Open downloadable pdf file:The_Keenly_Lode

Dialect Terms:

Captain – ie mine captain – expression used in Cornwall for the mine manager.

Keenly lode – Cornish dialect for a good ore bearing lode.

Brave – in Cornish dialect usually means big.

Bal – Cornish for mine.

Whim – a windlass type of device for bringing up ore.

This one of the few dialect songs that Baring Gould recorded and published. He was given this song by an old miner n the Lugger Inn, Fowey in 1894 But reconstructed it for publication. It is clearly based on Willaim Bentick Forfar’s “The Bal – tis a Bra’Keenly Lode” published circa 1860 and subject to the “folk process” in transmission from the original to Baring Gould’s miner and subsequent publication in Songs of the West. It enjoyed a wide public audience in the BBC’s second Poldark series, broadcast in October 2016, when Judd lead a pub singing session in celebration of the success of Wheal Grace. 

Sources

William Bentinck Forfar, “The Bal – Tis a Bra’ Keenly Lode”, (London, J Williams, 1860).

Sabine Baring Gould, Ed C Sharp, Songs of the West, (London, Methuen, 1905), Song no.46.

Alfred Percival Graves The Celtic Song Book: Being representative of the 6 Celtic Nations.(London, Ernest Benn, 1928).

Racca 2 (Calstock, Racca Project, 1997).

Sengen Fiddee, The An Daras Cornish Folk Arts Project, 2003