Oh, this video takes me right back. I had attempted to re-create a song by the rushes that I had made a couple of years before called “Gathering Rushes” (all in the month of may). Just ‘ark at the wind here. I recommend the videos at the bottom instead where there day is calm!
This was recorded in Dec 2022 after a friend and I had gone to the lake for an cold swim. We then realised the pond was frozen over so we just had a jump on the ice.
Much better to film in may when the song was set…..
This song, that I learnt from an Anne Briggs recording, tells the story of Jane, who gives birth one day while gathering rushes and tries to conceal her baby when she brings it home wrapped in her apron.
Her father wonders what’s happening so she claims it’s just her new petticoat and she doesn’t want it to drag in the dew.
Then when the baby wakes she pretends it’s a little bird and she’ll build it a nest so it won’t wake early in the may morning.
Part 1
(at this point a horse goes by so I stop filming but part two is below)
Part 2 (with my dear dog Lucius)
Now, after the baby wakes again, we have the mystery of who the baby’s father is….
In true folk style there are three choices - a black or a brown man (referring to hair colour, I assume) or the ploughing boy.
And then the last question - “where was the baby got?” - Father is cross and wishes he could burn the building down. You find out at the end where she met with him on a may morning.
(although if you work it out, that would mean she had a year long pregnancy! - oh well, this is the magic of folk songs) 1
unless it means where the baby was born?
Pretty voice!