John Bolitho singing Cadgwith Anthem at Withiel Church 2005
Cadgwith_Anthem click to open pdf file
Oll an Gwella singing Cadgwith Anthem at Lowender Peran in 2017
This song seems to have started out life as a Naval song under the name of “The Robber’s Retreat” at the beginning of the 20th century. It was first recorded in Cadgwith as “The Robber’s Retreat” on a wax cylinder probably during the winter of 1931/32 by American Folk Song Collector James Madison Carpenter. By the time it was recorded in Cadgwith by Peter Kennedy in 1956 and published in Inglis Gundry’s Canow Kernow (1960) it was firmly part of the Cornish community singing repertoire and soon acquired a version in the Cornish language.
What’s going on with the tunes of St Day Carol and Cadgwith Anthem sounding so similar? Any thoughts?
Yes the first few bars of both do seem similar. It could be convergent creativity but it would not be the first jobbing tune to be set to different lyrics and used for a variety of purposes. With minor variations the tune for “The Old Grey Duck” also becomes a carol called “The Seven Joys of Mary,” and it is not a million miles from a dance tune called the “Forty Thieves” in the John Old manuscripts. Both the Cadgwith Anthem and the St Day Carol reached a wider audience in the early 20th Century, the first when it appeared in a Naval Songbook and the second when it found its way into the Oxford Book of Carols after first being recorded. Both were recorded on wax cylinder by James Madison Carpenter when he visited Cornwall in the 1930s.