The idiom of the people: English traditional verse

by Cecil James Sharp

Where shall I meet you my pretty little dear With your red rosy cheeks and your coal black hair I'm going a milking kind sir she answered me But it's dabbling in the dew where you might find me The cusp of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw a revived fascination with the native song of England, perhaps best known through the work of that crusading folklorist Cecil Sharp. But while the music was inoffensive enough to genteel ears, the violent, ribald and frequently erotic lyrical content was definitely not the respectable Victorian or Edwardian's cup of tea. Accordingly, the folk verse that did find its way into print was invariably neutered by what Alan Lomax describes as 'the dictates of the puritanical and namby-pamby editors of the Mauve Decade'. In The Idiom of the People (1958), James Reeves has revisited Cecil Sharp's manuscripts, restoring a selection of 115 folk lyrics to their authentic, unexpurgated form. The result is a fascinating record of England's traditional verse, in all its robust, vigorous and beguiling glory.

244 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Cecil James Sharp (22 November 1859 – 23 June 1924) was an English collector of folk songs, folk dances and instrumental music, as well as a lecturer, teacher, composer and musician. He was a key figure in the folk-song revival in England during the Edwardian period.

Evelyn Sharp, the writer & well-known suffragist was his sister.