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while also supporting Morgan's comment on the modem audiences' rejection of the "old
songs":
The old songs are now only sung infrequently, if at all, and most people ill
the area have forgonen them. This erosion of memory is sometimes quite
deliberate, because the "old songs" conflict with the priorities and values
of evangelical protestantism. They are associated with a secular outlook,
and with the bunkhouse, card playing, dancing and swearing.
I found it difficult (0 collect the "old songs," partly because they arc no
longer needed to be sung in the work situations, either in the woods or .u
the fishery. and partly because they are consciously rejected by both
singers and audiences. l
For both men and women singers, the average age at the time of recording lends to be
fifty and above. It needs to be mentioned that the only two singers in their thirties are
revivalist singers, whose interest in the ballads came oul of an educated aesthetic choice.
When indicated, occupation is as follows. The male singers include five fishenllcn, three
lumbermen and a lighthouse keeper. Three of the fishemlen also share other activities,
such as cook on a fishing boat, labourer and lumberman. Occupation is even less
documented in the case of the women; two have declared themselves housewives and one
has worked on the fish flakes. The same two exceptions hold BA degrees from Memorial
University of 'ewfoundland, and both have made appearances as folk singers on the 51.
John's scene. Ancestry, when given, is merely referred to as England in the majority of
cases, Wales in two instances, and Ireland and France/Wales in one.
The painstaking elaboration of this chapter is motivated by the wish to ground the
following interpretive analysis of the Newfoundland classical ballad repertoire as finllly as
possible. This data basis reflects a ballad repenoire collected early, but also accurately and
systematically, which qualifies it for the speculative pursuit of worldview. While this
sample must be read with discrimination, taking the collectors' academic context as well as
their individual attitudes into account, the clear prominence of the otherwise rare "Sweet
William's Ghost" (eh 77), even well above the popular ones on the American continent,
yields a strong hypothesis for the coherence of texts and cultural context: that of "revenant"
as a meaningful cultural category expressed in ballad fonn, or its relevance 10 the islanders'
life, environment, and tradition at large.
ICox. MSome Aspects of the Folk M 77.