E-text prepared by Judith Wirawan, Jonathan Ingram,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
()
Transcriber's Note:
For each music piece, a link titled [Listen] is provided to a midifile. Lyrics are set-out below the image.
Singing Sam of DerbyshireTHE
BALLADS & SONGS
OF
DERBYSHIRE.
With Illustrative Notes, and Examples of the Original Music, etc.
EDITED BY
LLEWELLYNN JEWITT, F.S.A., &c., &c.
LONDON: BEMROSE AND LOTHIAN, 21, PATERNOSTER ROW.
DERBY: BEMROSE AND SONS, IRONGATE.
MDCCCLXVII.
to
His Grace the Duke of Devonshire, k.g.,
Lord-Lieutenant and Custos-Rotulorum
of the county
whose ballads are here for the first time collected,
this Volume is,
as a mark of personal esteem,
and as a tribute to the true nobility of his character
and to
his high intellectual attainments,
most gratefully dedicated by
The Editor.
Introduction.
It is certainly somewhat curious that, in a countyso confessedly rich in ballads and in popularsongs as Derbyshire is, no attempt should hithertohave been made to collect together and give to the worldeven a small selection of these valuable and interestingremains. Such, however, is the fact, and the ballads, thetraditions, and the lyrics of the county have remained tothe present day uncollected, and, it is to be feared, uncaredfor, by those to whom the task of collection in days goneby would have been tolerably easy. It has therefore remainedfor me, with my present volume, to initiate a seriesof works which shall embrace these and kindred subjects,and vindicate for Derbyshire its place in the literary historyof the kingdom.
In my present volume I have given a selection of upwardsof fifty ballads and songs, many of them extremelycurious, and all highly interesting, which are purely Derbyshire,and relate entirely to that county, to events whichhave happened within its bounds, or to Derbyshire families.These I have collected together from every availablesource, and several amongst them have never before beenreprinted from the old broad-sheets and garlands in whichthey are contained; while others, taken down from the[Pg x]lips of "old inhabitants," or from the original MSS., are forthe first-time put into type. Knowing that in ballads it isnext to, if not quite, impossible to accomplish a successfulchronological arrangement, and feeling that, if accomplished,such an arrangement is open to grave objections,I have purposely avoided the attempt, and have contentedmyself with v