Producer: Stephen Clarke

Associate Producers: Ward Marston and Scott Kessler

Audio Conservation: Ward Marston and J. Richard Harris

Photos: Gregor Benko, Richard Copeman, Jolyon Hudson, Tully Potter, Paul Steinson, and Barbara Tancil

Booklet Coordinator: Mark S. Stehle

Booklet Design: Takeshi Takahashi

Booklet Notes: Michael Aspinall

This project has been partially funded by Theodore Richards & William Wears, and by Francisco Segalerva.

Marston would like to thank the following for making recordings available for the production of this set: Michael Aspinall; The estate of Richard Bebb with help from Owen Williams; Gregor Benko; Alan Bilgora; Lawrence F. Holdridge; John Holohan; Michael Kelly; Peter Lack; David Mason; Jonathan Summers, Curator, British Library Sound Archive; and John Wolfson.

Marston would like to thank Gregor Benko and Elizabeth Black for their editorial guidance.

Marston would like to thank Jolyon Hudson, Michael Kelly, Larry Lustig, and David Mason for their invaluable help with researching the biographies of the singers and providing important discographic information.

MarstonMarston is grateful to the Estate of John Stratton (Stephen Clarke, Executor) for its continuing support.

Appendix

^ICD 1, Track 17

SCENES FROM THE SAGA OF KING OLAF:
And King Olaf heard the cry (Elgar)

And King Olaf heard the cry,
Saw the red light in the sky,
Laid his hand on his sword,
As he leaned upon the railing,
And his ship went sailing, sailing
Northward into Drontheim fiord.

There he stood as one who dreamed;
And the red light glanced and gleamed
On the armour that he wore;
And he shouted, as he rifted
Streamers o’er him shook and shifted,
‘I accept thy challenge, Thor!’

To avenge his father slain,
And reconquer realm and reign,
Came the youthful Olaf home,
Through the midnight sailing, sailing,
Listening to the wild wind’s wailing,
And the dashing of the foam.

To his thoughts the sacred name
Of his mother Astrid came,
And the tale she oft had told
Of her flight by secret passes
Through the mountains and morasses,
To the home of Håkon old.

Then strange memories crowded back
Of Queen Gunhild’s wrath and wrack,
And a hurried flight by sea;
Of grim Vikings, and their rapture
In the sea-fight, and the capture,
And the life of slavery.

Then his cruisings o’er the seas,
Westward to the Hebrides,
And to Scilly’s rocky shore;
And the hermit’s cavern dismal,
Christ’s great name and rites baptismal
In the ocean’s rush and roar.

Norway never yet had seen
One so beautiful of mien,
One so royal in attire,
When in arms completely furnished,
Harness gold-inlaid and burnished,
Mantle like a flame of fire.

Thus came Olaf to his own,
When upon the night-wind blown
Passed that cry along the shore;
And he answered, while the rifted
Streamers o’er him shook and shifted,
‘I accept thy challenge, Thor!’

•     •     •

^IICD 1, Track 19

Song of the open (La Forge)

To your soul is it wine,
As it is to mine,
Faring forth on a night of tumultuous might,
Forth in a tempest wildly wet,
After a sullen sun has set?

Do you love the play
Of the foaming spray,
Where mad waves romp on the long low beach?
To stand just out of their frantic reach,
My hair blown free and the breath of me
Caught hard in the passionate breath of the sea,
With your hands it were ecstasy!

•     •     •

^IIICD 2, Track 22

The rose of Killarney (Stanford)

I’ve been soft in a small way
On the girleens of Galway,
And the Limerick lasses have made me feel quare;
But there’s no use denyin’
No girl I’ve set eye on
Wid the Rose of Killarney at all could compare.

O, where
Can her like be found?
No where,
The country round,
Spins at her wheel
Daughter as true,
Sets in the reel,
Wid a slide of the shoe,
a slinderer,
tinderer,
purtier,
wittier colleen, than you
Rose, aroo!

Her hair mocks the sunshine,
And the soft silver moonshine
Neck and arm of the colleen completely eclipse;
Whilst the nose of the jewel
Slants straight as Cam Tual
From the heaven in her eye to her heather-sweet lips,

O, where
Can her like be found?
No where,
The country round,
Spins at her wheel
Daughter as true,
Sets in the reel,
Wid a slide of the shoe,
a slinderer,
tinderer,
purtier,
wittier colleen, than you
Rose, aroo!

Did your eyes ever follow
The wings of the swallow
Here and there, light as air, o’er the meadow field glance?
For if not you’ve no notion
Of the exquisite motion
Of her sweet little feet as they dart in the dance.

O, where
Can her like be found?
No where,
The country round,
Spins at her wheel
Daughter as true,
Sets in the reel,
Wid a slide of the shoe,
a slinderer,
tinderer,
purtier,
wittier colleen, than you
Rose, aroo!

•     •     •

^IVCD 3, Track 14

SHAMUS O’BRIEN:
Ochone! When I used to be young (Stanford)

Ochone, when I used to be young!
Them was the days I was free and hearty,
The life and soul of a dancing party,
the first boy axed when a song was sung!

Ochone, when I used to be young!
Then I could court as sweet as honey;
Divil a hair I thought of money,
och sure, I was brave and young!

Ochone, when I used to be young!
Now look at me, poor and battered,
Caubeen patch’d and coat all tattered,
Look at the work of a woman’s tongue!
Born from the king’s that ruled the parish,
Sure any Girl should be proud of marriage
wid the ouldest stock she lived among, Ochone!

Ochone, when I used to be young!
The fairies danced at my mother’s marryin’,
The Banshee keen’d at my father’s berryin’,
The wildest keen that ever she sung!
Sure all the world has turn’d agin me,
Since Nora sour’d the heart within me
wid a could sharp ‘No’ from her cruel tongue.

Ochone! Ochone! Ochone, when I used to be young!