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Description: | Song in memory of the famous fiddler, character and step-dance master.This song forms part of a selection of songs taken from a nineteenth century Cumbrian songbook by Alexander Craig Gibson. The book was published in London, by Bemrose and Sons, in 1891. Keith Gregson, in his introduction to 'Cumbrian songs and ballads', gives a concise account of songs and ballads in Cumberland during the nineteenth century. The period was, he says, 'bounded in terms of songs and ballads in the border counties, by the works of Robert Burns to the north and those of Geordie Ridley, Joe Wilson and Ned Corvan to the east. During the heart of the period itself, the songwriters of Cumbria - Robert Anderson and Susanna Blamire, in particular - had important contributions to make to the British song and ballad world. Composing words and setting them to the popular tunes of the day ... these Cumbrians left many songs of merit which have since been neglected'. In the preface to the first edition of this publication the author claims superiority over other Cumbrian composers in respect of the 'greater purity' of his dialect. Unlike the popular composers of the day such as Blamire, Stagg and Anderson, who, according to Gibson, wrote in the Scoto-Cumbrian dialect which prevailed along the southern side of the west border of the county, these songs were written in the 'unadulterated old Norse-rooted Cumbrian vernacular'.Many of the songs in this and other Cumbrian songbooks do of course have strong Scottish influences and most of the tunes to which they were sung were undoubtedly Scottish. However the majority of the songs still reflect the nature of Cumberland life at the time and for this reason alone are valuable in their own right. A particularly isolated county, Cumberland has a strongly preserved dialect and the rural nature of the area is reflected in songs which centre around relationships between market and farm, man and woman, and the surrounding landscape. ; Nineteenth century Cumberland songbook | Publisher: | Bembrose and Sons G. and T. Coward London ; Carlisle ; Cumbria | Rights holder: | rights holder : Newcastle University | Subjects: | characters & dancing & musicians local characters and strange events | Temporal: | start=1861;end=1900; | Source: | Folk Archive Resource North East | Identifier: | farne:N2504801 | Go to resource |
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