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Cecil Sharp in Somerset: some reflections on the work of David Harker
Folklore, April, 2002 by C.J. Bearman
Sharp admitted considerable editorial intervention in four instances. In one case, the changes were made for the purposes of comprehensibility. Betsy Holland may have understood what she was singing about in her "Execution Song" (printed as "James Macdonald") but it is doubtful whether anyone else would have done. The need for rewriting here cannot be disputed, if the song was to be published at all. Sharp said of the words that "I have done my best to put them in a singable form without altering them more than was absolutely necessary" (Folk Songs from Somerset, Series 4 1908, 87).
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Bowdlerisation presented the greatest difficulties. Sharp admitted to having made considerable changes in three cases: "Gently Johnny my Jingalo," "O No, John," and "Sweet Lovely Joan." These three songs have one thing in common: they are songs of actual or attempted seduction which Sharp converted into songs of courtship and marriage. The greatest violence was done to "Gently Johnny my Jingalo" in which Sharp's text gives an intention to the encounter which is completely different to that of the original and reaches a conclusion which is entirely Sharp's own. The same is true of "O No John." "Sweet Lovely Joan" was very substantially augmented--five stanzas were added, doubling the number which James Proll sang to Sharp--but in this case greater faith was kept with the spirit of the original and a slightly risque atmosphere was preserved through Joan's successful deception of the amorous knight.
The only justification which can be advanced for such bowdlerisation is undeniable necessity, and this leads on to the third and last aspect of Harker's critique. In his discussion of bowdlerisation, Harker, together with Sharp's other critics, displays a disregard for context and practicality. It cannot seriously be argued that the publication of uncensored material of a sexual or scatological nature was possible in early twentieth-century Britain--not, at least, if it was aimed at the respectable music-buying public. Material intended to be sung in the family circle had to conform to the same standards as contemporary literature. It is as ridiculous to censure Sharp on this score as it would be to reprove Thomas Hardy for being less than frank in his novels, and Sharp--like Hardy--pushed at the limits of what was permissible in his time. Further, this question is discussed as though censorship had ended c. 1965, and without any acknowledgement of the universal truth that one person's censorship is another's principled good taste. One wonders whether the modern critics of Sharp's publication policy would be prepared to print some of the material which was included in Folk Songs from Somerset, such as "Little Sir Hugh" (which repeats the "blood libel" about Jews killing a Christian child) or the wife-beating song, "Ruggleton's Daughter of Iero." These songs were both popular and widespread: Sharp collected "Little Sir Hugh" three times in Somerset. Twenty-seven per cent of this group of songs were published, and, as a version of an ancient and well-known ballad, it had a strong claim for inclusion. Wife-beating songs are (or were) common in folk song right across Britain: according to Ronald Blythe, one version was still being sung in Suffolk pubs in the 1960s (Blythe 1972, 58-9). Then there are the songs about war or hunting. If the aim is to represent the sources accurately, songs like these would have to be included in popular collections. One wonders how many of Sharp's critics today would be prepared to sink their own prejudices and defy political correctness in order to do so.
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