List of folk songs by Roud number

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This is a list of songs by their Roud Folk Song Index number; the full catalogue can also be found on the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library website. Some publishers have added Roud numbers to books and liner notes, as has also been done with Child Ballad numbers and Laws numbers. This list (like the article List of the Child Ballads) also serves as a link to articles about the songs, which may use a very different song title.

Contents

The songs are listed in the index by accession number, rather than (for example) by subject matter or in order of importance. Some well-known songs have low Roud numbers (for example, many of the Child Ballads), but others have high ones.

Some of the songs were also included in the collection Jacobite Reliques by Scottish poet and novelist James Hogg.

The Index

The index is a database of nearly 200,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs that have been collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud, a former librarian in the London Borough of Croydon. The English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS) listed 187,800 records in the growing Folksong database as at October 2012 (which total includes all of the songs in the Broadside database that have 'traditional' origins). [1]

The purpose of the index is to give each song a unique identifying number. The numbers were assigned on a more or less arbitrary basis, and are not intended to carry any significance in themselves. However, because of the practicalities of compiling the index (building on previously published sources) it is true as a general rule that older and better-known songs tend to occupy low numbers, while songs which are obscure have higher numbers. Closely related songs are grouped under the same Roud number. If a trusted authority gives the name of a song but not the words it is assigned Roud number 000.

List

See also

Related Research Articles

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"Lord Randall", or "Lord Randal", is an Anglo-Scottish border ballad consisting of dialogue between a young Lord and his mother. Similar ballads can be found across Europe in many languages, including Danish, German, Magyar, Irish, Swedish, and Wendish. Italian variants are usually titled "L'avvelenato" or "Il testamento dell'avvelenato", the earliest known version being a 1629 setting by Camillo il Bianchino, in Verona. Under the title "Croodlin Doo" Robert Chambers published a version in his "Scottish Ballads" (1829) page 324.

"The Daemon Lover" – also known as "James Harris", "A Warning for Married Women", "The Distressed Ship Carpenter", "James Herries", "The Carpenter’s Wife", "The Banks of Italy", or "The House-Carpenter" – is a popular ballad dating from the mid-seventeenth century, when the earliest known broadside version of the ballad was entered in the Stationers' Register on 21 February 1657.

"Foggy Dew" or "Foggy, Foggy Dew" is an English folk song with a strong presence in the South of England and the Southern United States in the nineteenth century. The song describes the outcome of an affair between a weaver and a girl he courted. It is cataloged as Laws No. O03 and Roud Folk Song Index No. 558. It has been recorded by many traditional singers including Harry Cox, and a diverse range of musicians including Benjamin Britten, Burl Ives, A.L. Lloyd and Ye Vagabonds have arranged and recorded popular versions of the song.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matty Groves</span> Traditional English ballad

"Matty Groves", also known as "Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard" or "Little Musgrave", is a ballad probably originating in Northern England that describes an adulterous tryst between a young man and a noblewoman that is ended when the woman's husband discovers and kills them. It is listed as Child ballad number 81 and number 52 in the Roud Folk Song Index. This song exists in many textual variants and has several variant names. The song dates to at least 1613, and under the title Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard is one of the Child ballads collected by 19th-century American scholar Francis James Child.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Raggle Taggle Gypsy</span> Traditional folk song

"The Raggle Taggle Gypsy" (Roud 1, Child 200), is a traditional folk song that originated as a Scottish border ballad, and has been popular throughout Britain, Ireland and North America. It concerns a rich lady who runs off to join the gypsies (or one gypsy). Common alternative names are "Gypsy Davy", "The Raggle Taggle Gypsies O", "The Gypsy Laddie(s)", "Black Jack David" (or "Davy") and "Seven Yellow Gypsies".

Harry Fred Cox, was a Norfolk farmworker and one of the most important singers of traditional English music of the twentieth century, on account of his large repertoire and fine singing style.

The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud. Roud's Index is a combination of the Broadside Index and a "field-recording index" compiled by Roud. It subsumes all the previous printed sources known to Francis James Child and includes recordings from 1900 to 1975. Until early 2006, the index was available by a CD subscription; now it can be found online on the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library website, maintained by the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS). A partial list is also available at List of folk songs by Roud number.

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"Young Beichan", also known as "Lord Bateman", "Lord Bakeman", "Lord Baker", "Young Bicham" and "Young Bekie", is a traditional folk ballad categorised as Child ballad 53 and Roud 40. The earliest versions date from the late 18th century, but it is probably older, with clear parallels in ballads and folktales across Europe. The song was popular as a broadside ballad in the nineteenth century, and survived well into the twentieth century in the oral tradition in rural areas of most English speaking parts of the world, particularly in England, Scotland and Appalachia.

The Farmer's Curst Wife is a traditional English language folk song listed as Child ballad number 278 and number 160 in the Roud Folk Song Index.

"The Knight and the Shepherd’s Daughter" is an English ballad, collected by Francis James Child as Child Ballad 110 and listed as number 67 in the Roud Folk Song Index.

"The Cruel Brother" is a folk song.

"Edward" is a traditional murder ballad existing in several variants, categorised by Francis James Child as Child Ballad number 13 and listed as number 200 in the Roud Folk Song Index. The ballad, which is at least 250 years old, has been documented and recorded numerous times across the English speaking world into the twentieth century.

"Blacksmith", also known as "A Blacksmith Courted Me", is a traditional English folk song listed as number 816 in the Roud Folk Song Index.

"The Trees They Grow So High" is a Scottish folk song. The song is known by many titles, including "The Trees They Do Grow High", "Daily Growing", "Long A-Growing" and "Lady Mary Ann".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Derby Ram</span> Traditional song

"The Derby Ram" or "As I was Going to Derby" is a traditional tall tale English folk song that tells the story of a ram of gargantuan proportions and the difficulties involved in butchering, tanning, and otherwise processing its carcass.

"One Morning in May" is an English folk song which has been collected from traditional singers in England and the USA and has also been recorded by revival singers. Through the use of double-entendre, at least in the English versions, it tells of an encounter between a grenadier and a lady.

Phil Tanner was a traditional singer from Llangenith in the Gower Peninsula.

"The Farmer's Boy" is a traditional English folk song or ballad, listed as number 408 in the Roud Folk Song Index. It has been arranged as a military march.

"The Maid of Amsterdam", also known as "A-Roving", is a traditional sea shanty. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 649.

References

  1. ↑ library.efdss.org: Search the Roud Folksong Index (English Folk Dance and Song Society)
  2. ↑ Zierke, Reinhard (24 December 2019). "The Cunning Cobbler (Roud 174)". Mainlynorfolk.info. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
  3. ↑ McCann, Elisabeth (7 September 2008). "The cunning cobbler – Mike McCann / Rathole Sheikh". YouTube . Retrieved 5 July 2018.
  4. ↑ Also known as "Hanged I Shall Be", "The Oxford Tragedy", "The Oxford/Wexford Girl", "Ekefield/Ickfield/Wexford Town". "The Butcher Boy" and "The Prentice Boy" Reinhard Zierke (6 October 2013). "Hanged I Shall Be / The Oxford Tragedy / The Oxford/Wexford Girl / Ekefield/Ickfield/Wexford Town / The Butcher Boy / The Prentice Boy". Mainlynorfolk.info. Retrieved 13 December 2013.
  5. ↑ "Betsy Watson (Roud Folksong Index S137595)". Vml.org. Retrieved 5 July 2018.
  6. ↑ Zierke, Reinhard (21 November 2015). "Felton Lonnin / The Kye Have Come Hame". Mainly Norfolk: English Folk and Other Good Music. Retrieved 20 March 2016.
  7. ↑ Zierke, Reinhard (21 November 2015). "Here's the Tender Coming". Mainly Norfolk: English Folk and Other Good Music. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
  8. ↑ "Roud 3504". Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. Retrieved 1 May 2018.
  9. ↑ "Clare County Library: Songs of Clare – the Blarney Stone sung by Tom Lenihan".
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