Lark in the Morning, The

DESCRIPTION: (Singer) meets young girl who praises plowboys. The singer meets a plowboy. He takes her "to the fair." The rest of their relationship is couched in equally allegorical terms.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1834 (Cunningham)
KEYWORDS: lyric nonballad farming courting seduction
FOUND IN: Britain(England(North,South),Scotland(Aber)) Ireland US(So)
REFERENCES (22 citations):
Gardham-EarliestVersions, "LARK IN THE MORNING, THE"
Sharp-OneHundredEnglishFolksongs 62, "The Lark in the Morn" (1 text, 1 tune)
Karpeles-TheCrystalSpring 87, "THe Lark in the Morn" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Reeves/Sharp-TheIdiomOfThePeople 56, "The Lark in the Morn" (1 text)
Reeves-TheEverlastingCircle 81A, "The Lark in the Morn" (2 texts)
Purslow-MarrowBones, p. 51, "The Lark in the Morning" (1 text, 1 tune)
Kidson-TraditionalTunes, pp. 145-146, "The Pretty Ploughboy" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Randolph 562, "Lark in the Morning" (1 text, 1 tune)
Williams-FolkSongsOfTheUpperThames, p. 236, "The Ploughboys" (1 text) (also Williams-Wiltshire-WSRO Wt 484)
Copper-ASongForEverySeason, p. 264, "The Lark in the Morning" (1 text, 1 tune)
Kennedy-FolksongsOfBritainAndIreland 140, "The Ploughboy" (1 text, 1 tune)
Palmer-EnglishCountrySongbook, #70, "The Ploughman's Glory" (1 text, 1 tune)
Palmer-FolkSongsCollectedBy-Ralph-VaughanWilliams, #107, "The Lark in the Morning" (1 text, 1 tune)
Baring-Gould/Sheppard-SongsOfTheWest2ndEd, #115, "The Owl" (1 text, 1 tune, with the first verse being "The Owl" verse from "Of All the Birds"(but mostly taken from print) and part of the rest being "The Lark in the Morning" or something related to it)
Roud/Bishop-NewPenguinBookOfEnglishFolkSongs #99, "The Lark in the Morning" (1 text, 1 tune, plus some excerpts in the notes)
Graham-Joe-Holmes-SongsMusicTraditionsOfAnUlsterman 38, "The Jolly Ploughboy" (1 short text, 1 tune, which Graham places here although it is too short to really assign); p. 277, "The Lark in the Morning (a reprint of a Bodleian broadside)
Wells-TheBalladTree, pp. 273-274, "The Lark in the Morn" (1 text, 1 tune)
SongsOfAllTime, p. 7, "Lark in the Morn" (1 text, 1 tune)
SongsOfManyNations, "Lark in the Morning" (1 text, 1 tune) (CC edition, p. 30)
DT, LARKMORN* LARKMOR2*
ADDITIONAL: Allan Cunningham, The Works of Robert Burns (London, 1834 ("Digitized by Google")), Vol. II, p. 270, ("The lark in the morning") (1 fragment: one verse)
Maud Karpeles, _Folk Songs of Europe_, Oak, 1956, 1964, p. 46, "The Lark in the Morning" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #151
RECORDINGS:
Jim O'Neill, "The Ploughboy" (on FSBFTX13)
Lucy Stewart, "The Ploughboy" (on FSBFTX13)
Paddy Tunney, "The Lark in the Morning" (on Voice05) [a mixture of "The Lark in the Morning" and "Roger the Ploughboy"]
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 25(1070), "The Lark in the Morning" ("As I was a walking one morning in May"), Swindells (Manchester), 1796-1853; also Harding B 11(3684), Firth c.18(172), Firth b.34(224), Harding B 16(125c), Harding B 11(2060), "The Lark in the Morning"
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Pretty Plowboy
NOTES [195 words]: The narrative thread is so fragmentary that I've classed this as a lyric song, not a ballad. -PJS
There is a ballad back there, though, as Kennedy-FolksongsOfBritainAndIreland's version shows; under all the symbolism is a story of seduction. The title apparently came about because larks are among the first birds to start singing in the morning. - RBW
Cunningham (1834): "The second verse of ["To a Mountain Daisy", specifically, "Alas! It's no thy neebor sweet, The bonnie lark ...."] reminds me of a stanza of an old north country song, a favourite once with the peasantry, who loved it for its truth as well as beauty -- 'The lark in the morning Arises from her nest ....'"
Re Paddy Tunney's "The Lark in the Morning" (on Voice05): the first verse is a fragment of "The Lark in the Morning"; the second is a fragment of "Roger the Ploughboy."
Kennedy 140 is supposedly the Lucy Stewart text, of which the FSBFTX13 recording has only the first verse. Kennedy refers to the Jim O'Neill text on p. 333 as one he and Sean O'Boyle recorded in 1952. Since O'Neill sings Kennedy's second and third verse (and another not in Kennedy), the Kennedy text may be a composite. - BS
Last updated in version 6.8
File: ShH62

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography