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Just over a week ago the band had our second visit of the year to Leith Hill Place, the National Trust property in Surrey, to perform a couple of sets of songs as informal free entertainment for anyone visiting that Sunday afternoon.
Our focus now turns to rehearsing new material to add to our repertoire. Among those songs we are looking at is one that I recently wrote called ‘Strange are the Ways’. Over the years, as well as researching folk songs that might be suitable for the band, I have become increasingly interested in English folklore and the various strange traditional customs and festivals that have been passed down through the generations and are still celebrated throughout the year. The song highlights a few of these that are relevant to particular points in the year such as the Solstice and May Day.
One of the customs mentioned is Plague Sunday which, since 1905, is celebrated on the last Sunday in August each year in the village of Eyam in Derbyshire. It commemorates the villagers’ sacrifice in applying a strict quarantine around the village to contain the plague from spreading to neighbouring villages when the plague struck in 1665.
In fact, after visiting the village of Eyam some years back, I wrote a couple of songs that can be found on our 2008 album ‘Earth, Wind, Fire and Rain’ – the first, ‘Broadside’, which illustrates the plight of the poor in London where the plague was rife – the second, ‘Eyam’, which tells the tragic tale of two lovers separated by the quarantine.
On a happier note, on Bank Holiday Monday in the village of Marldon, Devon, will be held their annual Apple Pie Fair where a donkey pulls a cart on which there is a huge apple pie some 2′0″ × 2′6″ (about 61 cm × 76 cm) in size with the first cut being made by the Apple Pie Princess. One hopes that there is ample provision of clotted cream not too far away!
(My thanks in research to the excellent book The English Year by the folklorist Steve Roud).
All text, images and music samples on this site are copyright © Childe Rolande.
Poster for Lucy Anna Martin
(click to watch the video)