THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS

From R. VAUGHAN WILLIAMS,
THE WHITE GATES,
WESTCOTT ROAD,
DORKING.

[about 1936]

Dear Walford
The Tune ‘Kingsfold’ is one of the numerous versions of the ‘Lazarus’ tune – sung to ‘Come all you worthy Xtians’ & perhaps also to Dives & Lazarus – and also strangely to “Maria Marten or the murder in the Red Barn”.
The particular version I used/heard at Kingsfold in Sussex – hence the name. There is a so called Scottish version of it “Gilderoy” – & a version also appears in Chappell “We are poor frozen out gardeners“¹
It also appears in Ireland – I don’t think it is an Irish tune – I think the hybrid, Lowland Scots and Anglo-Irish tunes are all of the same family – quite different from the Gaelic & Irish-Keltic tunes. (see Folk Song Journal Vol. II No 7)²
‘Wicklow’ as far as I can remember is adopted from Petrie³ – I don’t think it has anything to do with the other tune – except for some similarity of phrase which is common to all folk-song
Yrs RVW

1.William Chappell, Popular music of the olden time : a collection of ancient songs, ballads, and dance tunes, illustrative of the national music of England (ca. 1855).
2. Journal of the Folk Song Society, vol.II, no.7 (1905), see pages 115-126  for the various versions of the tunes mentioned here.
3. George Petrie, The Petrie collection of the Ancient music of Ireland (1855). The tune ‘Wicklow’ was in fact adapted by VW from an Irish folk tune in P.W. Joyce’s Old Irish Folk Music (1909), No. 296 (“My own dear Colleen Dhas”) first printed as a hymn tune in the Enlarged Edition of Songs of Praise (1931), No. 182, then adopted into subsequent editions of The English Hymnal (1933, etc).