Prince Heathen

Folk This
It All Comes Round Again
John Tams
The Reckoning
Muckram Wakes
A Map Of Derbyshire
The Red Lion
A Bit Of A Song And Dance
New Victory Band
One More Dance And Then
Kate Rusby
Hourglass
Salisbury Folk
From The Penguin Book Of English Folk Songs
The Old Hat Concert Party
Sunday 13th May 1969
Seth Lakeman
Kitty Jay
Kitty Jay Lyrics
Freedom Fields
Freedom Fields Lyrics
The White Hare
The New St. George
The Hard Times Of Old England
Prince Heathen
Frost And Fire
Bright Phoebus
History and Companion
Morning Way
Spindle
Polly On The Shore
Western Approaches
Damien Barber and The Demon Barbers
The North Star Grassman and the Ravens
Cropredy's Like That
The Garden of Jane Delawney
Nic Jones
Penguin Eggs
The Noah's Ark Trap
Bandoggs
Bandoggs: The Record
Shirley Collins
Anthems In Eden
Shelagh McDonald
Stargazer
Music From The Unbroken Circle
Gryphon
Glastonbury Carol
Mr Fox
Mr. Fox : The Album
Tiny Tin Lady
The Sound of Requiem
martha tilston
ropeswing
Moseley Folk Festival 2006
Moseley Folk Festival 2006: The Folks
Witness
ROOTS
Countrylife
Countrylife II
The Falmouth Packet / Haul Away Joe
The Setting / Mary From Dungloe
From Clare To Here
A Gift From A Flower To A Garden
1952 Vincent Black Lightning
Coope, Boyes & Simpson
Christmas Truce / Kerstbestand 1914
Passchendaele Suite
A Garland of Carols
Fire and Sleet and Candlelight
Anne Briggs
Anne Briggs : Sing A Song For You
Oak
Welcome to Our Fair Plus
Make it Folky!
A Place Called England
Ragged Heroes
Dancing at Whitsun
The Lark In The Morning
Thomas The Rhymer
Gaudete
Carthy and Swarbrick
What Time Is It Eccles?

Prince Heathen 1969 LP  1994 CD  [CD image]

Prince Heathen
Martin Carthy & Dave Swarbrick
 
LP Fontana STL 5529 886 777 TY 1969
CD Topic TSCD 344 1994

Notes below by Martin Carthy

[Side One]

Arthur McBride and the Sergeant
I have always assumed that this highly subversive song was from East Anglia, but in fact I don't know. It is probably 18th century in origin and I learned it from Redd Sullivan, who sang it with great wavings of the arms—the folk world's Joe Cocker? The tune at the end is French.

Salisbury Plain
When Lucy Broadwood first tried to collect this song she failed because the singer refused point-blank to sing 'such an improper song' to a lady, and it took a special trip by a gentleman friend of hers to get it. The present version is from the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs.

Polly on the Shore
A song about that most beautiful and most precarious of emotions—resignation, and with a tune to match.

The Rainbow
A song from the Percy Grainger collection of Lincolnshire songs.

Died for Love
It has been suggested that this is a fragment of a much longer ballad but this is really immaterial when what you have stands perfectly well on its own. Taken from the Grainger collection of Lincolnshire songs, from the singing of Joseph Taylor.

Staines Morris
This is the result of a co-operative effort by Cyril Tawney, the Yetties, Frankie Armstrong and myself. The tune is obviously for a very formal dance and has echoes of Michael Praetorius and before.

Reynardine
To the country person everything around him has its place in the pattern of nature but the fox seems the odd man out. Among other things it seems that he kills for no reason, and although this has been explained by diligent study, at one time it led to people attributing a very sinister aspect to him. He was believed to have magical powers, and there are many stories of foxes appearing as people and threatening them in some evil way (Little Red Riding Hood is one related). The same theme in a very debased form was made famous by Lon Chaney Jr's many appearances as the Werewolf on film.

[Side Two]

Seven Yellow Gypsies
There is a whole school of thought which seeks to show that ballads are records of historical occurrences. Possibly they are but I can't see that it matters two hoots. The idea of a wife being taken by the gipsies is as old as the gipsies themselves. I have taken the liberty of filling the story out by plundering different versions.

Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard
The story speaks for itself and really needs nothing written about it at all. The tune I pinched from a version of the 'Holy Well'.

Prince Heathen
This is a rewrite of a song that appears in Child's English & Scottish Popular Ballads and set to an imperfectly remembered tune usually sung to either 'The Broomfield Hill' or 'The Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter'.

The Wren (The King)
Collected by Andy Nisbet formerly of Swansea University from two old ladies in Pembrokeshire.

side one

 
 
 
 
 
 

side two

 
 
 

Prince Heathen LP cover 1969

 

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