Song review: Martin Carthy - Jack Rowland

Over het lied zegt Martin:

"Bits of Jack Rowland are to be found in Jamieson dovetailed into a narrative remembered by the author from his childhood. As it appears there, it is another example of the continuing love affair of Jamieson and his contemporaries with King Arthur and all his works.

The King appears with Gwynivere and Excalibur as characters in the song but it seems to me that they are entirely superfluous and added later. Strip that away and you are left with a story of the triumph of imagination over stereotype. Alleged to have been sung or at least recited in ballad form by Jamieson's nurse to him when he was a little boy. From the narrative it would appear that the song would have been at least a couple of hundred lasting verses long, and one can only assume that Jamieson took a bloody age getting to sleep. This is a reworking into verse form from the narrative with liberties taken and the tune adapted from Old Mother Crawley."

Bron: https://mainlynorfolk.info/martin.carthy/songs/jackrowland.html