Songs of Country Life

Many of our folk songs concern traditional crafstmen and traders such as millers, blacksmiths, cobblers, tailors, shepherds, brewers, merchants, and farmers. We hear how hard life is for the labouring man, how tailors and cobblers are scorned, merchants reviled, of blacksmith's lusts and millers' sons and daughters. Many of these are amongst the funniest of our songs, recounting unfortunate predicaments of one kind or another.

Songs like these are found in every anthology. Those with specific sections include The Singing Island, Folk Songs of Britain and Ireland, and Everyman's Book of English Country Songs, Roy Palmer, 1979, Dent.

Two collections of sound recordings with albums of on this theme are: The Voice of the People and The Folk Songs of Britain.