#old english ballads

[sictransitgloriamvndi]

[atomic-chronoscaph]

art by Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale (1910s)

[fictionadventurer]

I don't think we talk often enough about how amazing a poet J.R.R. Tolkien was.

I just read The Lay of Arthur and it was amazing. I got to the battle scene and was so caught up in the excitement and the sound that I just had to read it aloud. It was its own kind of adrenaline rush. I haven't been caught up in poetry like that in a long time.

[lepetitdragonvert]

A Book of Old English Ballads by George Wharton Edwards

1910

Artist : Hamilton Wright Mable

Phillida and Corydon

[peaceinthestorm]

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale (1872-1945, British) ~ The Book of Old English Songs and Ballads - 08 : "Pride and Ambition here Only in far-fetch metaphors appear", 1915

[uwmspeccoll]

Publishers' Binding Thursday

It's an Arts and Crafts Publishers' Binding Thursday this week, with A Book of Old English Ballads featuring illustrations by American painter, illustrator, and author George Wharton Edwards. Published in New York by the Macmillan Company, the book includes an introduction by American essayist, critic, and editor Hamilton W. Mabie. The illustrations and cover are done in the Arts and Crafts style, which flourished between 1880 and 1920. This book was published in 1896 at the height of the Arts and Crafts movement.

The cover has the same rather ornate design as the title page, which features a harpist playing under a lit lamp. The illustrations are detailed and the decorations equally so. The spine features the title, illustrator, and introducer in ornate fonts.

View more Publishers' Binding Thursdays here.

-- Alice, Special Collections Department Manager

[dailyenglishvoca]

Today's song is a ballad for an old man by MCandyx featuring the Vocaloids Akito and Haruka

Content warning: glitching/TV static effects, themes concerning death (including both suicide and homicide)

[queenwendy]

Anyone who thinks those cliché fanfic summaries that are like “five times bob tried to help jill, and one time he succeeded” clearly haven’t read Howard Pyle’s 1883 The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood

[sassafrasmoonshine]

Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale (British, 1871-1945) • Who is Sylvia • 1919 • Series: The Book of old English songs and ballads • 1920

[winterisol]

@ray935sworld thank you for the tag! (Still trying to learn how this app works) I am however throughly uncultured regarding western music so it was very entertaining to go through your list

Anyway here is my version of the “choose your favourite song out of the top 5 that played when I shuffled my playlist"

[yeah-thats-probably-it]

#in the german translation they do away with all subtility (not that there was much in the first place) and jeeves doesnt just call the poem #a drawing-room ballad when bertie asks where the quote is from but instead describes it as an 'old english love ballad'#which. firstly does 1819/20-ish count as old english. #secondly. and more importantly. that is absolutely what it is. that is a love ballad. #They tell me she is happy now the gayest of the gay / they hint that she forgets me too i heed not what they say /#Perhaps like me she struggles with each feeling of regret / but if she loves as i have loved she never can forget #also jeeves was gone for LESS THAN TWO WEEKS

I love when Jeeves goes away for a vacation or to help another household or whatever, and Bertie immediately compares himself to some young man of his acquaintance who’s lost his girlfriend. 

[intheholler]

the appalachian murder ballad <3 one of the most interesting elements of americana and american folk, imo!

my wife recently gave me A Look when i had one playing in the car and she was like, "why do all of these old folk songs talk about killing people lmao" and i realized i wanted to Talk About It at length.

nerd shit under the cut, and it's long. y'all been warned

so, as y'all probably know, a lot of appalachian folk music grew its roots in scottish folk (and then was heavily influenced by Black folks once it arrived here, but that's a post for another time).

they existed, as most folk music does, to deliver a narrative--to pass on a story orally, especially in communities where literacy was not widespread. their whole purpose was to get the news out there about current events, and everyone loves a good murder mystery!

as an aside, i saw someone liken the murder ballad to a ye olde true crime podcast and tbh, yeah lol.

the "original" murder ballads started back across the pond as news stories printed on broadsheets and penned in such a way that it was easy to put to melody.

they were meant to be passed on and keep the people informed about the goings-on in town. i imagine that because these songs were left up to their original orators to get them going, this would be why we have sooo many variations of old folk songs.

naturally then, almost always, they were based on real events, either sung from an outside perspective, from the killer's perspective and in some cases, from the victim's. of course, like most things from days of yore, they reek of social dogshit. the particular flavor of dogshit of the OG murder ballad was misogyny.

so, the murder ballad came over when the english and scots-irish settlers did. in fact, a lot of the current murder ballads are still telling stories from centuries ago, and, as is the way of folk, getting rewritten and given new names and melodies and evolving into the modern recordings we hear today.

305 such scottish and english ballads were noted and collected into what is famously known as the Child Ballads collected by a professor named francis james child in the 19th century. they have been reshaped and covered and recorded a million and one times, as is the folk way.

while newer ones continued to largely fit the formula of retelling real events and murder trials (such as one of my favorite ones, little sadie, about a murderer getting chased through the carolinas to have justice handed down), they also evolved into sometimes fictional, (often unfortunately misogynistic) cautionary tales.

perhaps the most famous examples of these are omie wise and pretty polly where the woman's death almost feels justified as if it's her fault (big shocker).

but i digress. in this way, the evolution of the murder ballad came to serve a similar purpose as the spooky legends of appalachia did/do now.

(why do we have those urban legends and oral traditions warning yall out of the woods? to keep babies from gettin lost n dying in them. i know it's a fun tiktok trend rn to tell tale of spooky scary woods like there's really more haints out here than there are anywhere else, but that's a rant for another time too ain't it)

so, the aforementioned little sadie (also known as "bad lee brown" in some cases) was first recorded in the 1920s. i'm also plugging my favorite female-vocaist cover of it there because it's superior when a woman does it, sorry.

it is a pretty straightforward murder ballad in its content--in the original version, the guy kills a woman, a stranger or his girlfriend sometimes depending on who is covering it.

but instead of it being a cautionary 'be careful and don't get pregnant or it's your fault' tale like omie wise and pretty polly, the guy doesn't get away with it, and he's not portrayed as sympathetic like the murderer is in so many ballads.

a few decades after, women started saying fuck you and writing their own murder ballads.

in the 40s, the femme fatale trope was in full swing with women flipping the script and killing their male lovers for slights against them instead.

men began to enter the "find out" phase in these songs and paid up for being abusive partners. women regained their agency and humanity by actually giving themselves an active voice instead of just being essentially 'fridged in the ballads of old.

her majesty dolly parton even covered plenty of old ballads herself but then went on to write the bridge, telling the pregnant-woman-in-the-murder-ballad's side of things for once. love her.

as a listener, i realized that i personally prefer these modern covers of appalachian murder ballads sung by women-led acts like dolly and gillian welch and even the super-recent crooked still especially, because there is a sense of reclamation, subverting its roots by giving it a woman's voice instead.

meaning that, like a lot else from the problematic past, the appalachian murder ballad is something to be enjoyed with critical ears. violence against women is an evergreen issue, of course, and you're going to encounter a lot of that in this branch of historical music.

but with folk songs, and especially the murder ballad, being such a foundational element of appalachian history and culture and fitting squarely into the appalachian gothic, i still find them important and so, so interesting

i do feel it's worth mentioning that there are "tamer" ones. with traditional and modern murder ballads alike, some of them are just for "fun," like a murder mystery novel is enjoyable to read; not all have a message or retell a historical trial.

(for instance, i'd even argue ultra-modern, popular americana songs like hell's comin' with me is a contemporary americana murder ballad--being sung by a male vocalist and having evolved from being at the expense of a woman to instead being directed at a harmful and corrupt church. that kind of thing)

in short: it continues to evolve, and i continue to eat that shit up.

anyway, to leave off, lemme share with yall my personal favorite murder ballad which fits squarely into murder mystery/horror novel territory imo.

it's the 10th child ballad and was originally known as "the twa sisters." it's been covered to hell n back and named and renamed.

but! if you listen to any flavor of americana, chances are high you already know it; popular names are "the dreadful wind and rain" and sometimes just "wind and rain."

in it, a jealous older sister pushes her other sister into a river (or stream, or sea, depending on who's covering it) over a dumbass man. the little sister's body floats away and a fiddle maker come upon her and took parts of her body to make a fiddle of his own. the only song the new fiddle plays is the tale about how it came to be, and it is the same song you have been listening to until then.

how's that for genuinely spooky-scary appalachia, y'all?

[drawingdroid]

Knight Carrying Child 1920 by Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale

Found in the book, The Book of Old English Songs & Ballads, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1920

[movingg-picture]

Targtower Family + Art

🐉 In Time of Peril (1897) by Edmund Blair Leighton 🐉 The Two Princes in the Tower (1878) by John Everett Millais 🐉 Illustration from the Book of Old English Songs and Ballads (c. 1910)

[anemoiawithatouchofobsession]

I have never forgot about the song, so I will try and translate the lyrics:

낮부터 내린 비는 이 저녁 유리창에 이슬만 뿌려 놓고서 The rain that's falling since the day is only leaving dewdrops on this glass window on this evening 밤이되면 더욱 커지는 시계 소리처럼 내 마음을 흔들고 있네 It is shaking my heart, just like the sound of the clock that only grows louder when the night falls. 이 밤 빗줄기는 언제나 숨겨놓은 내 맘에 비를 내리네 Tonight, the rain streams are constantly raining down in my hidden heart 떠오른 아주 많은 시간들 속을 헤매이던 내 맘은 비에 젖는데 My heart, which is wandering through all those times I am reminded of, is getting soaked by this rain 이젠 젖은 우산을 펼 수는 없는걸 But I cannot open up my soaked umbrella anymore now 낮부터 내린 비는 이 저녁 유리창에 슬픔만 뿌리고 있네 The rain this evening that's falling since the day, is only sprinkling sadness on this glass window 이 밤 마음속엔 언제나 남아있던 비워둔 빗줄기처럼 Tonight, just like the empty rain stream which is always staying in my heart, 떠오른 기억 스민 순간사이로 내 마음은 어두운 비를 뿌려요 Is sprinkling dark rain in my heart, in between moments of remembrance 이젠 젖은 우산을 펼 수는 없는걸 I cannot open up my soaked umbrella anymore now 낮부터 내린 비는 이저녁 유리창에 슬픔만 뿌려 놓고서 The rain that's falling since the day only sprinkles sadness on this glass window this evening 밤이되면 유리창에 내 슬픈 기억들을 이슬로 흩어 놓았네 And when the night falls, my sad memories will be scattered like dewdrops on the glass window

WHY is this the most dramatic song of the 80s, tell me. It sounds straight out of a depressing tragic movie. the lyrics are also so so pretty and descriptive : 낮부터 내린 비는 이 저녘 유리창엔 이슬만 뿌리고 있네... the rain nthat has been raining since the morning is only leaving dew drops on my window in the evening.

[amymbona]

Challengers - the band

Among equally famous Arctic Monkeys or Gorillaz, fans have got nuts over the quickly rising indie band formed in 2006. Challengers consists of three uniquely charismatic members, each one equally as genuine, and yet they all fit together like pieces of puzzle, creating a what fans appreciate as the trio of the decade.

Fitting into the genre of pure english indie, the trio doesn't fear to bounce into the world of rock or deliver a heart-touching ballad, so versatile that it appears unbelievable to many. The critics deem Challengers as an immortal piece of music that will continue to live on and be appreciated decades into the future. Even the thirsty fans seem to agree.

Tashi Duncan

The frontman - in this case the front lady - carries the aesthetic part, providing a gentle caress with each of her smiles, known widely by her fair amount of dark toned lipsticks and pairs of leather pants. As the main vocalist, her voice is heard in most of the songs, and she is essentially the voice of the band.

The gorgeous grace with which she carries herself can hardly he matched, and by many, Tashi is often refered to as the bitch, which takes away from the beauty of her soul. Contrary to a popular belief, Tashi Duncan is a gentle human - a fact supported by all the fans that have met her - as she never misses an opportunity to hug a fan or sign a paper.

A sex symbol, often compared to Amy Winehouse or Fiona Apple, she's often reduced fo a pretty face - much to her fans' disappointment. The talent she possesses is nothing short of a gift, given to her by gods above, and certain female singers have expressed both their jealousy towards and support to the star.

Art Donaldson

Known as the people's sweetheart, the most one could spot of Art Donaldson is the messy mop of his curls peeking from behind the drum set. With often admired set of muscles - which many female fans attempt to grasp once the drummer ventures in public - it's no issue for him to be pounding into the drums and cymbals all night.

His steady beats offer a stable background to all of the band's songs, resembling the rhythm of our heartbeats. But the man who's been named as the best drummer of the current music wave is much more than that.

It's no secret that Art Donaldson does most of the songwriting, providing his fans an insight to his soul, which doesn't resemble the harshness of his clothing style at all. Upon further observation, it's clear that most of the lyrics are centered around love, affection, eroticism and gut-wrenching feelings. This gentle compassion, paired with a cute smile, makes Art the most wholesome face of the genre of indie.

Patrick Zweig

This man is not famous just for his pretty face, though it is the feature he is the most recognized for. With the electric guitar constantly glued to his hands and the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old, Patrick Zweig jumps from one side of the stage to another. Some might say he is a bad influence, supported by the handful amount of evidence of nicotine and alcohol induced behaviour.

Known for his unrealistically swiftly executed guitar riffs, Patrick is the one to transform the ideas into music, as the band itself has mentioned. Most of the early hits were made purely under his supervision, which helped set the initial direction the band would evolve in. Perhaps he is the one we should thank for having Challengers become real.

It was particularly Patrick who stole the hearts of many young ladies, successfully earning himself the title of the womanizer. Multiple women were spotted leaving the Zweig residence over the last few months, wearing evidently less clothing that they entered the luxurious villa in. As the most extroverted and publically followed member, Patrick Zweig might as well be the loudest element of the three-man band.