Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs Of the Peasantry of England: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs Of the Peasantry of England, credited to Various, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs Of the Peasantry of England by Various. Read in English by Librivox Volunteers. This traditional, and, for the most part, unprinted literature,—cherished in remote villages, resisting everywhere the invasion of modern namby-pamby verse and jaunty melody, and possessing, in an historical point of view, especial value as a faithful record of the feeling, usages, and modes of life of the rural population,—had been almost wholly passed over amongst the antiquarian revivals which constitute one of the distinguishing features of the present age. While attention was successfully drawn to other forms of our early poetry, this peasant minstrelsy was scarcely touched, and might be considered unexplored ground. There was great difficulty in collecting materials which lay scattered so widely, and which could be procured in their genuine simplicity only from the people amongst whom they originated, and with whom they are as ‘familiar as household words.’ - Summary by Robert Bell

Recording facts

• Recording title: Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs Of the Peasantry of England
• Author credits: Various
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 109
• Listed recording duration: 8:50:13

Catalogue topics

• poetry
• song
• england
• ballad

Opening tracks: first 24 of 109

1. 000 - Introduction — 10:11
2. 001 - The Plain-Dealing Man — 5:17
3. 002 - The Vanities of Life — 8:53
4. 003 - The Life and Age of Man — 4:40
5. 004 - The Young Man's Wish — 1:59
6. 005 - The Midnight Messenger — 8:21
7. 006 - A Dialogue Betwix an Exciseman and Death — 6:48
8. 007 - The Messenger of Mortality — 5:11
9. 008 - England's Alarm — 7:08
10. 009 - Smoking Spiritualized — 5:37
11. 010 - The Masonic Hymn — 4:43
12. 011 - God Speed the Plow, and Bless the Corn-mow — 5:12
13. 012 - A Dialogue Between the Husbandman and the Servingman — 5:04
14. 013 - The Catholick — 1:59
15. 014 - The Three Knights — 4:36
16. 015 - The Blind Beggar of Bednall Green — 15:17
17. 016 - The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood — 4:40
18. 017 - The Outlandish Knight — 4:19
19. 018 - Lord Delaware — 8:07
20. 019 - Lord Bateman — 5:17
21. 020 - The Golden Glove; or, the Squire of Tamworth — 3:06
22. 021 - King James I. and the Tinkler — 4:33
23. 022 - The Keach I’ the Creel — 3:46
24. 023 - The Merry Broomfield; or, the West Country Wager — 6:16

Listen to this recording

Open the complete recording and player on Internet Archive. The player includes the full track list and available download formats.

Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.