By Esme Thompsett, Collections Care Volunteer
This week marks the birthdays of two traditional song scholars with names familiar to anyone interested in folk music, Sabine Baring-Gould and Francis James Child. While volunteering in the University of Exeter’s Special Collections, I was delighted to discover that we had Baring-Gould’s own copies of Child’s The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, and so for this occasion it only seemed right to highlight the correspondence and collaboration between the two.
Child’s 10-volume series is regarded as one of the most important works in traditional song and ballad scholarship, and in the course of exploring the 305 ‘Child Ballads’ he details many song variants, found in both printed forms such as broadsides, and in those from the oral tradition that have been shared with him by song collectors. Baring-Gould was an avid collector himself across Devon and Cornwall, and his work Songs and Ballads of the West was published between 1889-91. Around this time, there is evidence of correspondence between the two, with Baring-Gould offering Child South West variants and additions to songs he included in earlier volumes. In the preface to the seventh volume, Child writes that “The Rev. S. Baring-Gould has done me the great favour of furnishing me with copies of traditional ballads and songs taken down by him in the West of England,” and he similarly offers Baring-Gould “very cordial thanks” in his eighth volume, which is where the majority of Baring-Gould’s contributions feature.
Perhaps his most significant contribution is that of the ballad “Henry Martyn,” which Baring-Gould, in a letter from the 6th June 1890, remarks “is doubtless Andrew Barton,” Child ballad number 167. While Child remarks that “Henry Martyn” “must have sprung from the ashes of Andrew Barton” (393) he nonetheless includes it in his collection, where it is Child number 250. Baring-Gould’s version becomes Child’s ‘A’ variant of the text, and Child makes use of two versions which Baring-Gould collected, from Matthew Baker of Lew Down, Devon, and Roger Luxton of Halwell, North Devon.
As well as the addition of a new ballad, Child also includes a section of “Additions and Corrections” at the end of this eighth volume, and many of Baring-Gould’s contributions can be found here, drawing directly from traditional singers of the South West. For Child number 78, “The Unquiet Grave,” Baring-Gould writes to Child in 1892 with a version he collected featuring “two stanzas in it new to me,” and Child illustrates these variants, writing, “The Rev. S. Baring-Gould has recovered several copies of ‘The Unquiet Grave’ in the West Country. It will be observed that the variations in this ballad do not take a wide range. The verses are not always sung in the same order; there is not story enough to keep them in place” (474).
As well as including variants of songs collected from traditional singers, Baring-Gould also shares other folk customs with Child. For “The Elfin Knight,” Child adds a note in his “Additions and Corrections” to include Baring-Gould’s description of a practice “from the North of Cornwall, near Camelford … now quite discontinued,” where the song is used “as a sort of game in farm-houses” (439). These examples demonstrate the impact that Baring-Gould’s work had on Child’s scholarship, allowing traditional singers of the South West to contribute to this seminal work.
If you are interested in exploring these items further, the full 10 volumes of the Child Ballads are held by the University of Exeter’s Special Collections, and you can find details on the library catalogue here.
The correspondence between Baring-Gould and Child has been digitised and is available for all to view on the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library website.
And, most importantly, happy 191st birthday to Sabine Baring-Gould, and happy 200th birthday to Francis James Child!