A Bibliography of the Scottish Ballad Manuscripts 1730-1825: Part I, by William Montgomerie

Did you know that back copies of the journal, Studies in Scottish Literature are freely available online?

This article is on Margaret Bennett's reading list for Traditional Music students.  It can be viewed online or downloaded at the click of a button! Simple.

Montgomerie, William

A Bibliography of the Scottish Ballad Manuscripts 1730-1825: Part I 

Studies in Scottish Literature, Vol.4 no.1, July 1966, pages 3-28 

"Studies in Scottish Literature, founded in 1963 and based at the University of South Carolina since 1965, was the first refereed scholarly journal in its field, and it remains among the top Scottish literature journals internationally, publishing new research and critical debate on all periods of Scottish literature. It is currently published in both digital and print format, with free full-text access for the entire journal run (vols. 1-42, pt. 1, 1963-Spring 2016)."  Link to the whole run of journals:- http://scholarcommons.sc.edu/ssl/

Appropriately, a Legacy Collection of Ballad History which has its own Story

Eric Cowell's Ballad Books

Part of the appeal of ballads and balladry is the nostalgic links back to the misty past.  What, then, could be more appropriate than a gift to the Whittaker Library of a collection of ballad books, with its own collection history?  Folk singer Pete Coe facilitated this donation, from the daughter of the late Eric Cowell.  Whilst you may not have heard of Eric Cowell before, he was in fact the great-nephew of one of the last great Victorian antiquarians, Frank Kidson.  In fact, Eric's wife Ray did some research into Frank Kidson's life, which you can read here: The Search for Five-Finger Frank.

We don't know much about Eric Cowell himself, but his memory will live on in the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.  Some of his books are very special indeed, and all will be made very welcome by our staff and students of English, Scottish and Border ballads.  They include Motherwell's original collection and a late Victorian reprint of the infamous Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway song by R H Cromek.

There is the sense of the wheel coming full circle when one considers that Eric might just  have discussed some of these very texts with his great-uncle Frank!

• The Collection

Awa Tae Scuilwab! (Improve Your Scots Language Skills)

The other day, we blogged about Scuilwab's grown-up cousin, the Dictionary of Scots Language.  But if you haven't encountered Scuilwab, then you've only seen one side of the picture.  Scuilwab is another website about the Scots language, this time with an educational slant.  It's intended for anyone from nursery school teachers to university level folk wanting to improve their Scots language skills.

If you're a folk singer (see if you can find the ballads!), a trainee teacher, or just curious, why not take a look? 

• Scuilwab
• Dictionary of Scots Language  

And if someone tells you to "Awa an' bile yer heid!"?

There's a Mars bar for the first Royal Conservatoire of Scotland registered reader to find a translation on Scuilwab or the Dictionary of Scots Language.  (Post the link as a comment here.)  If you can't find it, try the Urban Dictionary, but there's no Mars bar for that!

Just Another Tune - Website about Popular Folksongs and Ballads

Interested in Traditional Music? 

Just Another Tune.com
We found this website the other day. It's by Jürgen Kloss, a trained folklorist (M.A, University of Bonn 1991).  You might find it useful for tracing the history of some popular folk-songs and ballads.

Question: What makes Scottish music Scottish?

On this day, 1888

English ballad (and Scottish song) enthusiast William Chappell died, 20 August 1888. 

Why should you care?  Well, he published Popular Music of the Olden Time, which contained many English - and some Scottish - folksongs and their tunes, and a lot of commentary.  The two-volume book really set the cat among the pigeons as far as Scots song enthusiasts were concerned, because he announced that some favourite 'Scottish' songs were really - oh, horror! - English.  More ...

Find Popular Music of the Olden Time in Copac - the online union catalogue of all British university libraries, together with the national libraries and Trinity College Dublin.

Answer: library staff help you answer the big questions by sourcing the detail to back up your arguments.

Welsh music - a selection of useful links to the music of our Celtic cousins

• Welsh Ballads Website
  Cardiff University Information Services - Welsh ballads website.
  
• 'History of the British Bards', Iolo Morganwg, front cover
  About the MS for a projected book by Iolo Morganwyg. On Welsh culture website, Gathering the Jewels 
  
  
• Iolo Morganwg and the Romantic Tradition in Wales, 1740-1918
  Edward Williams (1747-1826), stonemason, writer, literary forger. Contributed to C18th cultural renaissance in Wales. Bardism. Gorsedd of Bards (he established ceremony).
  
  
• National Library of Wales Journal (Welsh Journals Online)
  Digital access back to Vol.1, 1939. Vol.XV (1967) pp.31-54, Daniel Huws, 'Ancient National Airs of Gwent and Morganwg
  
  
• The Bardic Museum : Edward Jones : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive
  Vol.2 of Edward Jones' Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards. 1802.
  
  
• Musical and poetical relicks of the Welsh bards/ Edward Jones, 1794. Internet Archive
  
  
• Crowdsourcing the Celtic Bard - wiki
  PBworks wiki for collaborative discussion of late 18th and 19th century Welsh songbooks. Administrator Dr Karen E McAulay
  
  
• Crowdsourcing Bard group bibliography
  List of late 18th and 19th century Welsh songbooks for group exploration, part of Crowdsourcing the Bard project.
  
  
• King Edward's folly: crowdsourcing the Celtic bard
  Tiki-toki timeline, Nov 2011
  tags: Timeline bards minstrels metaphors Tiki-Toki
• Times Higher Education - Brunel's academic griot will 'fight dead image of poetry'
  Benjamin Zephaniah takes a new post at Brunel University. He sees himself as a latter-day bard, or "griot" (African word) - a poet and political activist who speaks his work - part of the oral tradition.
  
  
• Thomas Gray Archive : The Bard, a Pindaric Ode (1757)
  Very influential poem, inspired many more writings on bardic themes. Role of bard championing liberty, and many images recur in later poetry etc.
  
  
• People's Collection Wales - Customs and Traditions
  Charity Dove drew my attention to this useful weblink. I'd come across the People's Collection Wales, but not this particular niche.
  
  
• High Hats and Harps: the life and times of Lord and Lady Llanover
  Lady Llanofer, the bee of Twent. Research by Helen Forder. Book forthcoming, soon. Spring 2012.
  tags: Lady Llanover Wales harps 19th Century
• Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, University of Wales
  
  
• Harp Centre of Wales (Telynau Teifi Harps)
  Harp makers. Includes clip from BBC programme about Telynau Teifi.
  
  
• Fflach Music from Wales
  Welsh music supplier
  
  
• People's Collection Wales - Home
  Successor to the Welsh "Gathering the Jewels" cultural heritage website.
  
  
• People's Collection Wales - Home
  Associated with Culturenet Cymru
  
  
• Chronology of Welsh songbooks (Karen McAulay Tiki-Toki timeline)
  
  

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Obituary - Ray Fisher

Sad news passed on by Peter Shepheard of FifeSing:-

Ray Fisher has died in the morning of 31 August 2011, after a long battle with cancer. Her contribution to Scots song and balladry has been immense. An obituary by Sheila Miller has appeared today in Guardian Online. A date for the funeral has not yet been arranged.


Guardian obituary 

Staff and students of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland - See which Ray Fisher recordings we have in the Whittaker Library - click here.  Additionally, the English Dance & Song magazine for Spring 2009 had some coverage of Ray's activities, so the relevant articles will be added to our Scottish Ephemera file.

Grumpy Old Men: Joseph Ritson's anniversary

ON THIS DAY ...

Joseph Ritson at work

Stockton antiquarian Joseph Ritson died, 3rd September 1808.  He had gone insane.

Fussy, pernickety and grumpy to the last, he was nonetheless a major influence on ballad scholars for the next century, and his insistence on accuracy and authenticity was groundbreaking.  He collected Scottish songs, despite being English.  As far back as 1784, he signed himself ‘anti-Scot’, when he wrote in The Gentleman’s Magazine that John Pinkerton’s Select Scottish Ballads (1783) largely consisted of forgeries.  (Pinkerton later admitted this, but got his revenge by an adverse criticism of Ritson’s Scotish Songs in 1795.) 

Ritson also - as you might guess - disapproved of the poetic excesses of Highlander Joseph McPherson's Ossian epics.  Which doesn't mean Ritson disliked Scottish song - far from it.  But his own attitudes to accuracy and authenticity come through in his Scotish Songs preface.  Intrigued? Then find out more!

You can read his Scotish Songs (yes, that's correct) online on Google Books if you don’t have access to the originals:-

• Scotish Songs: Volume 1 - an 1869 reprint, Full view
• Scotish Songs: Volume 2 - digitised original, Full view
• Modern reprints in the Whittaker Library at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. 

Articles and papers by our Music and Academic Services Librarian, Karen McAulay:-

• 'Antiquarianism versus creativity in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Scottish song', in Eighteenth Century Scotland 24 (Spring 2010), pp.7-12
• 'From ‘Anti-Scot', to ‘Anti-Scottish Sentiment': Cultural Nationalism and Scottish Song in the Late Eighteenth to Nineteenth Centuries', in Library and Information History, Vol. 26 No. 4, December, 2010, 272–88
• ‘1810-1825: From antiquarian to creative artist, as exemplified by Scottish song collectors’, paper delivered at Oran 2010/2010 Sang: an International Conference on Gaelic and Scots Song, (Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Isle of Skye).

More sources of information:-

• Search Copac to find Ritson’s output in British academic and national libraries http://copac.ac.uk/
• Ritson worked with Tyneside composer William Shield, whom you can read about in Oxford Music Online http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/ (you need to be a subscriber; affiliated with a subscribing institution; or have access to a public library which subscribes)
• Read a basic biography of Ritson on Wikipedia.

Denholm, Teviotdale - birthplace of scholar, poet & scholar John Leyden

ON THIS DAY, 200 years ago ...
Poet, scholar and song-collector John Leyden died in Java, on 27th August 1811.  He was from the village of Denholm in Teviotdale, in the Scottish Borders, and helped Sir Walter Scott in his ballad collecting.  His 18th century cottage still stands to this day. 

To celebrate the bicentenary of Leyden's death, a wreath is being laid by Lord Minto at the Leyden monument in Denholm tomorrow, 28th August 2011, and the local television company may be there. 

• Denholm village website - find out more about Leyden and other famous names!

• BorderReivers.co.uk website also has a brief bio of Leyden.  This picture of his monument comes from the Border Reivers page, with thanks.
• Click on the "ballads" label below, to find a recent blogpost about Child ballads.

Child Ballads - Loomis House complete corrected 2nd edition

The Child Ballads are a key component of the British traditional repertoire. Collector Francis James Child assembled and published a vast collection. Mark and Laura Heiman have prepared a corrected second edition for Loomis House Press; we've just acquired the fifth and last volume for the Whittaker Library at RSAMD (soon to be the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland).

 

 

Loomis House Press: Home

Useful online links:-

• RSAMD Catalogue. Check the Whittaker Library's holdings of Child Ballads.  (The Loomis House Press collection is not the only edition.)
• Search on Child Ballads on Scran, which offers educational access to digital materials representing Scottish material culture and history. The Whittaker Library subscribes to this, for the benefit of our  staff and students. 
• Lesley Nelson (aka the Contemplator)'s Child Ballad Website:- http://www.contemplator.com/child/ 
• Youtube is a good source of Child Ballad videos