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ANCIENT POEMS OF ENGLAND

Transcribed from the 1857 John W. Parker and Son edition by David

Price

ANCIENT POEMS, BALLADS AND SONGS OF THE PEASANTRY OF

ENGLAND. TAKEN DOWN FROM ORAL RECITATION AND

TRANSCRIBED FROM PRIVATE MANUSCRIPTS, RARE BROADSIDES

AND SCARCE PUBLICATIONS.

INTRODUCTION.

In 1846, the Percy Society issued to its members a volume entitled

Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England,

edited by Mr. James Henry Dixon. The sources drawn upon by Mr.

Dixon are intimated in the following extract from his preface:-

He who, in travelling through the rural districts of England, has

made the road-side inn his resting-place, who has visited the lowly

dwellings of the villagers and yeomanry, and been present at their

feasts and festivals, must have observed that there are certain old

poems, ballads, and songs, which are favourites with the masses,

and have been said and sung from generation to generation.

This traditional, and, for the most part, unprinted literature,--

cherished in remote villages, resisting everywhere the invasion of

modern namby-pamby verse and jaunty melody, and possessing, in an

historical point of view, especial value as a faithful record of

the feeling, usages, and modes of life of the rural population,--

had been almost wholly passed over amongst the antiquarian revivals

which constitute one of the distinguishing features of the present

age. While attention was successfully drawn to other forms of our

early poetry, this peasant minstrelsy was scarcely touched, and

might be considered unexplored ground. There was great difficulty

in collecting materials which lay scattered so widely, and which

could be procured in their genuine simplicity only from the people

amongst whom they originated, and with whom they are as ‘familiar

as household words.’ It was even still more difficult to find an

editor who combined genial literary taste with the local knowledge

of character, customs, and dialect, indispensable to the collation

of such reliques; and thus, although their national interest was

universally recognised, they were silently permitted to fall into

comparative oblivion. To supply this manifest desideratum, Mr.

Dixon compiled his volume for the Percy Society; and its pages,

embracing only a selection from the rich stores he had gathered,

abundantly exemplified that gentleman’s remarkable qualifications

for the labour he had undertaken. After stating in his preface

that contributions from various quarters had accumulated so largely

on his hands as to compel him to omit many pieces he was desirous

of preserving, he thus describes generally the contents of the

work:-

In what we have retained will be found every variety,

‘From grave to gay, from lively to severe,’

from the moral poem and the religious dialogue, -

‘The scrolls that teach us to live and to die,’ -

to the legendary, the historical, or the domestic ballad; from the

strains that enliven the harvest-home and festival, to the love-

ditties which the country lass warbles, or the comic song with

which the rustic sets the village hostel in a roar. In our

collection are several pieces exceedingly scarce, and hitherto to

be met with only in broadsides and chap-books of the utmost rarity;

in addition to which we have given several others never before in

print, and obtained by the editor and his friends, either from the

oral recitation of the peasantry, or from manuscripts in the

possession of private individuals.

The novelty of the matter, and the copious resources disclosed by

the editor, acquired for the volume a popularity extending far

beyond the limited circle to which it was addressed; and although

the edition was necessarily restricted to the members of the Percy

Society, the book was quoted not only by English writers, but by

some of the most distinguished archaeologists on the continent.

It had always been my intention to form a collection of local

songs, illustrative of popular festivals, customs, manners, and

dialects. As the merit of having anticipated, and, in a great

measure, accomplished this project belongs exclusively to Mr.

Dixon, so to that gentleman I have now the pleasure of tendering my

acknowledgments for the means of enriching the Annotated Edition of

the English Poets with a volume which, in some respects, is the

most curious and interesting of the series.

Subsequently to the publication of his collection by the Percy

Society, Mr. Dixon had amassed additional materials of great value;

and, conscious that the work admitted of considerable improvement,

both in the way of omission and augmentation, he resolved upon the

preparation of a new edition. His reasons for rejecting certain

portions of the former volume are stated in the following extract

from a communication with which he has obliged me, and which may be

considered as his own introduction to the ensuing pages.

The editor had passed his earliest years in a romantic mountain-

district in the North of England, where old customs and manners,

and old songs and ballads still linger. Under the influence of

these associations, he imbibed a passionate love for peasant

rhymes; having little notion at that time that the simple

minstrelsy which afforded him so much delight could yield hardly

less pleasure to those who cultivated more artificial modes of

poetry, and who knew little of the life of the peasantry. His

collection was not issued without diffidence; but the result

dissipated all apprehension as to the estimate in which these

essentially popular productions are held. The reception of the

book, indeed, far exceeded its merits; for he is bound in candour

to say that it was neither so complete nor so judiciously selected

as it might have been. Like almost all books issued by societies,

it was got up in haste, and hurried through the press. It

contained some things which were out of place in such a work, but

which were inserted upon solicitations that could not have been

very easily refused; and even where the matter was unexceptionable,

it sometimes happened that it was printed from comparatively modern

broadsides, for want of time to consult earlier editions. In the

interval which has since elapsed, all these defects and short-

comings have been remedied. Several pieces, which had no

legitimate claims to the places they occupied, have been removed;

others have been collated with more ancient copies than the editor

had had access to previously; and the whole work has been

considerably enlarged. In its present form it is strictly what its

title-page implies--a collection of poems, ballads, and songs

preserved by tradition, and in actual circulation, amongst the

peasantry.

Bex, Canton de Vaud.

Switzerland.

The present volume differs in many important particulars from the

former, of the deficiencies of which Mr. Dixon makes so frank an

avowal. It has not only undergone a careful revision, but has

received additions to an extent which renders it almost a new work.

Many of there accessions are taken from extremely rare originals,

and others are here printed for the first time, including amongst

the latter the ballad of Earl Brand, a traditional lyric of great

antiquity, long familiar to the dales of the North of England; and

the Death of Queen Jane, a relic of more than ordinary intesest.

Nearly forty songs, noted down from recitation, or gathered from

sources not generally accessible, have been added to the former

collection, illustrative, for the most part, of historical events,

country pastimes, and local customs. Not the least suggestive

feature in this department are the political songs it contains,

which have long outlived the occasions that gave them birth, and

which still retain their popularity, although their allusions are

no longer understood. Amongst this class of songs may be specially

indicated Jack and Tom, Joan’s Ale was New, George Ridler’s Oven,

and The Carrion Crow. The songs of a strictly rural character,

having reference to the occupations and intercourse of the people,

possess an interest which cannot be adequately measured by their

poetical pretensions. The very defects of art with which they are

chargeable, constitute their highest claim to consideration as

authentic specimens of country lore. The songs in praise of the

dairy, or the plough; or in celebration of the harvest-home, or the

churn-supper; or descriptive of the pleasures of the milk-maid, or

the courtship in the farm-house; or those that give us glimpses of

the ways of life of the waggoner, the poacher, the horse-dealer,

and the boon companion of the road-side hostelrie, are no less

curious for their idiomatic and primitive forms of expression, than

for their pictures of rustic modes and manners. Of special

interest, too, are the songs which relate to festival and customs;

such as the Sword Dancer’s Song and Interlude, the Swearing-in

Song, or Rhyme, at Highgate, the Cornish Midsummer Bonfire Song,

and the Fairlop Fair Song.

In the arrangement of so multifarious an anthology, gathered from

nearly all parts of the kingdom, the observance of chronological

order, for obvious reasons, has not been attempted; but pieces

which possess any kind of affinity to each other have been kept

together as nearly as other considerations would permit.

The value of this volume consists in the genuineness of its

contents, and the healthiness of its tone. While fashionable life

was masquerading in imaginary Arcadias, and deluging theatres and

concert rooms with shams, the English peasant remained true to the

realities of his own experience, and produced and sang songs which

faithfully reflected the actual life around him. Whatever these

songs describe is true to that life. There are no fictitious

raptures in them. Love here never dresses its emotions in

artificial images, nor disguises itself in the mask of a Strephon

or a Daphne. It is in this particular aspect that the poetry of

the country possesses a permanent and moral interest.

R. B.

ANCIENT POEMS, BALLADS, AND SONGS OF THE PEASANTRY.

Contents

Poems:

The plain-dealing man.

The vanities of life.

The life and age of man.

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