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The Hunt's Up

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1979

John M. Ward
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Extract

The subject of this paper deserves an entry in music dictionaries, yet it has received none, no doubt because the Hunt's Up has been studied not as an entity but as different things: a ground, a type of song, a few pieces of instrumental music, a musical genre, a custom. To my knowledge, no writer has discovered what if anything beyond a name relates the various aspects, though it is in the ways they are related that the importance of the Hunt's Up for the history of English music is to be found. The purpose of this paper is to establish what those relationships are. My indebtedness to the work of other scholars – William Chappell, Anne Gilchrist, and Claude Simpson, to name but three – will be evident to anyone who has worked with this subject.

Type
Research Article
Information
Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association , Volume 106 , 1979 , pp. 1 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © 1981 The Royal Musical Association and the Authors

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References

Notes

1 See the list on p. 12–13.Google Scholar

2 Other examples include the catch ‘Hold thy peace’, the freemen's song ‘Martin said to his man’, harmonizations of ‘Go from my window’, and the setting of the words ‘Sweep, chimney sweep’ in the Dering and Gibbons medleys of London street cries.Google Scholar

3 William Chappell, The Ballad Literature and Popular Music of the Olden Time (London, [1855–59]), i, 60–2; H. Ellis Wooldridge, Old English Popular Music (London, 1893), i, 90–2; Claude Simpson, The British Broadside Ballad and Its Music (New Brunswick, N.J., 1966), pp 323–7.Google Scholar

4 Go merely wheele: Cambridge University Library [hereinafter CUL], MS Dd.3.18, ff. 40–41v (lute); Dd.5.20, f. 4v (bass viol); Dd.5.21, f. 5 (recorder); Dd.14.24, f. 22 (cittern); Dd.2.11, f. 64 (lute); Trike my whele: Trinity College, Dublin, MS D.1.21/II, p. 104 (lute); Anglicum: Leipzig, Musikbibl. der Stadt, MS II.6.15, p. 495; No title: Paris, Bibl. du Conserv., MS Rés. 1186, f. 56v (keyboard).Google Scholar

5 Grimstock: CUL Dd.5.78.3, f. 73v, n.t.; Dd.9.33, f. 81v (bandora); Dd.4.23, f. 6 (cittern); British Library, Add. MS 15118, f. 30v (bass viol); Dancing Master, 1651, no. 14 (fiddle?): Playford, Musick's Delight on the Cithren, 1666, no. 40; Grimstone: Dd.5.20, f. 8 (recorder and bass viol); Dd.5.21, f. 8 (recorder); [Studentenglūck]: Engelische Comedien und Tragedien, 1620, sig. Zz7v (publ. C. R. Baskervill, The Elizabethan Jig [Chicago, 1929], p. 524), No title: Dd.5.78.3, f. 75v (lute); O mijn Engeleyn, o mijn Teubeleyn: J. Starter, Fnesche Lusthof, 1621, p. 123 (publ. M. Veldhuyzen, De Melodieēn by Starters Friesche Lust-Hof [Zwolle, 1967], p. 37); Kommt ihr G'spielen: Melchior Franck, Actu Oratorio, 1630 (publ. A. Reissmann, Geschichte der deutschen Musik [Leipzig, 1892], p. 278); Komb, mein Liebchen: British Library, MS Sloane 1021, f. 79v (lute); Chorea Ang[licum]: Leipzig, MS II.6.15, p. 373 (lute); Brande Soet Olivier: Leiden, Bibl. Thysiana, MS 1666, f. 472 (lute; tune publ. Simpson, p. 325).Google Scholar

6 Even more distantly related - if, in fact, it is related at all - is one of the two tunes that go by the name ‘All in a garden green’ (e g., Playford, Dancing Master [1651], no 71; see ex. 16). Only the first strain bears any resemblance to the ‘old’ tune, in particular bars 3 and 4, 7 and 8, and through the strain is never found combined with the ground, it can be set to it. M Dean-Smith, in the Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association, lxxix (1953), 13, describes ‘Gathering Peascods’ (Dancing Master 1651, no. 97) and Johnson's Almaine (elsewhere called ‘Allin's Jigg’) as ‘variations on the same prototype as “Peascod Time” - ultimately “Chevy Chace”’, and, in her edition of Playford's English Dancing Master (London, 1957), p. 81, as congeners of the Hunt's Up. At best they are but distant relatives of the family. Only the first strain of ‘Gathering Peascods’ and the first and third of the Almaine are at all similar, and both first strains are only six bars long. Including them, however distantly, in the family is as open to question as including the first strain of ‘La bounette’ (in the Mulliner Book, no. 13), the commonplace point with which one of Dowland's fantasias and a host of other sixteenth-century instrumental pieces begin (See Ward, J., ‘Dowland Miscellany’, Journal of the Lute Society of America, x [1977], 33–4), and other occurrences of a musical cliché of the period.Google Scholar

7 Simpson, pp. 368–71; also Chappell, i, 196–8; Wooldridge, i, 89–90. Byrd's variations on the Hunt's Up ground appear twice in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, the second time with the title ‘Pescodd Time’, which is clearly a misnomer: the tune does not occur in any of the variations and, like its title, is almost certainly of later date than the composition of Byrd's work.Google Scholar

8 Concerning the Ridout MS, See Ward, J., ‘Notes on the Cittern, Gittern’, and Gittar', to be published in the Lute Society Journal.Google Scholar

9 The association of the Queen and the Hunt's Up was most likely extra-musically inspired : Elizabeth was often identified with the goddess of hunting, Diana; see Strong, Roy, The Cult of Elizabeth (London, 1977), p. 48.Google Scholar

10 Munday, Banquet of Datntie Conceits (London, 1588), sigg A3, [F4].Google Scholar

11 Deloney, The Works, ed. F. O.Mann (Oxford, 1912), pp. 302–4; Bodleian MS Rawl. poet. 172, f. 10. For the other two Cantus, See Ward, J., ‘Curious Tunes for Strange Histories’, in Words and Music. The Scholar's View, ed. L. Berman (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), pp. 352–3.Google Scholar

12 Only three ballads are known to have been written to some form of the Hunt's Up: those of Munday and Deloney and one written in honour of Elizabeth's forty-third Accession-day (publ. A. Clark, The Shirbum Ballads [Oxford, 1907), no. xlii). Presumably ‘ye hunts ys up &c.’ registered with the Stationers’ Company in 1566 and' 70 was also sung to it (see Rollins, H. E., An Analytical Index to the Ballad-Entries, 1924; repr. Hatboro, Pa., 1967, nos. 1175–6). And only two ballads are known to have been sung to ‘Peascod Time’, the one mentioned in the text above, the other ‘Chevy Chase’, though for the latter we have only the word of Chappell, i, 196, that ‘earlier printed copies of the ballad direct it to be sung to “In Peascod Time”’, and R. F. Rimbault. Musical Illustrations of Bishop Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (London, 1850), p. 15, that ‘the earliest copy … seen was printed for T. Passenger on London Bridge, and is directed to be sung to the tune of “In Peascod time”’. At least 24 ballads were written to be sung to The Lady's Fall’, according to Roy Lamson, ‘English Broadside Ballad Tunes of the 16th and 17th Centuries,’ in Papers Read at the International Congress of Musicology, 1939 (New York, 1944), p. 115.Google Scholar

13 Simpson, p. 369, n. 2, Chappell, i, 148, 196;Wooldridge, i, 89. Locke's tablature for the ‘Ladies ffall’ reads:

3 4 5 2 4 1 4 5

2 2 1 3 2 4

2 2 1 3 4 1 4 5

1 3 2 1 4 5

14 Chappell, i, 200–1; Wooldridge, i, 92; Simpson, pp. 103–5.Google Scholar

15 ‘Now ponder well’ (or ‘The Babes/Children in the Wood’) appears in substantially the same form in John Gay, The Beggar's Opera, 1728, Air xii; Watt's Musical Miscellany, 1731, iv, 81; The Convivial Songster, c. 1782, p. 46; Samuel Arnold's opera, The Children in the Wood, 1793, Overture, ‘Slow’ section; William Shield, An Introduction to Harmony, 1800, p. 100, set for voice and instruments; Joseph Ritson, A Select Collection of English Songs, 2nd edn., 1813, iii, 88; Riley's Flute Melodies, New York, 1820, ii, 81; The British Orpheus, before 1835, p. 49; Chappell, A Collection of National English Airs, 1838–40, ii, 1; Hamilton's Universal Tune-Book, 1844, i, 45; Rimbault, Nursery Rhymes, 1846, p. 25; W. H. Callcott, Melodies of All Nations, 1851, p. 2; Chappell, Popular Music of the Olden Time, i, 201; Joseph Crawhall, Tunes for the Northumbrian Small Pipes, Violin or Flute, 1877, pp. 8–9 (the second version ‘As now played by the Duke of Northumberland's Piper’); Bruce and Stokoe, Northumberland Ministrelsy, 1882, pp. 3, 145; Stokoe and Reay, Songs and Ballads of Northern England [1899), p. 1; W. G. Whittaker, Collected Essays, 1940, p. 36; etc.Google Scholar

16 Chappell, i, 198–9; Wooldridge, i, 90–2; Simpson, pp. 96–101.Google Scholar

17 D'Urfey requires the tune for twelve texts, including that of the celebrated ballad itself, and prints the music seven times, but only once (iv, 1) with the name ‘Chevy-Chace’. J. Ritson, A Select Collection of English Songs (London, 1813), iii, 315, prints the tune with the first stanza of the ballad, whose complete text is given in another volume.Google Scholar

18 Whittaker, Collected Essays, p. 36: ‘The national anthem of Northumberland is the magnificent melody of “Chevy Chase” (i.e., “Ponder Well”]… Its simple grandeur and ruggedness may be said to summarize in a few bars the main characteristics of Northumberland and its people’. Bruce and Stokoe, Northumbrian Minstrelsy, pp. 2–3. ‘tradition and popular favour only recognise this … air as the true Chevy Chase’.Google Scholar

19 For The Unquiet Grave see also Bertrand Bronson, The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads, ii (Princeton, N.J., 1962), 239 (no. 20), 240 (nos. 21–24); Cecil Sharp's Collection of English Folk Songs, ed. M. Karpeles (London, 1974), 1, 91 (O), 92 (P); The Maid Freed from the Gallows: Sharp's Collection, i, 120 (C); Bronson, ii, 450 (no. 4), 455 (no. 17); The Bitter Withy: Journal of the Folk-Song Society [hereinafter JFSS], v/18 (1914), 1–4; The Holly and the Ivy: JFSS, viii/33 (1929), 113–15; Sharp's Collection, ii, 463–4; other carols: JFSS, ii/s (1905), 131–2; L. Broadwood, English Traditional Songs and Carols (London, 1908), p. 84; Roy Palmer, Songs of the Midlands (Wakefield, Yorks., 1972), p. 8; sword-dance songs: Journal of the English Folk Dance Society, 2nd ser., ii (1928), 32, 36; C. Sharp, The Sword Dances of Northern England Songs and Dance Airs, i (London, 1911), 4–5; L. Broadwood and J. A. Fuller-Maidand, English County Songs (London, 1893), p. 16; etc.Google Scholar

20 The only evidence that the Hunt's Up was associated with dancing is the inclusion of the name in a list of dances in The Complaynt of Scotland (1549); lines in the anonymous play of Timon (c. 1586), V.v: ‘Thou fidler, play the hunts vp on thy fidle; / Dost thou not see how they beginne to daunce’?; and the appearance of the ‘Children in ye Wood’ in the first part of a ‘Longways for as many as will’ in Wright's Compleat Collection of Celebrated Country Dances (London, c. 1750), ii, 31 (see ex. 34).Google Scholar

21 Ballads from Manuscripts, ed. F.J. Furnivall and W. R. Morfill (London, 1868–73), 1, 310–12. For an account of a similar ballad, see Chester, A. G., ‘The Authorship of a Political Ballad of the Reign of Henry VIII,’ Notes & Queries, cxcv (1950), 203–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 George Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie, 1589; facs. edn., Menston, 1968, p. 12.Google Scholar

23 A Compendious Book of Godly and Spiritual Songs, ed. A. F. Mitchell (Edinburgh, 1897), pp. 174–7. What appears to be yet another and earlier religious parody of the Hunt's Up, first noted by Ritson, Ancient Songs and Ballads (London, 1829), i, lxxviii, and dated c. 1500 by G. F. Warner and J. P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King's Collections, ii (London, 1921), 234, is in British Library, MS 16.B.XLIII, f. 184, and begins:Google Scholar

Come home agayne, Com home agayne
mi nowine swet hart, come home agayne,
ye are gone a stray owt of yourn way
there[fore] Come home agayne.

The original is without line division.

24 Collier, Extracts from the Registers of the Stationers' Company (London, 1848), pp. 129–30; cf. Rollins, Analytical Index, no. 1175. Collier's fabrication set to ‘la mélodie, composée [!] par W. Gray’, is reproduced in G. Bontoux, La Chanson en Angleterre au temps d'Elisabeth (Oxford, 1936), pp. 45–6, 121.Google Scholar

25 Merry Drollery (London, 1661), 1, 20; F. J. Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, 1882–98; facs. edn. New York, 1965, ii, 251, 253, 255. Another catch beginning ‘The hunt is up’ (text in Ritson, Ancient Songs and Ballads, i, lxxvii) is otherwise unrelated to the old Hunt's Up, as is the musical setting, a MS addition to London, Royal College of Music, II.E.42, a copy of Ravenscroft's Pammelia, 1609, sig. C4v. (Ritson failed to cite his source; I am indebted to Philip Brett for sharing his discovery of its whereabouts and for providing me with a copy of the music.)Google Scholar

26 As it must have been for W. C. Hazlitt, Faiths & Folklore of the British Isles, i (London, 1905), s.v. ‘Hunt's Up - A tune played on the horn to awaken the huntsmen on the morning of the chase’.Google Scholar

27 Handbook of the Worshipful Company of Musicians, 3rd edn. (London, 1915), pp. 35–6, 39.Google Scholar

28 Gottfried von Būlow, ‘Diary of the Journey of Philip Julius, Duke of Stettin-Pomerania, through England in the Year 1602’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, n.s., vi (1892), 62–3. Fynes Moryson, An Itinerary, 1617; repr. 1908, iv, 175, observed that ‘if he [the traveller] be solitary, the Musitians will give him the good day with musicke in the morning’.Google Scholar

29 See, e.g., Lyly, Mother Bombie, V.iii; Munday, John a Kent and John a Cumber, II; Dekker, Satiromastix, I.i; Marston, Antonio's Revenge, I.ii; Baylie, The Wizard, V.v; etc.Google Scholar

30 Tarlton's Jests, and News out of Purgatory, ed. J. O. Halliwell (London, 1844), pp. 15–16.Google Scholar

31 The engraving is reproduced in Shakespeare Survey, xvii (1964), pl. XIV/B.Google Scholar

32 See, e.g., the following passage from the diary of Henry Teonge, Chaplain on ‘His Majesty's Frigott Assistance’: ‘Christmas day wee keepe thus. At 4 in the morning our trumpeters all doe flatt [sic] their trumpets and begin at our Captain's cabin and thence to all the officers and gentlemens’ cabins; playing a levite at each cabin doore and bidding good morrow wishing a merry Christmas. After they goe to their stations on the poope and sound 3 levitts in honor of the morning'. Arthur Ponsonby, English Diaries, 2nd ser., n.d., p. 109.Google Scholar

33 Dekker and Webster, Westward Hoe (1604), V: ‘make a noyse; its no matter: any hunts vp, to waken vice’; Simon Baylie, The Wizard (1620), V.v: ‘Amongst you Sirs [the musicians are being addressed] your reward had been better if you had saluted the Lady aright, play another tune and cry good morrow to Sebastians bride the Lady Coelia;’ Richard Brome, The English Moor (1637), II.i:Google Scholar

This morning, early up we got again,

And with our Fidlers made a fresh assault

And battery 'gainst the bed-rid bride-grooms window.

With an old song, a very wondrous old one,

34 Francis Pilkington, Complete Works for Solo Lute, ed. Brian Jeffery (London, 1970), p. 24; Thomas Morley, The First Book of Consort Lessons, ed. Sydney Beck (New York, 1959), pp. 57–63.Google Scholar

35 Wordsworth describes the custom in the dedication verses of the Duddon sonnets (1820), thus.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

The greeting given, the music played,

In honour of each household name,

Duly pronounced with lusty call.

And ‘merry Christmas’ wished to all!

36 Anne G. Gilchrist, ‘Good-night and Parting Songs’, JFSS, vii/28 (1924), 190–4. Chappell, i, 251, found a vestige of the old hunsup in the morning serenade, called a ‘Matinale’ c. 1854 by the Court newsman, offered the Princess Royal on her birthday. Other instances of what appear to have been hunsups in fact if not in name are described by one of Henry Mayhew's informants, an Ethiopian Serenader: ‘Occasionally young gents or students will get us to go to a house in the morning, to rouse up somebody for a lark, and we have to beat away and chop at the strings till all the windows are thrown up. We had a sovereign given us for doing that’. London Labour and the London Poor, 1861–62; repr. New York, 1968, iii, 193.Google Scholar

37 Perhaps as the progressively more restrictive laws concerning itinerant entertainers were enacted during succeeding reigns a practice originally associated with minstrels was taken over by city musicians, especially those who were licensed; and what had been limited musically to the reworking of a single pattern changed to the playing of ‘such musicke’ as the performers had in their repertory. At the same time, the Hunt's Up ground, like many other grounds that may have belonged to ministrelsy, passed to those who supplied us with the written evidence on which our knowledge of so much sixteenth-century popular music depends, and the Hunt's Up discant was taken over by the musically non-literate ballad-singing public.Google Scholar

38 Thome's poem is found in British Library Add. MS 15233 and reprinted in The Moral Play of Wit and Science and Early Poetical Miscellanies, ed. J. O. Halliwell (London, 1848), pp. 65–8. Stanzas 1, 2, and 4 of Thome's poem are also found in Anthony Higgin's commonplace book (Ripon Cathedral, Chapter Library, MS XVII/B.69, dating from the early seventeenth century), together with a stanza not in the British Library text.Google Scholar

39 Exx. 29–32 are published with the permission of the English Folk Dance and Song Society.Google Scholar

40 From Topic Record 12T160, The Child Ballads'. The tune is published with the permission of Peter Kennedy, the collector, and Folktracks and Soundpost Publications.Google Scholar