Chagford tune - All The Trees They Are So High

Me learning the fiddle...  If you want to use my photos please attribute this blog.

[This tune (a version of a well known folk tune) I encountered in a brilliant database of manuscripts held by the English Folk Dance and Song Society website , digitized by the Devon Traditions Project. Put Chagford in the EFDSS search bar to get the original of this tune.  I was researching for a forthcoming book on Chagford Folklore (more on that later in the year!).

It was collected in 1890 by Sabine Baring-Gould from William Aggett in Chagford. William was described thus by Sabine - 

“…William Aggett, aged 70, crippled and infirm, Chagford.  Certainly illiterate, an old broken down laborer…”   

The words of this song (just one of around 30 he collected from Chagford) are as follows - 

As I looked over my father’s castle wall

I saw four and twenty boys playing at the ball

But my pretty lad he did exceed them all

And my pretty lad is young and he is growing

O father, father dear, if that you think it fit

We’ll send him to the collage for a year yet

And spinning I at home will sit-sit-sit.

Whilst my pretty lad is young and is growing

I’ll buy my love five shirts of the Holland so fine

And all the time I’m sowing, the tears run down the twine

And I will sit and sing of that sweet love of mine,

Whilest my pretty lad is young and is growing

I’ll cast my yellow train away by the root

And I will clothe myself all in a boys suit

And to the collage ?wish?, I will go a foot

When my pretty lad so young still is growing

At the age of fourteen he was a married man

At the age of fifteen he had a little son

At the age of sixteen his thread of life was done

So my pretty lad so young had ceased growing

This actually did make me shed a tear when I read it to my wife. It was the amazing line "And all the time I'm sowing, the tears run down the twine" that did it! Folk music is amazing for getting to the core in just a few simple strides. The last verse didn't help...

And for those with a musical ear who might want to sing it, here is my faltering attempt at one of two complimentary tunes given by William Aggett. This is the tune noted as being sung to the words above. I have done a slight alteration to it by repeating the third bit to make it fit the 4 part structure of the song -

 

 Map - Chagford

p.s. Thanks to my neighbor Terri Windling for an excellent mini review on her blog. Cheers!]