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Cecil Sharp in Somerset: some reflections on the work of David Harker
Folklore, April, 2002 by C.J. Bearman
Appendix A: General Methodology
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This analysis employs a number of card indices compiled from Cecil Sharp's books of "Folk Tunes" held in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. (These are copies of originals held in Clare College Library, Cambridge.) The books are written-up material the source of which is Sharp's Field Note Books. The books give the tune of the song, plus the first stanza or other significant words. My card index is arranged by song title and records the number of times Sharp collected each song in date order. The chief difficulty was to attribute to one text or another the variants of several similar songs. The texts of "The Seeds of Love" and "The Sprig of Thyme" were so similar that Sharp collected them all under the former title, though he published them as separate songs. "The Keys of Heaven" and "No Sir No" present a similar difficulty. In such cases, I have relied on Sharp's attribution and on my own knowledge of the songs. This cannot be an exact science and I have emphasised the approximate nature of my figures. For the purposes of this analysis, I have recorded only the material contributory to Folk Songs from Somerset; that is, material collected in the geographical county between September 1903 (the earliest date recorded in "Folk Tunes") and 6 January 1909. Sharp was also collecting regularly in North Devon during this period, and from March 1907, he was spending an increasing amount of time in Gloucestershire.
Appendix B: Methodology Employed in Selecting Areas for Analysis
Because Harker (Fakesong, p. 195) does not define what he means by the "industrial district of North Mendip," the "predominantly urban district of Bridgwater," and the "mainly agricultural area which included Hambridge and Kingsbury," I have been obliged to do so myself. My areas are:
1. Hambridge. Within a ten kilometre (6.2 mile) radius of Hambridge.
2. North Mendip. The area east of Shipham and north of the present B3134/3135 which runs roughly north-west to south-east along the Mendip ridge.
3. Bridgwater. Bridgwater itself, with the villages of Cannington and Puriton and the small town of North Petherton.
Arbitrary decisions are inevitable when boundaries are drawn, so to avoid the reproach of having selected areas to fit my analysis, I have provided figures for a fourth area, the rest of Somerset.
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