr F. W. Bussell. The work of these collectors saw publication in Songs of the West, the first part of which was issued about 1889, and the fourth and last part in 1891.

Another work of Mr Baring-Gould’s, in conjunction with the late Mr Sheppard, is a Garland of Country Songs, 1895. This is some portion of the material left over from Songs of the West; both were published by Methuen. A re-issue of Songs of the West with additions appeared in 1905.

A small part of Miss Broadwood’s work was incorporated in English County Songs, which she edited in collaboration with Mr J. A. Fuller Maitland in 1893. The great popularity of this work is justified by its excellence. A further selection appeared in English Traditional Songs and Carols (Boosey, 1908).

Dr Wm. Alex. Barrett, in February 1891, a few months prior to his death, issued, through Novello & Co., English Folk-Songs, a most interesting collection of fifty-four songs, some of which, however, are to be found in print in earlier publications.

In the spring of 1891 the present writer issued the result of his collecting under the title Traditional Tunes, a collection of ballad airs chiefly obtained in Yorkshire and the South of Scotland, by Frank Kidson.

After these publications no further work on English folk-song appeared before the formation of the Folk-Song Society. This society, the most important factor in calling attention to the existence of unnoted folk-song, owed its existence to three or four enthusiasts in the cause who saw the utility of such a thing. At first it was projected as a branch of the Folk-Lore Society, but, finally, it was thought advisable that it should stand alone. The Folk-Song Society was duly formed on June 16th, 1898. The first president was the late Lord Herschell; the vice-presidents the late Sir John Stainer, Sir Alexander Mackenzie, Sir Hubert Parry, Professor (now Sir Charles) Stanford, and the committee as follows—Mrs Frederick Beer, Miss Lucy E. Broadwood, Sir Ernest Clarke, Mr W. H. Gill, Mrs (now Lady) Gomme, Messrs A. P. Graves, (the late) E. F. Jacques, Frank Kidson, J. A. Fuller Maitland, J. P. Rogers, W. Barclay Squire, and Dr Todhunter. The late Mrs Kate Lee acted as Hon. Secretary and Mr A. Kalisch as Hon. Treasurer, both being on the committee.

In the first year 110 members joined; at the present time there are probably more than three times that number. In 1904 Miss Lucy E. Broadwood became Hon. Secretary, and the useful work of the society advanced by leaps and bounds. Mrs Walter Ford, and Mr Frederick Keel, the present secretary, followed Miss Broadwood.

The “Journals” of the Society, which by January 1914 had reached eighteen issues, are of the utmost importance in the study of folk-song. They contain material gathered by members of the Society in different parts of the United Kingdom. The original members of the Council of the Folk-Song Society who have died or retired have been replaced by musicians and collectors equally enthusiastic, and such additional names as Dr Vaughan Williams, Mr Percy Grainger, Mr Clive Carey, and Mr Cecil J. Sharp bear witness to the excellent hands in which the Society is held.

It would be invidious to name the individual members who have supplied matter to the Journals of the Folk-Song Society, but besides the above named, Miss A. G. Gilchrist, the late Dr Gardiner, the late H. E. D. Hammond, Mrs Leather, Miss Tolmie (with her Gaelic songs), and Mr W. P. Merrick have all contributed largely and well. Miss Gilchrist has written with great knowledge on the construction of folk-tunes, and has supplied other notes of much value.

English folk-song and folk-music has been utilised in several compositions by Dr Vaughan Williams, Mr H. Balfour Gardiner, Mr Rutland Boughton, and Mr Percy Grainger.

The part that Mr Cecil Sharp has taken in the advancement of folk-song is well known. He has collected extensively, chiefly in Somerset, and his vigorous methods of bringing the subject before the public have caused “folk-song” to become a household word wherever the English language is spoken.