ABSTRACT
Originally published in 1968. The author, a well-known contemporary and friend of folklorist Katharine M. Briggs, collected a tremendous store of folk music material over many years and eventually decided to put some of it on permanent record. This book comprises a cross-section of rescued melodies dating back to medieval days and up to the Victorian early ballads. It describes individual folk singers in Somerset in great detail as personal accounts and documents their lyrics and their tunes, which are all together at the end of the volume.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |4 pages
The Chime Children
chapter |5 pages
A Taunton Trio
Alice Hagarty and Delia and Patrick Flynn, laundresses and navvy Taunton Castle, Christmas-tide 1906
chapter |7 pages
Two Aunties and a Great-Great-Granny
Aunt Thurza Bond, Taunton Deane, 1920's Granny Criddle, Frome Selwood, 1920's Aunt Loveday Blackmore, Ashbrittle area, died 1962, aged 80
chapter |10 pages
Annie's Granny
Farm maid and then charwoman, born Taunton Vale, 1834, died Almshouse, Chard area, 1922
chapter |5 pages
Richard Garland, the Sedgemoor Soldier
Born about 1895, down by the withy country, killed in action in France, 1917
chapter |6 pages
Seafarers from the Severn Sea
chapter |11 pages
Isaiah Sully
Somerset folk singer and dancer, born 1825, died 1923 Mainly West Somerset and Taunton Deane
