The sheep are all sheared and we’re dancing and drinking in the warm June sun. We’re transported back to simpler and more innocent times with more than a whiff of nostalgia for the loss of our connection to the land. 

And yet nothing is ever quite as straightforward as it seems, and this song is no exception. While delving into its theatrical past I once again get into that most thorny of issues – what is a folk song, and what should we do with them today?

But mostly I have lots of fun singing about sheep.

Music

Instrumental version was collected by John Broadwood in c.1843

The original stage version, The Sheepsheering Song: https://www.vwml.org/search?view=search&q=rn812

Sheep-shearing song, collected by the Hammond brothers: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4434118 

Cecil Sharp – Folk Songs from Somerset: https://archive.org/details/FolkSongsFromSomerset/page/n3/mode/2up (my version takes a few liberties)

The Horses Go Fast: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4434118?read-now=1&seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents 

References

Mainly Norfolk on The Sheep Shearing Song: https://mainlynorfolk.info/steeleye.span/songs/thesheepshearingsong.html 

Eric Saylor: Folksong revival in the early 20th Century https://www.bl.uk/20th-century-music/articles/folksong-revival-in-the-early-20th-century 

https://www.efdss.org/learning/resources/beginners-guides/35-english-folk-collectors/2446-efdss-cecil-sharp 

Shudofsky, M. M. (1943). Charles Johnson and Eighteenth-Century Drama. ELH, 10(2), 131–158. https://doi.org/10.2307/2871662

 John Francmanis (2002) National Music to National Redeemer: The Consolidation of a 'Folk-Song' Construct in Edwardian England. Popular Music 21 (1) 1-25

As always, I’m grateful to the contributions of those who have posted on Mudcat over the years.