Two Dorset Folk Songs (Satirical) - and two from Somerset

Song for Sherborne

 (Scir Burne = Clear Stream)

I went down to Sherborne Town

Looking for that crystal stream.

I asked St. Aldhelm, but he replied,

Things are never what they seem. 

      It’s a muddy stream,

      It’s a murky lake,

      And those water rats

      Are all wide awake.

I searched and searched to find the source

Where the babbling brook was bright and pure.

Each step I took, the water’s course

Seemed much less clear and far less sure.

      It’s a muddy stream,

      It’s a murky lake,

      And those water rats

      Are all wide awake. 

29. 6. 1991

Folk-Songs

Cecil Sharp he scoured old Somerset,

The Appalachians too;

Henry Hammond biked round Dorset,

All in the foggy dew.

They cycled and they hiked it,

They rattled round the lanes,

They searched in pub and workhouse

For old-fashioned folk-song strains.

They noted down in note-books

One half of what they heard;

They cut out all the juicy bits,

And every other word.

Before Cecil there was Sabine,

A double-barrelled squire-cum-Rev…

He hunted down his song-birds

Then rewrote the truth they’d give.

Before Maud was Lucy Broadwood,

Charles and Percy, Ralph and George;

Henry went with brother Robert,

To ensure no song was forged.

But they edited and they censored,

And tampered with each tune,

So what they handed down to us

Was hardly fit to croon.

The Reverends were most worthy,

The collectors all meant well;

But those toothless peasant singers

Were all left to go to hell.

  With a fol-derol-de-rol-de



Another song, this time from over the border in South Somerset:

Down Hell Ladder Lane

Down Hell Ladder Lane one warm summer evening,

My love and I went a-walking, not talking at all.

We sat down together on the stump of a tree-trunk,

Just listening to the birds as the night it did fall.

In silence we sat there till the sun it was sunk low,

Behind the pine-trees on the brow of the hill,

But an unwelcome guest came a- rudely intruding,

The cold evening breeze broke love’s golden spell.

She shivered with the cold and asked for a covering,

So I gave her my coat and we started to talk.

Before I knew that the evening was over,

We were walking again up Hell Ladder Lane.

Her father, a farmer, was seething with fury,

He raised up his shotgun, again and again.

"Keep away from my daughter - don't try to come near her -

Or I'll blast out your brains down Hell Ladder Lane".

Note, from The Castle Cary Visitor: When turnpikes were in vogue, this lane was freely used by drovers to evade toll at Hadspen corner.

We used to call it Hell’s Ladder Lane.

Finally, a sad song from about a house-move:

Moving House (Somerset to Dorset)

My mother’s moving house today-

My childhood home for twenty years;

And I’m so far, so far away.

I cannot hide these childish tears.

I’ll never see my room again,

Nor my favourite chestnut tree.

The move is made, I won’t complain,

I’ll throw away my front door key.

My father’s grave neglected now,

The old home town is home no more;

Were he alive, would he allow

Strangers to walk in the door?

It’s farewell to the wedding bells

Which sounded on a summer’s day;

There are certain things one never sells

One should not even give away:

My toboggan and my cricket bat,

Old photographs and things like that.

But I hope you’ll be happy, I want you to be,

And I’ll try to imagine your house by the sea.

Nairobi, January 1977.

All songs copyright Jim Potts

(Mississippi blues on this occasion)