Who Would True Valour See (He Who Would Valiant Be)

DESCRIPTION: "Who would true valour see, Let him come hither; One here will constant be, Come wind, come weather, There's no discouragement Shall make him once relent His first avowed intent To be a pilgrim." Nothing will stop the Pilgram from his journey
AUTHOR: Words: John Bunyan
EARLIEST DATE: 1684 (Pilgrim's Progress, according to Reynolds)
KEYWORDS: religious nonballad
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood, "Hobgoblin nor foul fiend" (1 fragment)
SongsOfManyNations, "He Who Would Valiant Be" (1 text, 1 tune) (CC edition, p. 76) (12th edition, p. 79, has the text only)
ADDITIONAL: John Bunyan, _The Pilgrim's Progress_ 1684, "(no title)" (1 text) {it's about 95% of the way through the book; in the 1987 Penguin edition with introduction and Notes by Roger Sharrock, it's on p. 263)
[Percy Dearmer, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Martin Shaw, editors], _Songs of Praise_, first edition 1926; revised edition, Geoffrey Cumberlege, 1932, #515, p. 619, "(He Who Would Valiant Be)"
William Reynolds, _Companion to Baptist Hymnal_, Broadman Press, 1976, pp. 86-87, "He who would valiant be" (1 text, the Bunyan original, not the Baptist version)
Roud #25470
NOTES [147 words]: This is unquestionably not a folk song. But it has a long and complicated history as a poem, and was once recorded by Maddy Prior (on the album "Sing Lustily and With Good Courage"), which means that folkies may have questions about it. Although considered Bunyan's most popular lyric, Reynolds, p. 87, says it was not "used as a hymn" until Percy Dearmer produced a modified version in 1906. The Baptist version uses the tune St. Dunstan's, written by C. Winifred Douglas in 1917; this is also the tune credited in SongsOfManyNations. Prior, however, sings it to the tune "Monk's Gate," which is the tune used by Dearmer et al. It is not clear whether Vaughn Williams or Shaw fitted the tune, or if perhaps Dearmer suggested it. This is also the tune used in the 1958 Lutheran Service Book and Hymnal, which is the only one of the dozen or so hymnals in my library to contain it. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.3
File: AddHWWVB

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