Cecil Sharp (CJS) noted 6 tunes from Thomas Denley, then aged 72, at Sevenhampton on 30 August 1909. He wrote: “Thomas Danley [sic] played these tunes to me (very beautifully) upon a tin whistle. His father used to play pipe & tabor for the Withington Morris men.. Thomas … although he can play fiddle, clarionet, organ, etc. as well as the tin whistle, could never manage to learn the pipe & tabor. He can play from note but has a great musical memory for tunes and can play a tune at one hearing with great accuracy (This I tested).”

Index to Thomas Denley’s Tunes

Notes on Tunes

Greensleeves CJS noted of Wm Hathaway’s version: “Jig danced over bacca pipes”, and of J. Mason’s version “Tobacco pipe dance”, for which this tune was widely used. It also featured at the end of many Gloucestershire mummers’ plays.

Lumps of Plum Pudding
“Lumps of plum pudding and pieces of pie
My mother gave me for telling a lie (jumping so high).”

“Lumps of plum pudding” is a country term for bruises, while “pieces of pie” is rhyming slang for “a black eye”.

Princess Royal was composed by Irish harper Turlough O’Carolan (1670-1738), who called it Miss MacDermott or The Princess Royal. The MacDermott princes traditionally presided at the inauguration of the kings of Connacht. Hence the reference to the “Princess Royal”. William Shields adapted the tune for his song “The Arethusa,” in his opera The Lock and Key, performed in 1796. In the Cotswolds it is used as a solo morris dance from several different villages, and in Abingdon as a set dance. O’Carolan’s original composition is in the minor mode. Some of the versions found in the tradition, such as this, are in the major.

Notes by Paul Burgess and Charles Menteith