I learned this song back in the 70’s from the singing of Martyn Wyndham-Read, one of my favourite singers. I always thought it a slightly strange folk song in its subject matter and lyrical style. It sounded a little too poetic, a little too literary to be truly a product of the oral tradition... but I liked it so I sang it.
A friend of mine, after some detective work, gave me the full story. The Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould was a pioneering West Country folk song collector of the 19th century. He was an unconventional man, especially for a vicar, and besides his extensive folk song collecting (at a time when few others were interested) he wrote novels and hymns, the most famous hymn being ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’.
In 1889 he published a collection called ‘Songs and Ballads of the West’ and this was followed in 1895 by another collection, ‘A Garland of Country Song’. That second collection contained the song I sing here, ‘The Mower’ but Baring Gould had written new words for it, since he found the traditional words ‘objectionable’ (the original song contained what they now call ‘adult themes’). His new words were about the sorrow of losing loved ones and looking forward to being reunited in heaven. Martyn Wyndham-Read must have found it in the Baring-Gould book. I’m glad he did.
A friend of mine, after some detective work, gave me the full story. The Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould was a pioneering West Country folk song collector of the 19th century. He was an unconventional man, especially for a vicar, and besides his extensive folk song collecting (at a time when few others were interested) he wrote novels and hymns, the most famous hymn being ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’.
In 1889 he published a collection called ‘Songs and Ballads of the West’ and this was followed in 1895 by another collection, ‘A Garland of Country Song’. That second collection contained the song I sing here, ‘The Mower’ but Baring Gould had written new words for it, since he found the traditional words ‘objectionable’ (the original song contained what they now call ‘adult themes’). His new words were about the sorrow of losing loved ones and looking forward to being reunited in heaven. Martyn Wyndham-Read must have found it in the Baring-Gould book. I’m glad he did.