September 28th, 2009

When Child published his collection of the ballads of England and Scotland—most of which were originally about Robin Hood, friends & family—he did not include many tunes to the songs. So many years later, Bertrand Harris Bronson made another collection—this time, with many new variants plus tunes!

Unfortunately, the four volumes which he printed have become in scarce supply. And in the folk-song community, demand is very high. To help things along further, the original printings were done unevenly and so the last volume became quite pricey.

So, a few months ago, I was thinking that my thin resources would evaporate in the attempt to procure them. As I was mournfully contemplating this, I discovered on the Mudcat Digital Tradition forums that they were being reprinted—within a few days! And, unbelievably, they are now available for $40 a volume. So I’m happily studying my Bronsons—thank you, God!

*Why would I get these? So Wren Song can begin to re-construct, re-tune and re-sing the ancient songs of Britain—that is, the songs of Robin Hood.

In fact, the money left over after getting the new Bronsons has just procured software & other things necessary to a home-studio. Wren Song is going to be learning a lot now. The hope is, after re-forming a decent amount of songs, to make some available here for download for free—the ones at the heart of the Robin Hood legend. Even more will be available track-by track for the usual 99-cents price or all together in an actual CD.

I might add an especially special thanks to Clement of the Glen for prodding us in this direction!

This is going to be so fun!