This was sent last week and rejected (boo hoo).  Trying again:

On this line (if I dare enter, since I started it all), it is the
whole question of WHY maids should shun bad company, and
what is said
(and mainly unsaid) in the song texts that interests me.

The Bluebeard/Fitcher's Bird tale complex is very meaty on that
one; it's been interpreted as a rite de passage, warning to married
and unmarried women (!?), indication of the profound evil of men
(OK,
I'm REALLY glossing here), etc..  But if you look at the song texts,
they have a wonderfully ambiguous quality.  If there's anything
explicit there, it seems usually to be the warning against bad
company--but then we're back to the same question of why, what
for,
who's the bad company (I'm not being totally innocent here).

And, as always, I'm also interested in the various shifts of teller in
the song texts, and what that might have to do with the singers'
perspectives.

And many many thanks to everybody on this list--you've been
incredibly helpful!

Pauline Greenhill

Date sent:              Mon, 23 Jul 2001 17:26:45 -0400
Send reply to:          News and discussion relevant to the study of
popular
/ folk /              traditional b <[log in to unmask]>
From:
        "W. B. OLSON" <[log in to unmask]> Subject:
Re:
Reynardine/Laws P15 To:                 [log in to unmask]

[log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> In a message dated 7/23/2001 5:30:32 PM GMT Daylight Time,
> [log in to unmask]
> writes:
>
>      I have seen a note somewhere that the song was reworked by
>      Sigurdson, but don't know when, or have his text
>
> George Sigerson rewrote it as "The Mountains of Pomeroy"  where
> Reynardine keeps his name but attains Irish patriotic staus.
>
> John Moulden

Thanks for the correction. I find Sigerson's text (1894) reprinted in
'The New Green Mountain Songster', 1939, where the author's note
that:
Not infrequently the new song crowds the old one out of tradition.

The oldest text appears to be that of Davenport (c 1800-1802)
reprinted in Holloway and Black' 'Later English Broadside Ballads', I,
#80. It would appear to me, however, that this is a somewhat
expurgated and extended version of that (c 1814) in Bodleian
Harding B
25(1273). The euphemistic kiss is missing in the Daveport text, and
without that it's unclear why maids should 'shun bad company'.

Bruce Olson

Roots of Folk: Old British Isles popular and folk songs, tunes,
broadside ballads at my no-spam website - www.erols.com/olsonw
or just <A href="http://www.erols.com/olsonw"> Click </a>

Motto: Keep it up; muddling through always works.
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