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Allison Gross
"Allison Gross" (also known as Alison Cross) is a traditional ballad, catalogued as Child Ballad #35. It tells the story of "the ugliest witch in the north country" who tries to persuade a man to become her lover and then punishes him by a transformation. Synopsis Allison Gross, a hideous witch, tries to bribe the narrator to be her "leman". She combed his hair, first. When a scarlet mantle, a silk shirt with pearls, and a golden cup all fail, she blows on a horn three times, making an oath to make him regret it; she then strikes him with a silver wand, turning him into a wyrm ( dragon) bound to a tree. His sister Maisry comes to him to comb his hair. One day the Seelie Court comes by, and a queen strokes him three times, turning him back into his proper form. Motifs The horn motif is not clear. In "The Laily Worm and the Machrel of the Sea", the witch uses it after the transformation to summon her victim, but nothing appears to stem from it here.Francis James Child, ''The E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and song of Britain and Ireland from the Late Middle Ages until the 19th century. They were widely used across Europe, and later in Australia, North Africa, North America and South America. Ballads are often 13 lines with an ABABBCBC form, consisting of couplets (two lines) of rhymed verse, each of 14 syllables. Another common form is ABAB or ABCB repeated, in alternating eight and six syllable lines. Many ballads were written and sold as single sheet broadsides. The form was often used by poets and composers from the 18th century onwards to produce lyrical ballads. In the later 19th century, the term took on the meaning of a slow form of popular love song and is often used for any love song, particularly the sentimental ballad of pop or roc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, the North Sea to the northeast and east, and the Irish Sea to the south. It also contains more than 790 islands, principally in the archipelagos of the Hebrides and the Northern Isles. Most of the population, including the capital Edinburgh, is concentrated in the Central Belt—the plain between the Scottish Highlands and the Southern Uplands—in the Scottish Lowlands. Scotland is divided into 32 administrative subdivisions or local authorities, known as council areas. Glasgow City is the largest council area in terms of population, with Highland being the largest in terms of area. Limited self-governing power, covering matters such as education, social services and roads and transportation, is devolved from the Scott ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Folk Music
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers, music that is played on traditional instruments, music about cultural or national identity, music that changes between generations (folk process), music associated with a people's folklore, or music performed by custom over a long period of time. It has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. The term originated in the 19th century, but folk music extends beyond that. Starting in the mid-20th century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the (second) folk revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is sometimes called contemporary folk music or folk rev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rock Music
Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States and United Kingdom.W. E. Studwell and D. F. Lonergan, ''The Classic Rock and Roll Reader: Rock Music from its Beginnings to the mid-1970s'' (Abingdon: Routledge, 1999), p.xi It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, a style that drew directly from the blues and rhythm and blues genres of African-American music and from country music. Rock also drew strongly from a number of other genres such as electric blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical, and other musical styles. For instrumentation, rock has centered on the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar, drums, and one or more singers. Usually, rock is song-based music with a time signature using a verse–chorus form, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Parcel Of Rogues (album)
''Parcel of Rogues'' is the fifth studio album by English folk rock group Steeleye Span. It was released in 1973 by Chrysalis Records. The album was their most successful album thus far, breaking into the Top 30. The album grew out of a theatrical project the band undertook, a version of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novel ''Kidnapped'', staged in Edinburgh. The book and play were set against the backdrop of the Scottish Jacobite movement, and in the course of developing the play, the band came across a considerable amount of 18th-century Scottish poetry that they mined for the album. If the album has a theme, it is change and the tension between old and new. "The Weaver and the Factory Maid" is about the tension of early industrialisation, with a young man celebrating the factory because there are plenty of women for him to pursue, while an old man denounces the factory because of its economic effects. There is a very sharp contrast between the sweet acoustically-driven "T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Folk Rock
British folk rock is a form of folk rock which developed in the United Kingdom from the mid 1960s, and was at its most significant in the 1970s. Though the merging of folk and rock music came from several sources, it is widely regarded that the success of "The House of the Rising Sun" by British band the Animals in 1964 was a catalyst, prompting Bob Dylan to "Electric Dylan controversy, go electric", in which, like the Animals, he brought folk and rock music together, from which other musicians followed. In the same year, the Beatles began incorporating overt folk influences into their music, most noticeably on their ''Beatles for Sale'' album. The Beatles and other British Invasion bands, in turn, influenced the American band the Byrds, who released their recording of Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" in April 1965, setting off the mid-1960s American folk rock movement. A number of British groups, usually those associated with the British folk revival, moved into folk rock in the mid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steeleye Span
Steeleye Span are a British folk rock band formed in 1969 in England by Fairport Convention bass player Ashley Hutchings and established London folk club duo Tim Hart and Maddy Prior. The band were part of the 1970s British folk revival, and were commercially successful in that period, with four Top 40 albums and two hit singles: "Gaudete" and "All Around My Hat (song), All Around My Hat". Steeleye Span have seen many personnel changes; Maddy Prior being the only remaining original member of the band. Their musical repertoire consists of mostly traditional songs with one or two instrumental tracks of jigs and/or reel (dance), reels added; the traditional songs often include some of the Child Ballads. In their later albums there has been an increased tendency to include music written by the band members, but they have never moved completely away from traditional music, which draws upon pan-British traditions. History Early years Steeleye Span began in late 1969, when London-born ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hearken To The Witches Rune
''Hearken to the Witches Rune'' is a studio album by the English folk music duo Dave and Toni Arthur, recorded in 1970 and released by Trailer Records. It features English folk music with a focus on uncanny and magical elements. Ahead of making the album, the Arthurs held discussions with the Wiccan leader Alex Sanders and were invited to Wiccan coven meetings. The title comes from Doreen Valiente's poem "The Witches' Chant". The album has not been rereleased and has developed a cult following. Background Dave and Toni Arthur were an English husband-and-wife folk music duo who recorded albums in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They married in 1963, released their first 7" record in 1965 and their first album in 1967. Their musical approach was minimalist and they gradually came to focus on obscure songs with uncanny, magical and potentially pagan elements. They did extensive research by interviewing farmers and folklorists. When they made ''Hearken to the Witches Rune'', they ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toni Arthur
Toni Arthur-Hay (born Antoinette Alice Priscilla Wilson; 27 December 1940) is an English theatre director, former folk singer and television presenter. Early life and education Arthur was born in Oxford, England. She describes her childhood as "lovely, working class, dead ordinary". At the age of nine, she won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, and gave a concert at the Wigmore Hall in the same year. She was educated at Mary Datchelor Girls School in Camberwell and the Royal Academy of Music. In 1959, Toni Arthur went to University College Hospital to become a nurse, and then went on to start a degree in Psychology at University College London. Career Television Arthur is most remembered as one of the presenters of the children's programmes '' Play School'' and ''Play Away'' with Brian Cant and Lionel Morton. She also presented ''Woman's Hour'', TV-am's breakfast show and many other programmes. In 2010, Arthur criticised modern children's TV programmes and calle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vaughan Williams Memorial Library
The Vaughan Williams Memorial Library (VWML) is the library and archive of the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS), located in the society's London headquarters, Cecil Sharp House. It is a multi-media library comprising books, periodicals, audio-visual materials, photographic images and sound recordings, as well as manuscripts, field notes, transcriptions etc. of a number of collectors of folk music and dance traditions in the British Isles. According to ''A Dictionary of English Folklore'', "... by a gradual process of professionalization the VWML has become the most important concentration of material on traditional song, dance, and music in the country." It is named after Ralph Vaughan Williams, the composer, collector and past president of the EFDSS, who died in 1958. Prior to that it was known as the Cecil Sharp Library, since his books constituted the bulk of the original holdings, but over the years the library has added literature, sound and manuscript col ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lizzie Higgins
Lizzie Higgins (20 September 1929 – 20 February 1993) was an Aberdeenshire ballad singer. Early life Born Elizabeth Ann Higgins in Guest Row, Aberdeen, she was the daughter of settled Travellers the piper Donald "Donty" Higgins and the singer Jeannie Robertson. In 1941, after her school was twice bombed during World War II, Lizzie moved with her mother to the rural town of Banchory, where the local children bullied her for her heritage. She was so unhappy in this environment that she left school at fifteen despite the pleasure she gained from studying. She moved back to Aberdeen to fillet fish and take seasonal agricultural labouring. Career She did not take up public singing until 1967 because she did not wish to distract public attention from her mother. "The folk scene claimed Jeannie. I didnae want it tae claim me", she explained later. She debuted at the Aberdeen Folk Song Festival, persuaded to sing by folk song collector Peter Hall. Personal life She married Br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Jamieson (antiquary)
Robert Jamieson (1772 – 24 September 1844) was a Scottish antiquarian. He was born in Moray. In 1806 he published a collection of 149 traditional ballads and songs, along with two pleasing lyrics of his own, entitled ''Popular Ballads And Songs From Tradition, Manuscripts And Scarce Editions With Translations Of Similar Pieces From The Ancient Danish Language.'' Walter Scott, through whose assistance he received a government post at Edinburgh, held Jamieson in high esteem and pointed out his skill in discovering the connection between Scandinavian and Scottish legends. Scott also published some of Jamieson's translations, such as The Ghaist's Warning in the notes to The Lady of the Lake The Lady of the Lake (french: Dame du Lac, Demoiselle du Lac, cy, Arglwyddes y Llyn, kw, Arloedhes an Lynn, br, Itron al Lenn, it, Dama del Lago) is a name or a title used by several either fairy or fairy-like but human enchantresses in the .... Jamieson's work preserved much oral trad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
