Lyver Canow Kernewek / The Cornish Songbook  An Ideological Battleground?: Paper presented at the Kesareth Ilow Kernow / Cornish Music Symposium 5^th November 2017 Hotel Bristol Newquay-  Merv Davey

Lyver Canow Kernewek, the Cornish Song Book, was edited by Dr Ralph Dunstan and published in 1929. ^[i] It was the first of its kind and more than eighty years after publication continues to be a magical inspiration for those interested in Cornish music. It also has a degree of internal tension which is reflected in the sometimes strange inclusions and even stranger exclusions.  This internal battleground provides a glimpse of the different ideologies of the contributors and of the Cornish organisations of the time. We will first explore the background to the book and the differing world view of the contributors. We will overview the contents of the collection as a whole and then look at what seem to be major anomalies

 

 

The background to Lyver Canow Kernewek

The story of Lyver Canow Kernewek starts with an approach by the London Cornish Association to Reid Brothers publishers for a community singing book suitable for use at the social functions of the association and the numerous Cornish Societies throughout the world.  The London Cornish Association was and remains the senior association of Cornish ex pats. It dates back to the mid 1800s and by the 1920s comprised of Cornish families who had lived in the capital for several generations. These were families whose experience of Cornwall comprised of summer vacations, distant relatives and tourist publicity put out by companies like the Great Western Railway. As the instigators of the Cornish Song Book their expectations for the collection will have been influenced by their own perceptions of Cornwall.

Reid Brothers had already published a number of Ralph Dunstan’s works and contacted him with a view to editorship. Dunstan had not long retired to Cornwall and been drawn into the world of the Celto-Cornish revivalists who sought to re-capture Cornwall’s Celtic identity and promote Kernewek, the Cornish Language. They had successfully petitioned for Cornwall to be accepted as a member of the Pan Celtic League and had just established Gorsedh Kernow under the auspices of the Welsh Gorsedd. The key organisations here were the Institution of Cornwall, the Old Cornwall Societies and indeed the formative Gorsedh Kernow. These organisations would have clear views on the representation of a Celtic Cornwall and have expected to influence the contents of a Cornish Song Book. Dunstan discusses their ideas influences g in both the introduction to the book and an article he submitted to the Old Cornwall Journal concerning the publication. [2]

Within these organisations there were individuals who clearly had a major impact upon Dunstan’s decisions about the contents including: J.C Tregarthen, President of the Royals Institution of Cornwall; Cornish historian and folklorist, Hamilton Jenkin;  Henry Jenner, Celticist  and  Cornish language scholar; and Robert Morton Nance Cornish language revivalist and founder of the Old Cornwall Society movement. The proposal clearly met with some enthusiasm. It dovetailed neatly with the plans for Gorsedh Kernow and the first ceremony to be held in the autumn of 1928. All four influenced the contents of the collection but it is the ideas, aspirations and differing backgrounds of three contrasting personalities stands out of the pages of this collection and give title to this paper:  Dr Ralph Dunstan, Henry Jenner and Robert Morton Nance.

Dr Ralph Dunstan (1857 – 1933)

Ralph Dunstan was a Cornish boy bandsman “done good”. He came from a staunchly Methodist, working class background, his father was a carpenter and lay preacher  His formative years were spent immersed in the Cornish musical traditions of the non conformist chapels with their Tea treats,  regatta music and Christmas carols. His musical talent and experience as a pupil tutor gained him a scholarship at Westminster teachers training college and launched him into a career as music teacher. He gained a doctorate in music and enjoyed a distinguished if not high profile career with some 200 publications to his name, mostly music tutors and theory but some composition. He specialised in religious music, clearly had a soft spot for Carols and published several collections.

Ralph Dunstan’s entire working career was spent in London but he retained his Cornish connections. His wife was also Cornish and they spent the summer break here with their extended families especially towards the end of his working career and early retirement. They moved back to Cornwall in 1925, to Perrancoombe, and at the age of 68 he immersed himself back into the traditions he enjoyed as a youngster. He joined the Royal Institution of Cornwall in Truro and was elected to its council in 1927. He gave lectures on Cornish and Celtic music and organised concerts. The Royal institution provided his connection with fellow member Henry Jenner and he was also involved with the Robert Morton Nance and the Old Cornwall Societies.

In the introduction to Lyver Canow Kernewek he explains that it had long been his aim to publish a collection of Cornish music and it all seems to have fallen in place in with his election to the council of the Royal Institution of Cornwall and contact from Reid Brothers. It is presumed that he was encouraged by Nance and Jenner to become one of the first bards of Gorsedh Kernow but apparently declined. His biography paints a picture of a popular, mild mannerered man, lost in his love of music and he probably shied away from the radical eccentric Nance and esoteric Jenner. [3]

Henry Jenner (1848 – 1934)

Henry Jenner was by contrast a high churchman with firm ideological views that included the monarchy’s divine right to rule, the value of the class system, and the recognition of Celtic Nationhood especially for Cornwall.  It is the latter of course for which he is revered, not unjustifiably, in Cornwall. His formative years were not steeped in Cornish tradition like that of Dunstan, but in private education elsewhere which ensured a comfortable career in the British Library in London.

He maintained his links to Cornwall, and enjoyed expeditionary holidays researching the Cornish Language and Celticity. He campaigned to have Cornwall recognised as one the six Celtic Nations and had close links with his counterparts in the other Celtic nations especially the Isle of Man. His familial connections to Cornwall were strengthened by his marriage to the author, Kitty Lee, whose family came from Hayle. It was to Hayle that he retired in 1909 at the age of 61.

Henry Jenner’s world view becomes quite apparent in the first few paragraphs of his “Handbook of the Cornish Language” published in 1904.[4] It makes uncomfortable reading in the 21^st century and was actually omitted from the main text by the publishers Michael Everson when recently reprinted. Jenner’s belief in the class system is shown by comments such as: “….A survival, perhaps, of the unfittest which may account for some of the peculiar characteristics of the ….. lower classes.” And       “the natives of what are known as the “Celtic” parts of these islands are more purely Aryan than any except the upper classes and upper middle classes of the so-called “Anglo- Saxon”districts of Britain.”

Care must be taken not to be too judgemental as this was, for some people at any rate, the unthinking received common sense of the time. Common sense received from the elite of an Edwardian Britain desperate to hang on to the social structures that favoured them! Samantha Rayne adds a further insight into Jenner’s world here when she points out that he is probably also reacting to the belief in the ethnic inferiority of the Celts that was redolent in mid Victorian England.[5]

It is not difficult to anticipate that Jenner’s influence on the content of Lyver Canow Kernewek would be driven by his royalist and Celtic sympathies. But it is his relationship with folk tradition that is particularly interesting bearing in mind that the principle purveyors of this phenomenon were the “lower classes”.  He did have a clear view on what he saw as the value of folk tradition. In his presidential address to the Royal Polytechnic society in Falmouth (ironically entitled The Renaissance of Merry England) he suggested that folk songs and dances could bring “all classes together” to shield against social unrest and “those mischievous enemies of civilisation, the Bolsheviks”.^[6]

In reality Jenner was quite out of touch with folk tradition in Cornwall. When asked to contribute Cornish material to Graves Celtic Song Book ^[7] published in 1928, he relied largely on Baring Gould’s collection and managed to provide the wrong tune for the Hal An Tow together with some songs of dubious Cornish connection. He was also a member of the Cornwall Folk Dance festival committee run by Lady Mary Trefusis. Lady Mary was an acolyte of Cecil Sharp, folk song collector and English nationalist. Lady Trefusis was responsible for the introduction of expressly English folk tradition to schools in Cornwall at the expense of indigenous Cornish ones.[8] One can only surmise that the attraction of association with the upper class was stronger than Jenner’s sense of a distinct Cornish cultural identity.  

Robert Morton Nance (1873 – 1959)

Robert Morton Nance was born in Wales but his mother and father came from St Ives and Padstow respectively and family contacts with Cornwall were firmly maintained.  He went to art school and engaged in a portfolio career as artist, illustrator and marine historian specialising in detailed historic drawings and models of boats. If Dunstan and Jenner were establishment figures then Robert Morton Nance was quite the antithesis. He was teetotal and vegetarian and by all accounts cut an eccentric figure with unfashionably long hair, knickerbockers and love of rambling. He was a creative and counter cultural figure who professed little interest in the ideologies of politics or religion.

Morton Nance did have very clear of where he saw Cornwall and the Cornish identity going and we see a glimpse of this in the introduction to the very first journal of the Old Cornwall Societies in 1925:

“For over a century we have had learned societies that deal with Cornish Antiquities, and these have done much to uphold the honour of Cornwall.  To them, however, Cornwall’s past is a subject for antiquarian discussions; to us it holds a living spirit, and in our unlearned way we aim at spreading knowledge of this past amongst Cornish people of every sort as a thing that is necessary to them if they would remain Cornish”.^[9]

Here we see Morton Nance reclaiming Cornwall’s heritage from the academics and scholars and returning it to the ownership of the ordinary people of Cornwall. Not exactly Jenner’s position! The motto of the Old Cornwall Societies is “gathering the fragments so nothing is lost”. Morton Nance saw these fragments of Cornish culture as building blocks for the creation of a new Cornwall not something to be used as evidence of Celtic authenticity. There is a touch of creating your own reality here which anticipates the post modernist philosophy of the late 20^th century.

Morton Nance represents quite a challenge for the folk song and dance historian. Between Old Cornwall Society Journal articles and the Cledry plays he captures a large amount of material but rarely identifies sources. There always remains uncertainty as to whether he wrote it, adapted from existing Cornish tradition or borrowed it from elsewhere. The provenance of Cornish folk tradition could easily be lost within Morton Nance’s creativity. It is creativity that he brought to Lyver Canow Kernow.

Overview of contents

In the introduction to Lyver Canow Kernewek Dunstan explains that “It comprises the most important and interesting of the older songs and Carols which are essentially Cornish by birth or adoption together with more modern ones, and a number of pieces in various styles generally popular at the present time”.  He is a defensive on the issue of what constituted an authentic folk song, probably mindful of the somewhat narrow definitions espoused by the folksong collectors that immediately preceded him such Rev Baring Gould and Cecil Sharp. They engaged in a notion that a true folk song had to hark back to a cultural golden age and be free from modern contaminants.

In fact Dunstan’s sense that folk songs were defined by community ownership is much more in keeping with modern thinking in the study of folk traditions.

Content Analysis

 

Carols and religious music (57 Carols, 5 Hymns and 3 Funeral Marches.)

Dunstan’s background in religious music and love of carols is immediately evident in that this is the largest grouping in the collection. The Carols are to all intents and purposes a separate book within Lyver Canow Kernow and indeed the second edition was published as two separate books by Lodenek Press in 1974.

Traditional Cornish  (40)

Dunstan provides quite a modern definition of folk tradition in the introduction describing Cornishness in terms of adaption, adoption and community ownership as well as the ostensibly native.  He often obtained material direct from source or from his own musical experiences and this is described in the explanatory notes accompanying each song. Between “Lyver Canow Kernewek” and “Cornish Dialect and Folk Song” [10] published in 1932 Dunstan records 73 songs from oral tradition placing him at the top of  the league of folk song collection in Cornwall. Furthermore he records these songs and tunes from within his own cultural milieu. This adds an interesting element of authenticity in terms of the relationship between researcher and researched in folk song collecting.

Compositions (24)

Dunstan salutes the Cornish tenor, Charles Incledon, by including songs from his repertoire. Jenner’s wife, Kitty Lee had an established literary career of her own and Dunstan also sets some of her work to music. Despite the folkloric promotion of Cornish smugglers and wreckers in the media of the time they do not materialise in folk song tradition. There was evidently pressure to correct this “omission” so a song  about smugglers was written and Hawker’s poem about wrecking, “Featherstones Doom”, was set to music.  Piskies were also absent from folk song traditions so Dunstan set the Poem Jan Sturtridge to music.

Instrumentals (13)

Lyver Canow Kernow has a small section on Tea Treat and regatta music, largely from recollection of his own early experiences.  They capture the atmosphere of Tea Treat Culture and serve to underpin with music the descriptions retold and recalled by the Old Cornwall Societies. 

Sea Shanties (12)

Whilst not unique to Cornwall in any way, Sea shanties are part of the maritime tradition that contributes to its distinct cultural profile. A number of shanties were collected in Cornwall and it was clearly felt important to include some examples in Lyver Canow Kernewek. 

Songs in Kernewek (11)

The first seventeen pages of Lyver Canow Kernewek provide a heady mix of competing nationalisms translated into the Cornish Language. The scene is set by the first song, which is the British National Anthem of God Save the King duly translated into Cornish by Jenner. This is followed by Jenner’s version of Bro Goth Agan Tasow (Land Of My Fathers) widely recognised as the Welsh national anthem but also used as national anthems in Cornwall and Brittany as an expression of Brythonic unity. Nance provides a Cornish National Anthem in Kernow Agan Mamvro (Cornwall our Motherland) and affirms Brythonic identity with Dynargh dhe Dus a Vreton Vyghan  ( A welcome to the Bretons). The nationalist sentiments are nicely rounded of with Jenner’s translation of Trelawny which by the 1920s had become sung by Cornish communities globally as an expression of their identity.

Lyver Canow Kernewek was clearly intended to synchronise with the newly founded Gorsedh Kernow by providing arrangement of the songs used in the ceremony. Bro Goth Agan Tasow and Kernow Agan Mamvro are both used together with Arta Ef A dhe (He Shall Come Again). The latter being a salute to the Brythonic legends of King Arthur who will rise again to defend the Celts against English incursion. The ceremonial element extends into the religious with Can an Pyscajor Kernewek, a Cornish Fisherman’s hymn written by Jenner.

The Cornish translation of Burn’s Ould Lang Syne clearly falls into the category of  “and a number of pieces in various styles generally popular at the present time” as per Dunstan’s introduction.

It is a struggle to explain why Robert Morton Nance wrote and included a “Cavalier Song” Yeghes Da dhe’n Myghtern (Here’s Health to the King). A worthwhile struggle as it opens the door to yet another aspect of Cornish social history reflected, intentionally or otherwise, in this collection. It may have been a tribute to Jenner’s political views. Jenner was a monarchist but not with respect to the current incumbents. He was a Jacobite and firmly believed that the Stuart (i.e. Celtic) dynasty should have remained in place.  A much deeper resonance for a cavalier song lies with the Cornish support for the Royalist cause in the British Civil War. Cornish expressions of a distinctive culture are part of the lore of the Civil War but in his book, West Britons,[11] Mark Stoyle makes the case for understanding Cornish involvement as part of the continuing armed struggle to protect their distinctive culture. A case made all the stronger by the existence of correspondence from the Cornish leader, Sir Richard Grenville, suing for a semi independent Cornish state.

Dialect Songs (4)

It is interesting that so few dialect songs are included in this collection. Dialect was a major marker of Cornish identity in the early 20^th Century and was a feature activity of the Old Cornwall Societies. It may simply be that dialect culture centred on story telling rather than singing. The dialect used is also quite muted. The dialect language of Morvah Fair published here, for example, is nowhere near so strong as in Morton Nance’s original manuscript in St Ives Museum. The dialect may have been tempered for a wider audience.

Strange inclusions and even stranger exclusions.

Richard of Taunton Dean, Sir John Barleycorn, Tavern in the Town and Widdecombe Fair seem an odd inclusion for an otherwise very Cornish orientated collection and indeed they were not included in Lodenek Press’s re-print in 1974 . The first two probably come under Dunstan’s “and a number of pieces in various styles generally popular at the present time” category. Widdecombe Fair and Tavern in the Town carried a certain amount of baggage, however, that makes their inclusion surprising. Widdecombe Fair is an overtly Devon song rather than generically south west in origin but may have been included because of its familiarity to Cornish people across the Diaspora. There is a touch of irony here in that there was also Cornish version of the song in circulation called Helston Fair[12] which had presumably not come to the attention of the contributors. It was recorded in 1878 several years before it was published by Rev Baring Gould but probably shares a common ancestor rather than being in any way a precursor.

Tavern in the Town is provided with the rather weak provenance “said to be of Cornish Origin” in Lyver Canow Kernewek. It was composed by F.J.Adams and published by Willis Woodward and Co of New York in 1891. The adoption and adaption of American popular music to become special to Cornwall, and quite reasonably considered traditional, is a well trodden route.[13] Tavern in the Town is not special to Cornwall, however, and Jenner had already been ridiculed by the Musical Times for his submission of the song as Cornish in the Celtic Song Book published the previous year.[14] It may simply be that the review came too late to affect Lyver Canow Kernewek but it does reinforce the feeling that despite being quite out of touch with folk tradition in Cornwall Jenner had a strong influence on the contents.

Another strange inclusion that cannot go without mention is the Pool of Pilot, prose taken from a Cornish Miracle play and set to music. It had to be translated from the original Cornish to do this and it is very difficult to understand why the original text was not adapted and set to music.

When it comes to exclusions the absence of Cornish lyrics for the St Day Carol is quite remarkable. Cornish speaker and Old Cornwall Society activist, William C.D. Watson noted three verses of the St Day Carol from Thomas Beard of St Day. He felt that a verse on the colour red was missing so he wrote one in Cornish. Watson published this in the Old Cornwall Society Journal in 1926[15] and clearly intended it to be sung in Cornish as he did not provide an English version of the additional verse! Watson’s verses, with the Cornish addition translated into English eventually found its way into the Oxford book of Carols and hence to wide popularity.  This would have been well known and topical at the time that Dunstan, Morton Nance and Jenner were discussing what should be included in Lyver Canow Kernewek.  Watson left school at 13 was largely self educated and worked from much of his life as a Gardener. His Cornish was self taught and, so he claimed, acquired partly from traditional sources. [16]  The absence of the St Day Carol with its Cornish lyrics in Lyver Canow Kernewek remains unexplained. It is difficult not to voice a slightly dark suspicion here that Jenner’s class sensitivity may have had some impact on the decision not to include Watson’s work.

The absence of Deliow Syvy amongst the Cornish songs is an enigma. It is the one complete folk song that has survived in the Cornish language and yet is completely overlooked. The lyrics were given to the Cornish Language scholar, Thomas Tonkin in 1698 by a relative, Edward Chirgwin. From Tonkin’s notes it was evidently sung to him but the music was not recorded. The lyrics survive in written form in both Tonkins’ manuscripts held by the Royal Institution of Cornwall and the manuscripts of William Gwavas held by the British museum. They were published by William Pryce in his “Archaeologia Cornu-Britannica” in 1790 and also by Edward Jones in his “Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards” in 1794, albeit with some of the more robust verses omitted.

The “man meets lady” theme of Deliow Syvy is ubiquitous in human folklore and belongs to a family of songs of similar ilk with such titles as “My Fair Pretty Maid” and “Dabbling in the Dew”. Several such have been collected in Cornwall. One was learned by Rev Baring Gould from James Olver of Launceston in 1891.  This was quickly connected with Edward Jones’ lyrics by Baring Gould and the publisher Harold Boulton who set them to Olver’s tune in under the title “Kan Kerniw”his “Songs of the Four Nations” published in 1893.

It is understandable that Dunstan may not have come across Deliow Sevy in his fairly specialised musical world but both Henry Jenner and Robert Morton Nance would have been familiar with the Tonkin and Gwavas Manuscripts. Jenner was even in possession of a copy of Jones’ Kan Kerniw so had a less suggestive version to use if his sensitivities were offended by the original.  It would have been Nances’ style to write his own tune to the lyrics or commandeer an “old melody” and surprising that he missed this opportunity. Jenner was in communication with Baring Gould and it would have been remarkable for them not to have discussed the Cornish lyrics published by Boulton. Nance did eventually publish a study of Deliow Sevy in the Old Cornwall Society Journal of 1947 but still failed to set the lyrics to music.  One of the many mysteries that makes Lyver Canow Kernewek so interesting!

Lyver Canow Kernewek remains a valuable and informative work for both practitioners and researchers in Cornish music and folk tradition in the 21^st Century. It also provides a window into the fascinating world of the Celto-Cornish revival of the 1920s which in turn leads to a better understanding of modern Cornwall and the increasingly realised recognition of a distinct cultural identity. Much of the credit for this must go to Ralph Dunstan and his skilful negotiation with the personalities and Cornish organisations of the time. Ultimately it is Dunstan’s ability to restore, present and arrange this music that leaves us with this legacy.

Dr Merv Davey 5th Nov 2017

[1] Ralph Dunstan  “The Cornish Song Book: Lyver Canow Kernewek. (London, Reid Bros 1929)

[2] Ralph Dunstan  “The Cornish Song Book: Lyver Canow Kernewek” Old Cornwall  (St Ives, Federation Of Old Cornwall Societies,1929) Vol1, No 9, p. 35.

[3] John Dunstan, Cornishman of Music: Ralph Dunstan 1857-1933, Journal of The Royal Institution of Cornwall, 2016.pp31-52

[4] Jenner, Henry. A Handbook of the Cornish Language: Chiefly in Its Latest Stages with Some Account of Its History and Literature. London: Nutt, 1904.pp3-4

[5] Samantha Rayne, Henry Jenner and the Celtic Revival in Cornwall, (unpublished thesis submitted to the University of Exeter for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English in March 2012).p129.

[6] Henry Jenner, “The Renaissance of Merry England: Presidential  address, September 1920”,  Journal of Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society (Falmouth),1922, pp. 51 – 61.p. 60.

[7] Alfred Percival Graves,The Celtic song book : being representative folk songs of the six Celtic nations. (London, E. Benn. 1928).

[8] Merv Davey, “As is the Manner and The Custom: folk tradition and identity in Cornwall”, (Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Exeter, 2011 p116

[9] Robert Morton Nance, “What We Stand For”, Old Cornwall , (St Ives, Federation of Old Cornwall Societies, April 1925) Vol. 1, No 1, pp. 3-45.

[10] Ralph Dunstan, “Cornish dialect and folk songs : a sequel to the Cornish song book”, (Truro, Jordans Bookshop,1932)

[11] Mark Stoyle, West Britons: Cornish Identities and the Early Modern British State, (Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 2002).

[12] Helston Fair, The Notebook of JM Noble 1878, Old Cornwall Society Journal 1934.

[13] Merv Davey,ibid p 249

[14] The Musical Times, Vol. 69, No.1026. (Aug. 1^st 1928), p. 713.

[15] Old Cornwall Society Journal 1926 (vol 1, no3 page 30.)

[16] William, Daniel Watson How COrnish Came to Me . Old Cornwall Society Journal, 1957, Vlume 5, Number 8, p340.