Note Note — No 57 THE OXEN PLOUGHING

57. The Oxen Ploughing. This song was known throughout Devon and Cornwall at the beginning of the 19th century. It went out of use along with the oxen at the plough. We found every old singer had heard it in his boyhood, but none could recall more than snatches of the tune and some of the words. We were for three years on its traces, always disappointed. Then we heard that there was an old man at Liskeard who could sing the song through. Mr. Sheppard and I hastened thither, to find that he had been speechless for three days, and that his death was hourly expected. One day I found an old white-headed and white-bearded man cutting ferns in the hedges at Trebartha in Cornwall. His name was Adam Landry. We got into conversation. I had heard he was a singer, and I asked after this especial song. He knew it. I sat down among the cut fern and learned it from him, singing it over and over till I had it by heart, and then drove home eighteen miles, warbling it the whole way, and went to my piano and fixed it. Later we found a labouring man, Joseph Dyer, at Mawgan-in-Pyder, who could sing the song through.