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 The original members of the Council of the Folk-Song Society who have died or retired have been replaced by musicians and collectors equally enthusiastic, and such additional names as Dr Vaughan Williams, Mr Percy Grainger, Mr Clive Carey, and Mr Cecil J. Sharp bear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.
VIII. THE NOTING OF FOLK-MUSIC
When the songs and the ballads of the people began to be recognised as belonging, more or less, to literature, the editors of collections deemed it was essential that their crudities of style, rhyme, and diction should be amended, and that the whole should undergo a polishing process before being launched to the public.
Bishop Percy, of course, naturally occurs to one’s mind in this connection, and we must grant that in the classic age when he issued his three volumes (1765) there was reason on his side, and he had some justification for the trimming he did—the world was not yet ripe for the folk-ballad collector.
There is much reason to suspect the later editors of ballad lore did as much as Percy in the work of polishing, and even went beyond him by pure fabrication. No excuse for such work as this nowadays exists. People are quite prepared to accept fragments of traditional ballads or songs precisely in the state they are sung or recited.