Folk Songs from the Southern Highlands by Mellinger Edward HenryReview by: M. K.Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Dec., 1938), p. 216Published by: English Folk Dance + Song SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4521144 .

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Folk Songs fromt the Souithern Highlands. Collected and edited by MNIELLINGER EDWARD HENRY_ New York: J. J. Augustin. $5.50.

The first serious collection of songs from the Southern Appalachian Mountains of America was- made in the years preceding the Great War by Olive Dame Campbell, to whom Cecil Sharp was indebted for his introduction to the songs. He spent 46 weeks in the mountains during the years i9i6-18 and noted over i,6oo tunes, representing about 5oo different songs.

Since that date many collections of folk-songs have been published in America, not only from the Southern Mountains, but from many other parts of the Northern Continent. The latest addition is Folk Sonzgs fromn the Sovthern Highlands, a well got-up volume containing the texts of i8o different ballads and songs (some with variants) and about 50 tunes collected by Mellinger E-dward Henry with the assistance of his wife.

A certain number of the texts (without airs) are "popular" rather than " folk," e.g. " Broken Vows," No. 69, and " A Package of Letters" or "The Little Rosewood Casket," No. 73. The theme of faithless love is " folky " enough, but the expression of these songs reflects the maudlin sentiment of the uncultured literate and is the antithesis of the poetic feeling which is associated with the culture of the unlettered.

As would be expected, there is little new material, but the collection includes the rarely found ballad of " King Henry V's Conquest of France," and an interesting cante-fable, " Little Dicky Whigburn." There are also some pleasing little variants in some of the well-known ballads and songs, e.g. in " Young Beichan " (or " Lord Bateman," or here " Lord Behun ") the Turkish lady (alias Miss Susie Price) sails to Glasgow, the home of the hero, just after he has celebrated his wedding with the " brown girl," and she is offered bv him instead of a pr-omised 9go,ooo, first his older and then his younger brother. These offers are scornfully refused

I wish you luck with your younger brother, But I don't want no such a man. Come pay me down my ninety thousand pounds And I'll go home to my native land.

To wN-hich Lord Behun replies: No, love, don't talk so; It's wAhether you marry him, or let that be, I'll wed you to my owNn self, If with me content you'd be.

And the story, as usual, ends happily for every one, except, perhaps, for the first wife and her outspoken mother. " The Foggy Dew " appears under the unfamiliar title of " Bugaboo," and- " The Maid freed from the Gallows " is modernised by the introduction of a railway train which brings the true-love to the scene of the execution.

Mr. and Mrs. Henry have not been fortunate wvith the accompanying airs. There are practi- cally no first-rate tunes, but this may be due to faulty notation, of which there are many obvious instances. The book, like most of the folk-song publications from the U.S.A., is well annotated but it is a pity that reference is made only to the one-volume collection of Olive Dame Campbell and Cecil Sharp, published in I9I7, and not to the complete two-volume collection, English Folk Songs fron the Southern Appalachians collected by Cecil Sharp (Oxford University Press, 1932).

In an Introduction, MIr. Henry gives an appreciation of the country and its inhabitants. The- songs, as he tells us, " came as the result of nearly a life-time's interest in the southern mountains," although it was not until the summer of I923 that, stinmulated by the late Professor Alphonso Smith, he turned his attention to ballad-collecting. " WVe never made it a burden," he writes. "We love the mountains and we love the people."A M. K.

Folk Songs fromt the Souithern Highlands. Collected and edited by MNIELLINGER EDWARD HENRY_ New York: J. J. Augustin. $5.50.

The first serious collection of songs from the Southern Appalachian Mountains of America was- made in the years preceding the Great War by Olive Dame Campbell, to whom Cecil Sharp was indebted for his introduction to the songs. He spent 46 weeks in the mountains during the years i9i6-18 and noted over i,6oo tunes, representing about 5oo different songs.

Since that date many collections of folk-songs have been published in America, not only from the Southern Mountains, but from many other parts of the Northern Continent. The latest addition is Folk Sonzgs fromn the Sovthern Highlands, a well got-up volume containing the texts of i8o different ballads and songs (some with variants) and about 50 tunes collected by Mellinger E-dward Henry with the assistance of his wife.

A certain number of the texts (without airs) are "popular" rather than " folk," e.g. " Broken Vows," No. 69, and " A Package of Letters" or "The Little Rosewood Casket," No. 73. The theme of faithless love is " folky " enough, but the expression of these songs reflects the maudlin sentiment of the uncultured literate and is the antithesis of the poetic feeling which is associated with the culture of the unlettered.

As would be expected, there is little new material, but the collection includes the rarely found ballad of " King Henry V's Conquest of France," and an interesting cante-fable, " Little Dicky Whigburn." There are also some pleasing little variants in some of the well-known ballads and songs, e.g. in " Young Beichan " (or " Lord Bateman," or here " Lord Behun ") the Turkish lady (alias Miss Susie Price) sails to Glasgow, the home of the hero, just after he has celebrated his wedding with the " brown girl," and she is offered bv him instead of a pr-omised 9go,ooo, first his older and then his younger brother. These offers are scornfully refused

I wish you luck with your younger brother, But I don't want no such a man. Come pay me down my ninety thousand pounds And I'll go home to my native land.

To wN-hich Lord Behun replies: No, love, don't talk so; It's wAhether you marry him, or let that be, I'll wed you to my owNn self, If with me content you'd be.

And the story, as usual, ends happily for every one, except, perhaps, for the first wife and her outspoken mother. " The Foggy Dew " appears under the unfamiliar title of " Bugaboo," and- " The Maid freed from the Gallows " is modernised by the introduction of a railway train which brings the true-love to the scene of the execution.

Mr. and Mrs. Henry have not been fortunate wvith the accompanying airs. There are practi- cally no first-rate tunes, but this may be due to faulty notation, of which there are many obvious instances. The book, like most of the folk-song publications from the U.S.A., is well annotated but it is a pity that reference is made only to the one-volume collection of Olive Dame Campbell and Cecil Sharp, published in I9I7, and not to the complete two-volume collection, English Folk Songs fron the Southern Appalachians collected by Cecil Sharp (Oxford University Press, 1932).

In an Introduction, MIr. Henry gives an appreciation of the country and its inhabitants. The- songs, as he tells us, " came as the result of nearly a life-time's interest in the southern mountains," although it was not until the summer of I923 that, stinmulated by the late Professor Alphonso Smith, he turned his attention to ballad-collecting. " WVe never made it a burden," he writes. "We love the mountains and we love the people."A M. K.

Folk Tunes fromi Mississippi. Collected by ARTHUR PALMIER HUDSON. New York: National Service Bureau. 25 cents.

This collection of 45 tunes comes as a welcome appendix to M\ir. Hudson's collection of folk-song- and play-party game texts issued by the North Carolina, Press in 1q3(:). Tunes were excluded from that book on account of impatience and expense, and the present supplement, which is not printed but reproduced from typewritten sheets, has been financed by the Works Progress Administration. There are one or two new songs (with texts) not found in the earlier collection,

2I6

Folk Tunes fromi Mississippi. Collected by ARTHUR PALMIER HUDSON. New York: National Service Bureau. 25 cents.

This collection of 45 tunes comes as a welcome appendix to M\ir. Hudson's collection of folk-song- and play-party game texts issued by the North Carolina, Press in 1q3(:). Tunes were excluded from that book on account of impatience and expense, and the present supplement, which is not printed but reproduced from typewritten sheets, has been financed by the Works Progress Administration. There are one or two new songs (with texts) not found in the earlier collection,

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