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Description
Handed Down celebrates traditional songs and the people who sing them. The show is presented by Jenny Shaw, an amateur musician and professional writer. Each episode is full of music, tales and curiosities as we delve into the history a single song, often with the help of a fellow folk musician, to uncover the strange stories and colourful characters that lie beneath.
These are the songs that have been handed down from our ancestors. This podcast and the people involved in it help keep them alive so that we can hand them down in turn to future generations.
45 Episodes
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A wealthy young man thinks he's found some easy pickings, but he doesn't reckon with Joan who is not just lovely, but feisty and athletic. She's more than a match for him, and the winner takes all. He's not happy about this but takes it well... just kidding, he rages and cries in the middle of a field. Joan is one example of women in folk song who do the unexpected. They turn the tables on the predatory man and give him his just desserts. This is another song that owes a lot to the medieval P...
It's not often that I'm stumped by a folk song, but this is one tricky little character. It is also beautiful, graceful and weirdly catchy... and extremely elusive. Nonetheless, there's quite a bit to say about land, class and medieval shepherdesses, though surprisingly little about parted lovers. Given the setting and context, romantic heartbreak suddenly doesn't feel like the end of the world. Somehow we end up in Scotland, though only tentatively, and discover a mystery. But then we ...
George Collins is a handsome young man with his whole life ahead of him, so why does he die within a few short verses and leave a trail of devastation in his wake? Today’s episode takes us back to supernatural legends from medieval Northern Europe, in which brave young men are easily seduced. We also travel across the Atlantic to meet a dying hobo who wandered into this song sometime in the late 19th Century. In the end, these legends are a legacy of the things we didn’t properly unders...
What a time we had, talking about the bones and the spirit of the Wassail. The Lunatraktors, Carli and Clair, get right to the heart of things with their "Broken Folk" which provides an anchor, a refuge and solace, a shamanic art and a collective experience. They are experts at asking questions of our tradition, and passionate about telling the stories that have been hidden or lost. The Wassail is about apples and cider and community and collectivism and so much more, and Lunatraktors' embod...
After all the festivities of Christmas Day are over, what could be better than to run around the village and hunt a tiny little bird with all your neighbours. This special St Stephen's Day episode explores the strange custom of wren hunting in the British Isles. Hang on to your hats, it's going to be a weird one. Music Hunt the Wren, a Manx song Medieval French tune (known to me as 'Dancing Bears' but YMMV) The Cutty Wren, to the tune of Green Bushes (thanks A. L. Lloyd!) References Many th...
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