CORNISH SONGS (1904) | Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia
“The Miner” has received from Herbert Thomas, editor of the Cornish Post and The Cornishman, Cornwall, a volume entitled “Cornish Songs and Ditties and Other Rhymes.” The book, which is a quarto, contains 84 pieces of varying merit – some displaying all the evidences of the Cornishman’s ready wit; others containing all the pathos and emotion of the “Unconquered Race;” others, again, bearing evidence of the strong religious fervor that is so characteristic of the people of the land of the daffodil – but all dealing with Cornwall and Cornwall’s sons and daughters. Many of the pieces are written in the dialect so dear to the heart of the “Cousin Jack.”
In his introductory remarks the compiler – who, by the way, is also the author of most of the pieces (many of which have appeared from time to time in the abovementioned papers) – says that “in such a land (Cornwall), with such traditions and among such people, it might be thought there had been nothing left to sing about at this time of day. Yet were it not for two grand old songs, “Trelawny” and “One and All,” scarce a single Cornish song or ditty has been set to music or attained popularity. So it seemed to me I might sing of the miner and his pasty, the smuggler and his enemy, the mine maiden and her lover, the fisherman on the sea, the exile in his cabin, the men who went to the wars and the welcome home again. Some day the words may be wedded to music, … and will be a staple dish when Cornishmen hold their memorable gatherings.”
The book is dedicated to “All Cornish Singers and Toilers, and especially to Miss Fanny Moody-Manners, the Cornish Nightingale,” and will without doubt, appeal strongly to all Cornishmen, and more particularly to the Cornish miner. Such pieces as “The Flooding of Wheal Owles” (a great mining disaster which occurred in January, 1893, wherein 2 miners were drowned through a party “holing” into an abandoned working) and “Entombed” (an account of another mining disaster which occurred in September of the same year in the famous Dolcoath mine, when eight miners were entombed while striving to secure some ground) must appeal to every toiler beneath the surface, while the humor of “San Just Poachers,” “The Skippers of St. Ives,” and “The Luckless Poet” will appeal to all. Included in the collection are the well-known Cornish favorites, “Shall Trelawny Die?” and “One and All.”
The whole forms a comprehensive volume of Cornish song and story and is well worth the modest sum asked for it.
Onen hag oll. ✫ღ⊰n
Winner, GK21 Ober Awenek Award for outstanding contribution to Cornish culture for the social media project ‘Australia: Cornish Connections’ | © 2021
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Source:
Barrier Miner (Broken Hill, NSW), Thursday 25 August 1904, p. 3 from https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/44363009?searchTerm=cornishman&searchLimits=l-state=New+South+Wales|||l-title=53
Main pic.: edited from https://allevents.in/st%20ives/the-twelve-days-of-christmas-with-herbert-thomas/200018468105217
Notes
Kresen Kernow ref: shelf no: 821.8 THO
See songs by Herbert Thomas: Tryphena Trenary