Floro tries to persuade her lover, the shepherd, to ‘lay still’ in bed as it’s a cold and wet morning but he contradicts her, saying it’s a bright day and he must ‘away to his fold’. This is followed by a verse on the lark that ‘whistles and sings’ before turning to a more bawdy tale of a ploughboy ‘viewing’ milkmaids in the meadows.
Vaughan Williams returned to the Ingrave area in Essex on 26 October, apparently for only one day. Here he met up again with Mr Punt [April 21 1904 & April 23 1904] and Mr Bloomfield [22 April 1904], and with a new singer, Joe Kemp, an agricultural labourer in his mid-70s. He lived next door to The Old Dog Inn [April 21 1904], and a few doors away from Punt. Although Vaughan Williams doesn’t mention where he met the three men, the singing session probably took place in the pub.
‘Lay Still (My Fond Shepherd)’, which Kemp learned from his mother, is a hybrid including material from a better-known song called ‘The Lark in the Morning’ or ‘The Ploughman’s Glory’/The Pretty Ploughboy’ - they are included under the same Roud Index number, and each contains a verse about the lark similar to the one in Kemp’s song:
When the lark rises in the morning
She does whistle and sing
And at night she does return
To her own nest again
The first three verses of this version of ‘Lay still’ seem to be bolted on from another ballad, which currently I haven’t managed to identify. There was a song in circulation called ‘Fair Floro’/ ‘The Unkind Shepherdess’/ ‘Blackdog and Sheepcrook’ which links the character of Floro (or Flora) to a shepherd but in that story she rejects him because he’s too lowly.
The opening lines of ‘Lay Still’ form a dialogue between Floro and her shepherd reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet on the morning after their night together: Juliet tries to persuade him that it is not yet day with ‘Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day: It was the nightingale and not the lark…’ to which Romeo replies ‘It was the lark, the herald of the morn…’ In this song Floro says ‘Lay still my fond shepherd and do not rise yet/It’s a cold, cold dewy morning’ but the shepherd declares ‘It’s a bright sun shining/And the lark’s on the wing’.
The reference to the bird might have provided the connection in the mind of Kemp’s mother (or a previous singer) to ‘The Lark in the Morning’. Despite its poetic title, this song is much less romantic in tone, culminating in a sexual encounter in a field between a ploughboy and a ‘damsel’ which leads to an unplanned pregnancy. A couple of lines taken from 19th century broadsides set out explicitly the innuendo often attached to the ‘pretty ploughboy’ stereotype: They’re used so much to ploughing their seed to sow/That all who employ them are sure to find it grow.
Vaughan Williams made notes of the lyrics, but they are particularly untidy. Even so, it’s clear enough that the second part of the song deals with a ploughboy who goes down to the meadows to meet a milkmaid: ‘You shall kiss me now or never love/O the damsel did say’. The composer didn’t include this verse when it was published in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society (8,1906); and when he included an arrangement of ‘The Lark in the Morning’ in Folk-Songs from the Eastern Counties (1908) the editor explained that the complete words were ‘not suitable for this publication’.
[P.S. It seems that Vaughan Williams did not find time for song collecting in November and most of December 1904. It’s likely he was working hard on the recently accepted commission to edit the music for the new English Hymnal, which he anticipated would take two months to complete - but actually took two years. Next post will be in December]
Vaughan Williams Memorial Library link: https://www.vwml.org/record/RVW2/2/171
Roud No.151
Next post: 21 December