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Spinster is a term referring to an unmarried woman who is older than what is perceived as the prime age range during which women usually marry. It can also indicate that a woman is considered unlikely to ever marry. The term originally denoted a woman whose occupation was to spin. A synonymous term is old maid. The closest equivalent term for males is "bachelor" or "confirmed bachelor", but this generally does not carry the same connotations in reference to age and perceived desirability in marriage.
"Frog Went a-Courtin'" is an English-language folk song. Its first known appearance is in Wedderburn's Complaynt of Scotland (1549) under the name "The Frog cam to the Myl dur", though this is in Scots rather than English. There is a reference in the London Company of Stationers' Register of 1580 to "A Moste Strange Weddinge of the Frogge and the Mouse." There are many texts of the ballad; however the oldest known musical version is found in Thomas Ravenscroft's Melismata in 1611.
"Streets of Laredo", also known as "The Dying Cowboy", is a famous American cowboy ballad in which a dying ranger tells his story to another cowboy. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.
The Penelopiad is a novella by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. It was published in 2005 as part of the first set of books in the Canongate Myth Series where contemporary authors rewrite ancient myths. In The Penelopiad, Penelope reminisces on the events of the Odyssey, life in Hades, Odysseus, Helen of Troy, and her relationships with her parents. A Greek chorus of the twelve maids, who Odysseus believed were disloyal and whom Telemachus hanged, interrupt Penelope's narrative to express their view on events. The maids' interludes use a new genre each time, including a jump-rope rhyme, a lament, an idyll, a ballad, a lecture, a court trial and several types of songs.
"Captain Wedderburn's Courtship" is an old Scottish ballad dating from 1785 or earlier. It is Child Ballad #46, Roud 36. It is known by a number of titles, including "Lord Roslin's Daughter" and "The Laird of Rosslyn's Daughter".
"The Maid Freed from the Gallows" is one of many titles of a centuries-old folk song about a condemned maiden pleading for someone to buy her freedom from the executioner. Other variants and/or titles include "The Gallows Pole", "The Gallis Pole", "Hangman", "The Prickle-Holly Bush", "The Golden Ball", and "Hold Up Your Hand, Old Joshua She Cried." In the collection of ballads compiled by Francis James Child in the late 19th century, it is indexed as Child Ballad number 95; 11 variants, some fragmentary, are indexed as 95A to 95K. The Roud Folk Song Index identifies it as number 144.
"The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry" or "The Grey Selkie of Sule Skerry" is a traditional folk song from Orkney and Shetland. Sule skerry being a far flung island of the Orkney archipelago. A woman has her child taken away by its father, the great selkie of Sule Skerry which can transform from a seal into a human. The woman is fated to marry a gunner who will harpoon the selkie and their son.
"Lord Thomas and Fair Annet", also known as "Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor", is an English folk ballad.
"Fair Margaret and Sweet William" is a traditional English ballad which tells of two lovers, of whom either one or both die from heartbreak. Thomas Percy included it in his folio and said that it was quoted as early as 1611 in the Knight of the Burning Pestle. In the United States, variations of Fair Margaret have been regarded as folk song as early as 1823.
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"Lady Franklin's Lament" is a traditional folk ballad indexed by George Malcolm Laws and Steve Roud. The song recounts the story of a sailor who dreams about Lady Franklin speaking of the loss of her husband, Sir John Franklin, who disappeared in Baffin Bay during his 1845 expedition through the Arctic Ocean in search of the Northwest Passage sea route to the Pacific Ocean. The song first appeared as a Broadside ballad around 1850 and has since been recorded with the melody of the Irish traditional air "Cailín Óg a Stór" by numerous artists. It has been found in Ireland, in Scotland, and in some regions of Canada.
Mother Bombie is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy by John Lyly. It is unique in Lyly's dramatic canon as a work of farce and social realism; in Mother Bombie alone, Lyly departs from his dream world of classical allusion and courtly comedy to create a "vulgar realistic play of rustic life" in a contemporaneous England.
Helen Hartness Flanders, a native of the U.S. state of Vermont, was an internationally recognized ballad collector and an authority on the folk music found in New England and the British Isles. At the initiative of the Vermont Commission on Country Life, Flanders commenced a three-decade career capturing traditional songs that were sung in New England—songs that, in many cases, traced their origin to the British Isles. The timing of her life work was critical, coming as it did when people were turning away from traditional music in favor of listening to the radio. Today her nearly 4,500 field recordings, transcriptions and analyses are housed at the Flanders Ballad Collection at Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont and have been a resource for scholars and folk singers, since the establishment of the collection in 1941.
Margaret Crowl MacArthur was an American singer and player of the MacArthur Harp and lap dulcimer.
"King John and the Bishop" is an English folk-song dating back at least to the 16th century. It is catalogued in Child Ballads as number 45 and Roud Folk Song Index 302.
"Red Wing" is a popular song written in 1907 with music by F.A Mills and lyrics by Thurland Chattaway. Mills adapted the music of the verse from Robert Schumann's piano composition "The Happy Farmer, Returning From Work" from his 1848 Album for the Young, Opus 68. The song tells of a young Indian girl's loss of her sweetheart who has died in battle.
Robin Hood is a comic opera by Reginald De Koven (music), Harry B. Smith (lyrics) and Clement Scott. The story is based on the Robin Hood legend, during the reign of King Richard I. The opera was composed in Chicago, Illinois during the winter of 1888-1889.
"The Butcher’s Boy" or "The Butcher Boy" is an American folk song derived from traditional English ballads. Folklorists of the early 20th century considered it to be a conglomeration of several English broadside ballads, tracing its stanzas to "Sheffield Park", "The Squire's Daughter", "A Brisk Young Soldier", "A Brisk Young Sailor" and "Sweet William " and "Died for Love".
"On Springfield Mountain" or "Springfield Mountain" is an American ballad which recounts the tragic death of a young man who is bitten by a rattlesnake while mowing a field. Historically, the song refers to the death of Timothy Merrick, who was recorded to have died on August 7, 1761, in Wilbraham, Massachusetts by snakebite. It is commonly included in collections of American folksong, and is one of the earliest known American ballads.
References
- 1 2 Kittredge, G. L. (Jul–Sep 1917). "Ballads and Songs". The Journal of American Folklore. 30 (117): 355–6. doi:10.2307/534379. JSTOR 534379.
- 1 2 Atwood, James; Atwood, Mary; Sturgis, Edith; Hughs, Robert (2010). Songs and Verse from the Hills of Vermont. East Dover, Vermont: The Dover Historical Society. pp. 18–21.
- ↑ Chappell, William (1880). The Roxburghe Ballads, Volume 3. Ballad Society. pp. 52–3.
- ↑ Flanders, Helen Hartness; Brown, George (1968). Vermont Folk-Songs and Ballads. Hatboro, Pennsylvania: Folklore Associates, Inc. p. 102.
- ↑ Quinn, Jennifer Post (1983). An Index to the Field Recordings in the Flanders Ballad Collection at Middlebury College. Middlebury, Vermont: Middlebury College. p. 117.
- ↑ Bush, William J. (2013). Greenback Dollar: The Incredible Rise of the Kingston Trio. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 224. ISBN 9780810881921.