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> Norma Waterson > Songs > Sheep-Crook and Black Dog

Sheep-Crook and Black Dog / Flora / Spread the Green Branches

[ Roud 948 ; Henry H30a ; Ballad Index HHH030a ; Bodleian Roud 948 ; Wiltshire 209 , 675 ; trad.]

Queen Caroline Hughes of Dorset sang Sheep-Crook and Black Dog to Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger in 1963. This recording was included in 2014 as the title track of her Musical Traditions anthology Sheeep-Crook and Black Dog. Peter Kennedy recorded Caroline Hughes singing My Black Dog and Sheep Crook in her caravan near Blandford, Dorset on 19 April 1968. This recording was included in 2012 on the Topic anthology of Southern English gypsy traditional singers, I'm a Romany Rai (The Voice of the People Series Volume 22).

Ewan MacColl sang this song in 1966 on his album The Manchester Angel; the track was later reissued on his anthology CD, The Real MacColl. His original album's liner notes commented:

This piece is something of a rarity these days, though it has been in the traditional repertoire for some time. A version under the title of Clara and Corydon was printed in Christie’s Traditional Ballads (1876) and it appears to have been known in Sussex under the title of Floro. Catnach printed it as a broadside and Kidson reported having a garland version in his possession entitled The Constant Shepherd and Inconstant Shepherdess, printed in 1775. The version given here was learned from Caroline Hughes.

In 1972, Steeleye Span recorded Sheep-Crook and Black Dog for their fourth LP, Below the Salt. The album's sleeve notes give a ‘modernised’ version of the song's topic:

With you I would share my position as clerk in the accounts department;
With you I would share my desk, pens and ledgers;
With you I would share my luncheon vouchers and season ticket—
But since you became an “exotic dancer” in that Soho club we seem to have grown apart.

The Irish day labourer Eddie Butcher sang this as Flora on his 1976 Free Reed album I Once Was a Daysman. The album notes comment:

Another song Sam Henry found in north Co. Derry, although it is now probably better known in southern English versions. Lucy Broadwood printed a Surrey set in English County Songs and more recently it has been recorded from a West Country traveller, the late Queen Caroline Hughes. It also crossed the Atlantic and has been found in Newfoundland (as Floro) and in Nova Scotia.

John Wright sang Sheep Crook, Black Dog in 1993 on his Fellside album Ride the Rolling Sky.

Brian Peters sang Sheepcrook and Black Dog in 1997 on his album Sharper Than the Thorn with Eliza Carthy playing fiddle. He commented in his liner notes:

Sheepcrook and Black Dog, collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams in Sussex, looks at first like harmless pastoralism but is actually about warm love gone cold, despair and the threat of suicide. Most of us have been there at some point.

Sandra and Nancy Kerr learned Sheepcrook and Black Dog from Caroline Hughes' version too and recorded it in 1996 on their Fellside album Neat and Complete. The same did Norma Waterson, who recorded it in 2000 for her third solo album, Bright Shiny Morning.

Bob and Gill Berry sang Fair Flora in 2006 on their WildGoose CD BitterSweet. They noted:

It's every folk singers wish, and pleasure, to sing something originally sung by one their parents and this is no exception. It is a sad song but one that Bob's father, Len, sang with real power and conviction. We just love the tune too as it fits the words like a glove. This comes from the Alfred Williams Collection indexed as Oxfordshire. The tune is from Lucy Broadwood's English County Songs, collected from Mr Grantham, carter, Surrey.

Rubus sang Sheep Crook and Black Dog in 2008 on their CD Nine Witch Knots. Emily Portman commented in their liner notes:

A story of love gone wrong, again. For a change the heart-breaker is a woman who, being upwardly mobile, soon forgets the promise she made to a lowly shepherd. Ewan MacColl evidently developed Queen Caroline Hughes’ superb version, but I like what he did with it, so I nicked it (with a little help from Sandra Kerr!).

Bob Lewis sang this song as Spread the Green Branches at the Fife Traditional Singing Festival, Collessie, Fife in May 2009. This recording was published a year later on the festival anthology There's Bound to Be a Row (Old Songs & Bothy Ballads Volume 6) and on his CD Drive Sorrows Away. The album's notes commented:

An old, rare and rather beautiful song that Bob learned from an old neighbour of his mother's in Heyshott, West Sussex. Wherever the song has been found—from the south east of England to the Newfoundland Outports—it is often sung, as here, to rather fine modal tunes—in this case in the Dorian mode. Because of the text of the last verse (not present in all versions), the song is sometimes given the title Sheepcrook and Black Dog.

Former Witch of Elswick, Fay Hield learned Sheepcrook and Black Dog for Ralph Vaughan Williams and Cecil Sharp's bi-centenary (i.e. the centenary of the year in which both began collecting folk song) celebrations at Cecil Sharp House. She then recorded it in 2010 for her first solo CD, Looking Glass. Her version is quite similar to the one of Bob Lewis.

Diana Collier sang Sheep Crook, Black Dog unaccompanied on her 2020 bonus EP So Dearly I Loved My Love.

Lyrics

Links and Acknowledgements

See also the Mudcat Café thread Sheepcrook & Black Dog.

Steeleye Span's version transcribed by Reinhard Zierke with the help of Patrick Montague. Norma Waterson's version transcribed by Garry Gillard.