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Where
is Saint George?
Pagan Imagery in English Folksong
30th Anniversary Edition, New Introduction and Notes
Book by R.J. Stewart
Anyone interested in the British folk tradition--participants or academics--must often ask themselves many questions. What is the significance behind the apparently meaningless words of the Padstow May Song? Why was the harmless little wren once ceremonially hunted on one day in the year and immortalized in the folksong The Cutty Wren? And what connection does St. George, patron saint of England, have with the Divine King regularly sacrificed in a fertility rite by our prehistoric ancestors? In an attempt to answer such questions as these, this thought-provoking book suggests that certain basic images found in traditional songs, and certain musical phrases linked inseparably with them, were once common to Celtic--and indeed, pre-Celtic--forms of worship, and were only later absorbed in Christian ritual. To support this theory R.J. Stewart analyses in depth five well-known folksongs--all of them collected originally in the West Country--and examines the 'hidden' meaning of their words in relation to pagan myth and ritual; while in a section on 'Musical Consideration' he demonstrates how plainsong, the basis of formal music, developed from folk-music roots. By comparing these songs with other examples and by drawing upon mythology, classical parallels, early church records, oral lore and poetical intuition to illustrate his argument, the author shows clearly that the key to folksong tradition is the primitive consciousness from which it arose.
Price: $15.00
October Book of the Month Price $8.00