Sunday Serendipity

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

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30 thoughts on “Sunday Serendipity”

  1. jack, sorry about the double blanks.  the video wouldn’t come up even though the address was there. so I pasted in another try at the link. must be some kind of pagan curse..  i’ll try again.  hopefully craig can fix it.

  2. the caption story by Noonoo Baggins under the above video:

    May Day Carol, performed by Magpie Lane and produced by Tim Healey. This version was arranged by Andy Turner, who is also lead vocals on this version. A folk carol sung by the children of Swalcliffe near Banbury as they marched in procession on May Day 1921. Villagers would at one time spend much of the night roaming the woods and fileds to gather branches which were brought home in triumph at sunrise. I do not own the song, paintings or photos in this video. It is mearly an attempt to put a pictorial version the story of this song, prefomed so well by Magpie Lane. I have tried to give the sense of death and rebirth for spring. I have no connection with either Magpie Lane or Beautiful Jo Records other than listening to the CD’s and being a fan of Magpie Lane and Ian Giles and Andy Turner. The same applies for http://www.dornai.com. It is a great website regarding medieval pictures, well wortha visit.

     

  3. here’s a go at their first public performance

    Closing number from the first ever performance by Magpie Lane – 3rd May 1993, in the Holywell Music Room, Oxford.

    and

    Start of the first ever performance by Magpie Lane – 3rd May 1993, in the Holywell Music Room, Oxford.

  4. ‘They say I’m ancient’: Biden speech to White House media proves to be one for the ages | US politics | The Guardian

    Age shall not weary him, but it might provide some good punchlines.

    Joe Biden, the oldest president in American history, faced his biggest political liability with a smile on Saturday as he addressed a gathering of Washington’s political and media elites.

     

    The 80-year-old, who this week announced a bid for re-election in 2024, flipped between a pugnacious defence of press freedom and crisp one-liners at the expense of political opponents as he addressed the White House Correspondents’ Association annual dinner.

    As opinion polls show that a majority of Americans have little appetite for a second Biden term, with many citing his age as a defining concern, he chose not to hide from his most obvious vulnerability but run towards it.

    “I believe in the first amendment, not just because my good friend Jimmy Madison wrote it,” he said, referring to one of America’s founding fathers, who died in 1836.

    He went on: “Look, I get that age is a completely reasonable issue. It’s in everybody’s mind and by everyone, I mean the New York Times. Headline: ‘Biden’s advanced age is a big issue. Trump’s, however, is not.’”

    [continues]

     

  6. Sunday morning started early and arrived several times as dog decided to be sick and needed to go out, starting around two am. 
    So I did some reading of the media and “social media” (ain’t not much social on some of those sites).  So many “experts” on so many things.  I get a real kick out of the fools providing their expertise on the latest security breach and the stuff on Discord server.  There are even some proclaiming they were in a position in the information stream and blah, blah, blah.  One thing I never see are comments from people like me who were involved with the information stream. What we know, why we know and how we know is not for commenting.  But, it is fun to read what the real experts have to say.

  8. There several Biden lines i enjoyed. especially the hits on FOX:

    “You might think I don’t like Rupert Murdoch. That’s simply not true. How can I dislike a guy who makes me look like Harry Styles?”

    “I’d call Fox ‘Honest, fair and truthful.’ But then I’d be sued for defamation.”

  9. POTUS Joe’s self-deprecating humor aside, the reason humans make jokes about age is the fear of their own, inevitable demise.    

    In truth, everyone ages differently.   We’ve all know folks who are younger that don’t manage the world as some who are much older.   

    While (in keeping with today’s theme) he may not be a spring chicken, he is still capable of another term in office.  

    There isn’t a Republican, of any age, who can handle the job.  They also have no people skills; they are what the rest of the world refers to as “ugly Americans.”

    Biden 2024

  10. Nikki Haley thinks if re-elected he’ll die in office. She’s certainly become a despicable ass. Flatus would not approve of her assholiness. 

  14. Old, fat, and crazy…..but I’d add ignorant and stupid to that, because he’s old, fat, crazy, ignorant, and stupid.

  15. More concerned about how destructive Donald Trump has been at every age since he was two. 

  19. When I was a kid Vulcan was a magical thing.    Day or night, with a red or green light.

    “The world’s second largest Iron Man,” they used to tell us. Made me wonder where was the largest.
    But never enough to actually want to find out, I guess.

  21. “Atop Red Mountain”.    WYDE.

    And did they mean man made of iron, or man who works with iron, i.e., blacksmith.

    Does he have an elevator yet, or is it still a walk-up?

    Funny…..just googled old vulcan and in a few minutes answered every question I ever had about him, and some I NEVER had.

  23. Made me think about Uncle Ray, the man who took me to see the Birmingham Barons so I could watch Jimmy Piersall act like a monkey and get ejected from the game.

  29. Gotta live POTUS Joe roasting Fluffy Carlson, and bringing out Dark Brandon. 

    Did Orange Adolf allow WHCDs? Did he attend and allow himself to be skewered?

    Agism is real.   Folks are afraid to look at their own mortality, so they try to marginalize older people in a way that will lessen their interactions with them and allow them to forget.  

    It’s sad and ridiculous.  There are 45-year olds who have one foot in, and 80-year olds who are able to out-perform them.

    Biden 2024

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