{"id":19365,"date":"2024-02-23T20:03:24","date_gmt":"2024-02-24T01:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=19365"},"modified":"2024-02-23T20:03:24","modified_gmt":"2024-02-24T01:03:24","slug":"the-ash-grove","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=19365","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;The Ash Grove&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Roger Whittaker - The ash grove (1977)\" width=\"474\" height=\"356\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_tWdskGi6hA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Music tonight,<\/strong> as is so often the case with me on Fridays. Way back in the 1970s, I acquired an album by the late Roger Whittaker, entitled \u201cFolk Songs of Our Time,\u201d sadly no longer available as such. It was a loose collection, featuring some numbers that weren\u2019t strictly folk songs at all. \u201cFolk,\u201d of course, is a nebulous category. It can mean a song genuinely passed down mouth to mouth through generations, or merely a song written last week in the folk style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anyway, I grew quite fond of the album, and the song, \u201cThe Ash Grove,\u201d was one of my favorites. Mr. Whittaker sings it above, though I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s the same arrangement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The song evokes the unmistakable air of antiquity. <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Ash_Grove\">According to Wikipedia<\/a>, it was originally a Welsh song, and was first published by the harpist Edward Jones in 1802. But a similar tune is found in John Gay\u2019s &#8220;The Beggar\u2019s Opera&#8221; (1728), and that tune has in turn been traced back to a Morris song called \u201cConstant Billy,\u201d published in 1665.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In my own imagination, I suspected it was a heathen song. The ash tree has deep folkloric significance \u2013 I have a little book about British tree superstitions down in my basement somewhere. In my novel, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Year-Warrior-Lars-Walker-ebook\/dp\/B00BXKFXI0\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=SDCCWBJ0IANC&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.zVnZg0QigkN-LH2FSvldQQ.5O-UozEdfRhs4vNjjN9_60E1OOYdNjmsGkBLitG9hik&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=the+year+of+the+warrior+lars+walker&amp;qid=1708736366&amp;sprefix=the+year+of+the+warrior+lars+walker%2Caps%2C205&amp;sr=8-1&amp;tag=brandbooks-20\">The Year of the Warrior<\/a><\/em>, I give Father Ailill a mad, homicidal heathen slave who likes to sing \u201ca song about an ash grove.\u201d The original lyrics as we have them were by Jones in Welsh, of course, and they\u2019re actually about a man mourning his lost love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A good folk tune never escapes the hymn writers. \u201cThe Ash Grove\u201d is well-known in churches as the tune to \u201cLet All Things Now Living,\u201d and \u201cSent Forth With God\u2019s Blessing,\u201d as well as a few others less familiar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Music tonight, as is so often the case with me on Fridays. Way back in the 1970s, I acquired an album by the late Roger Whittaker, entitled \u201cFolk Songs of Our Time,\u201d sadly no longer available as such. It was a loose collection, featuring some numbers that weren\u2019t strictly folk songs at all. \u201cFolk,\u201d of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=19365\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8216;The Ash Grove&#8217;<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[2415,5082],"class_list":["post-19365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","tag-roger-whittaker","tag-the-ash-grove"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19365"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19367,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19365\/revisions\/19367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}