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Cecil Sharp in Somerset: some reflections on the work of David Harker

Folklore, April, 2002 by C.J. Bearman

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   The editors claimed that the songs were "presented to the public as nearly
   as possible just as ... taken down from the lips of the singers," but
   certain unexplained shifts take place in the texts ... In Mrs Overd's
   version of Geordie, for example, it is the judge who looks down unpityingly
   on the horse-thief he is about to condemn, but in the published text it is
   "the people" who take this attitude and are implicated in the condemnation
   made by the "public" agent. "Bohenny" is rendered as "Bohemia," and her
   "London" as "Newcastle" ... (Harker 1985, 1961).

The text as published is given in Figure 1. Whichever text it was that Harker analysed in such detail, it cannot have been this one, since the alleged changes are not present there.

Figure 1 Photocopy of the tune and text of "Geordie" published in Series 1 of Folk Songs from Somerset, courtesy of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, London.

II. GEORDIE.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

   1 COME, bridle me my milk-white steed,
   Come, bridle me my pony,
   That I may ride to fair London town
   To plead for my Geordie.

   2 And when she entered in the hall
   There were lords and ladies plenty.
   Down on her knee she then did fall
   To plead for the life of Geordie.

   3 Then Geordie look-ed round the court,
   And saw his dearest Polly:
   He said: My dear you've come too late,
   For I'm condemned already ?

   4 Then the judge he look-ed down on him
   And said: I'm sorry for thee.
   'Tis thine own confession hath hang-ed thee,
   May the Lord have mercy upon thee."

   5 O Geordie stole no cow nor calf
   And he never murdered any, [steeds
   But he stole sixteen of the king's white
   And sold them in Bohenny.

   6 Let Geordie hang in golden chains,
   His crimes were never many,
   Because he came from the royal blood
   And courted a virtuous lady.

   7 I wish I was in yonder grove,
   Where times I have been many,
   With my broad sword and pistol too,
   I'd fight for the life of Geordie.

Another of the examples Harker provided of gross and socially motivated editorial intervention was "The Wraggle-Taggle Gipsies" (Folk Songs from Somerset, Series 1, 1904, 37). He alleged that:

   In the published text ... Sharp and Marson reduce the heroes of the title
   to mere "ragged ragged rags," and de-lyricize "Spanish livery" to "hose of
   leather." When Mrs Overd sang of the wife who was wholeheartedly sick of
   her lord and all his possessions, the editors convert her (with their
   customary masculinist bias) to a kind of unthinking, shameless hussy,
   particularly by the subtle change to "I'll follow" from "I'm off" when she
   decides to go with her chosen partner (Harker 1985, 196).

The text as published is given in Figure 2.

Figure 2 Photocopy of the text of "The Wraggle Taggle Gipsies, Oh!" published in Series 1 of Folk Songs from Somerset, courtesy of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, London.

Cecil Sharp in Somerset: some reflections on the work of David Harker

Folklore, April, 2002 by C.J. Bearman

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