A May Day Carol
Or more specifically, The Swalcliffe May Day Carol
From the liner notes: Swalcliffe (pronounced sway-cliff) is a village near Banbury in North Oxfordshire. The words of this carol were noted by Miss Annie Norris around 1840 from the singing of a group of children in the village. The words were passed onto the collector – and Adderbury resident – Janet Blunt in 1908, and she finally collected a tune for the song from Mrs Woolgrove of Swalcliffe, and Mrs Lynes of Sibford, at Sibford fete, July 1921.
Performed by Magpie Lane.
From the discussion in the video comment section not to be confused with the Bedfordshire May Day song or the Northill May Day song , check both of the links out.
The Mayday spring celebration is an old pagan tradition going back to pre-Christian times in Northern Europe. I suspect there were as many different songs as there were villages. People back then tended to stay in one place
Here is a little something about celebrating and the Maypole
Enjoy, Jack
