Lay Me Down & Fundy Bay

Lay Me Down

Two tracks this week, the first was recorded at last Wednesday's Up in the Gallery by James Riley:


Fundy Bay



The second was sung by Alan Farrow who was passing through for the recent Mummers Festival last week:

"I picked (the song) up off of a Lou Killen Lp/cassette.Cannot find notes from said recording but I remember there being a reference to a singer/sailor with some Dutch sounding name who sailed on a scooner from Ann Harbour, Maine to Nova Scotia and got becalmed in a fog bank for 17 days with a 30 foot tide to contend with along with the shoals and the other coastal traffic in the late 19th century. (Otherwise there was "no pressure!" )

You now know as much as I do!"

With a little more searching I found the album that Alan referred to and a little more on the song though not much, have a look here and here, the song was originally written by Gordon Bok and recorded to the album "Bay of Fundy". In his sleeve notes, Bok wrote:

"This is about a long and weary, windless trip from Maine around to Halifax on a little black schooner that seemed to move only by the slatting of her gear. We had a coal stove in her, and the foresail used to downdraft onto the charlie noble, turn the stack into an intake and the cabin into a chimney. So, with the coalgas and the wet, the offwatch was not much more comfortable than the deadwatch"

Alan & Tim

All you Maine-men, proud and young,
When you run your easting down,
Don't go down to Fundy Bay,
She'll wear your time away.

Fundy's long and Fundy's wide,
Fundy's fog and rain and tide,
Never see the sun or sky,
Just the green wave going by.

Cape Sable's horn blows all day long;
Wonder why, wonder why.

Oh, you know, I'd rather ride
The Grenfell Strait or the Breton tide,
Spend my days on the Labrador
And never see old Fundy's shore.
All my days on the Labrador
And never see old Fundy's shore.

Cape Sable's horn blows all day long;
Wonder why, wonder why.

Give her staysail, give her main
In the darkness and the rain,
I don't mind the wet and cold,
I just don't like the growing old.
I don't mind the wet and cold,
I just don't like the growing old.

Cape Sable's horn blows all day long;
Wonder why, wonder why.

East-by-North or East-North-East,
Give her what she steers the best;
I don't want the foggy wave
To be my far and lonely grave.
I don't want the foggy wave
To be my far and lonely grave.

Cape Sable's horn blows all day long;
Wonder why, wonder why.

Cape Breton's bells ring in the swells;
Ring for me, ring for me.

Reynardine

This week's song is Rob's masterly retelling of the classic ballad:

This is one of my all time favourite songs, originally learned from one of my all timefavourite albums, Liege & Lief by Fairport Convention. Since I first heard Sandy
Denny singing this, I must have heard a dozen or more different versions but hers tops
them all for me.

Among those different versions are different interpretations. Sometimes Reynardineis a handsome outlaw or sometimes a dashing young lord. It is usually a love song
or sometimes he is a magical sort of elvish type, or even a shape changer. Like most
great folk songs and stories it has prompted a wealth of academic analysis, and oceans
of ink have been spilled over it. Start with Mudcat, and you can spend days following
the links and reading the dissertations. To me though, the story is simple and dark,
very dark, and words like "serial" and "killer" spring to mind. Bluebeard rather than
Robin Hood.
I believe that Bert Lloyd is considered to be largely responsible for the Fairport
version, and if so I think it is one of his greatest works. I have hardly changed any
of the lyrics, though I can't help but make one alteration: Sandy Denny sings that he
leads the young woman "...over the mountains", I prefer "...into the mountains", as I'm
not sure that she makes it out again.

Rob
One evening, as I rode by among the leaves so green
I overheard a young woman converse with Reynardine.
Her hair was black, her eyes were blue
her lips as red as wine
and he smiled to gaze upon her
did that sly bold Reynardine.


She said "Kind sir, be civil, my company forsake
for in my low opinion, I fear you are some rake."
"Oh no" he said "no rake am I
brought up in Venus' train
but I'm seeking for concealment
all along the lonesome plain."


"Your beauty so enticed me I could not pass it by,
and its with my gun I'll guard you all across the mountains high.
And if by chance you should look for me
in a house you'll not me find
for I'll be in my castle
you must enquire for Reynardine."


The sun went dark.
She followed him.
His teeth did brightly shine.
And he led her into the mountains,
did that sly bold Reynardine.

Martinmas Time

Well this year is full of grand coincidences!

"The feast of St. Martin falls upon this day though it is far better known here as remembrance Sunday. This song has little to do with the celebration as it tells of a young woman of herself outwitting a group of soldiers who are out after her maidenhead by little more than a bit of cross dressing!

I particularly love how this particular version of the story skips over the woman's distress in verse 2 and revels in her trickery later on in the song, particularly her brashness stepping closer and closer to the barracks. The final chase and cry compounds the soldiers efforts without making the lady looking sneaky: just smart.

This recording is sung by Rose Lippard with me noodling behind. We, like most of the folk community were struck by Anne Briggs' singing of this, a version that she was given by Bert Lloyd that he in turn had compiled through several different versions and tunes"

Tim

It fell upon the Martinmas time, 
When the snow lay on the border
There came a troop of soldiers here
To take up their winter quarters.

Ch: With me right fol-lay-dle li-dle ly-la da-dee-o
With me right fol-lay-dle li-dle lar-ry.

They rode up and they rode down, and
They rode over the border.
There they met a fair pretty girl
And she was a farmer's daughter.

Ch:

They made her swear a solemn oath
and salt tear in her eye, oh,
That she would call at their quarter gates
When no-one did her spy, oh.

Ch:

So she goes to the barber shop
To the barber shop went soon, oh,
She's made them cut her fine yellow hair
As short as any dragoon, oh.

Ch:

Then she goes to the tailor shop
And dresses in soldier's clothes, oh,
A pair of pistols down her side
And a nice little boy was she, oh.

Ch:

When she comes to the quarter gates,
It's loud, loud she did call, oh,
"There comes a troop of soldiers here
And we must have lodgings all, oh!"

Ch:

The quartermaster he comes out
He gives her half a crown, oh,
"Go and find lodgings for yourself,
For here there is no room, oh."

Ch:

But she drew nearer to the gates
And louder did she call, oh:
"Room, room, you gentlemen,
We must have lodgings all, oh!"

Ch:

The quartermaster he comes out
He gives her eighteen pence, oh
"Go and find lodgings in the town
For tonight there comes a wench, oh."

Ch:

She's pulled the garters from he legs
The ribbons from her hair, oh,
She's tied them 'round the quarter gates
As a token she'd been there, oh.

Ch:

She drew a whistle from her side,
And blew it loud and shrill, oh
"You're all very free with your eighteen pence
But you're not for a girl at all, oh."

Ch:

And when they knew that it was her
They tried to overtake her.
She's clapped her spurs to the horse's side
And she's galloped home a maiden.

Ch:

North Country Maid

Despite being on the other side of the world, this week's song comes from Sue Harding:

"I learned this song from a guy called Terry. I learned a lot of my early repertoire from Terry who ran a folk session in a pub in Llanarthne in South Wales which is near to where I lived for five years, once upon a time. I love its long fluid melody lines which are delicious to sing and decorate and its evocative images of the natural world. It is a girl's song, both a little bit arch and knowing and at the same time with an intense emotional directness as it explores that old chestnut of homesickness and longing. I think I might sing it next week at my debut open mic in Al Ain Golf Club. I'm sorry I know so little about it's provenance. Someone once said it was big in Ireland but it doesn't sound at all Irish to me!"

Sue

A North Country maid
Down to London had strayed
Although with her nature
it did not agree
And she's wept and she's sighed
And she's wrung her hands and cried
How I wish once again
In the North I could be

Where the oak and the ash
And the bonny ivy tree
Do all flourish and bloom
In my north country

I wish I could be
In my north country
where the lads and the lasses
Are making thee hay
Where the bells they do ring
And the bonny birds do sing
And the meadows and maidens
Are pleasant and gay

Chorus

I bet if I please
I could marry with ease
For where bonny lasses are
Lovers will come
But the lad that I wed
Must be north country bred
And must carry me back
To my north country home

Chorus