well as excavating archaeological More research led me to discover sites and writing a book about that another very similar tradition domestic architecture. This is what used to happen in Germany and The Darby (sic) Ram he said: there are people of German origin in Transylvania so perhaps it was as published by Llewellynn Jewitt in The “Amongst the earliest recollections the Anglo-Saxons rather than the The Ballads & Songs Of Derbyshire, published 1867 of my childhood is the Vikings who spread the tradition… performance of the ‘Derby Ram’, As I was going to Darby, Sir, All on a market day, or, as we used to call it, The Old More research. More similar I met the finest Ram, Sir, That ever was fed on hay. Tup. With the eye of memory I customs and rituals in Hungary, can see a number of young men Russia, Sweden, just about Daddle-i-day, daddle-i-day, standing one winter’s evening in everywhere. In some it’s a ram, in Fal-de-ral, fal-de-ral, diddle-i-day. the deep porch of an old country others a goat, a horse, a stag… in fact, just about any large animal Derby house, and singing the ballad of This Ram was fat behind, Sir, This Ram was fat before, seems to have been used by The Old Tup. In the midst of the This Ram was ten yards high, Sir, Indeed he was no more. company was a young man with different peoples. What stays the same is that it is a mid-winter a sheep’s skin, horns and all, The wool upon his back, Sir, Reached up unto the sky, on his back, and standing on all festival and involves a group of The eagles made their nests there, Sir, For I heard the young ones cry. fours. What it all meant I could not mummers taking the creature make out, and the thing that most around the village and, probably, The wool upon his belly, Sir, It dragged upon the ground, impressed me was the roar of the its sacrifice. It was sold in Darby town, Sir, For forty thousand pound. Ram voices in that vault-like porch. The sheep and the men were evidently At this point I dared to think: could too harmless to frighten any child, it be a tradition that is so old it pre- The space between his horns, Sir, Was as far as a man could reach, Nonsense song or remnant of prehistoric religion? and a play in which the only act dates our splitting up into different And there they built a pulpit, For the parson there to preach. was the pretended slaughter of an nationalities? This would account old tup was not in itself attractive.” for all those mentioned above and The teeth that were in his mouth, Sir, Were like a regiment of men, by Pete Castle also include the Kentish Hooden And the tongue that hung between them, Sir, Addy then quotes the song and Horse, the Welsh Marie Lwyd, and Would have dined them twice and again. describes how the ram is killed even the Abbotts Bromley horn ver 40 years ago when I (or anyone else at that time) that Tup - a sort of mummers play Between about 1995 and 2005 before saying: “...the ballad dancers with their reindeer horns. This Ram jumped o’er a wall, Sir, His tail caught on a briar, first became interested in it might possibly be a very ancient which was performed around I was one third of the Anglo- went on to tell how and for what (It was only in the 19th century It reached from Darby town, Sir, All into Leicestershire. Ofolk or traditional songs, and very important survival from Christmas time, particularly in Romanian band, Popeluc. We purpose people begged for his that they moved their dance from most people assumed that they the Stone Age! the north of the county. It’s very played the traditional music of bones, eyes, teeth, hide, etc., Christmas to the present date in And of this tail so long, Sir, Twas ten miles and an ell, were thousands of years old and simple - a farmer and his wife Maramures in Romania, mixed but I cannot remember more of September.) They made a goodly rope, Sir, To toll the market bell. some, at least, were remnants of A few years later I went to college, plus another man wearing a ram’s it with British songs given a it. However, in a version printed This would make it a very an old Pagan religion. Gradually, met folk music, and started to head and fleece. They call for a Romanian accent, and toured by Jewitt (The Ballads & Songs This Ram had four legs to walk on, Sir, This Ram had four legs to stand, old tradition indeed! Some as we’ve learned more, the go to folk clubs. I suppose I butcher to kill the ram and after sporadically when we could all of Derbyshire, 1867) they beg for And every leg he had, Sir, Stood on an acre of land. commentators have said that most pendulum has swung until, for heard The Derby Ram but I don’t some silliness about where he manage to be in the same country his horns to make milking pails, traditions only go back a century the past few years, the received remember it. It was probably on should stick his chopper, he does. at the same time! One of the and for his eyes to make footballs. or two but dressing up as animals The butcher that killed this Ram, Sir, Was drownded in the blood, wisdom has been that few folk some of the early folk LPs I bought They then pass the hat round and Maramures tunes we occasionally And a tanner begs for his hide, is far older. In the seventh century And the boy that held the pail, Sir, Was carried away in the flood. songs are more than a couple of as well, but it wasn’t a song I go off to do it again somewhere used was one we called, Ritual Of which is big enough ‘to cover St Aldhelm was reported to have hundred years old and most were chose to sing. else. I organised a few The Goats. It was a very simple all Sinfin Moor’. Here we have a been horrified by revellers wearing All the maids in Darby, Sir, Came begging for his horns, written by hack song-writers for performances of it in schools. One little march which we added ballad describing the slaughter animal costumes, especially To take them to coopers,To make them milking gawns. broadsides. I would agree that In 1978 I went professional on the of these was affected by an early to another march if we wanted of a being of monstrous size, and stags, and just a short while later, that might be true for the versions folk scene but still had nothing example of Political Correctness - something longer. I didn’t know the uses to which his body was around 700CE, Theodore, the The little boys of Darby, Sir, They came to beg his eyes, we sing today, but their roots, to do with The Derby Ram - until an optional character in the play is much about it at first except that it put. Now when I first read the Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote: To kick about the streets, Sir, For they were football size. sometimes but not always, can go was part of a Christmas tradition Edda, and came to the passage 1987 when we moved to Derby. a lad called ‘Simple’. We weren’t “To those who go about at the back much, much further. At that time, as well as folk clubs allowed to call him that; he had to which included a man dressed which tells how the sons of Bor Kalends of January garbed as a The tanner that tanned its hide, Sir, Would never be poor any more, and festivals, I was doing a lot be ‘Simon’! up as a goat who was then taken slew the giant Ymir, and how, stag or an old woman, taking the For when he had tanned and retched it, It covered all Sinfin Moor. You must all be aware of the song, of work in schools and it struck around to collect money! In fact, when he fell, so much blood ran The Derby Ram. It is one of the Jocul De-A Capra or the Dance form of beasts, clad in the skin of me that The Derby Ram would The next landmark came in 1993. out of his wounds that all the race most common traditional songs in Of The Goat is so similar to The beasts and assuming the heads of The jaws that were in his head, Sir, They were so fine and thin, be ideal to sing to and with the I was talking to someone about of frost-giants was drowned in it, both Britain and America. I once Owd Tup that when you see beasts; who transform themselves They were sold to a Methodist parson, For a pulpit to preach in. children. I realised that it was an stocking some of my albums in I said to myself, ‘Why, that’s The met someone who was collecting photographs you have to study into animals, three years penance, iconic image locally - there were his shop and he said that what Old Tup’ and when I read further every version he could find, the buildings and costumes of for the thing is devilish.” So it has several statues of it around the he really wanted was a cassette on and found how they made Indeed, Sir, this is true, Sir, I never was taught to lie, his collection was well into the the people in the background to been happening for well over 1500 city and, of course, Derby County of The Derby Ram to sell. I said the sea from his blood, the earth And had you been to Darby, Sir, You’d have seen it as well as I. hundreds! decide whether you are looking at years. football club is ‘The Rams’. That that would be easy to organise, from his flesh, the rocks from his the Tup or the Capra! last fact was the only thing the thinking I would do it myself, but it teeth, the heaven from his skull, it I think I first came across it when And we can go back even further: seemed to me that I had guessed I was in my early teens and was children did know about it. They’d morphed into a cassette album of We discovered many similarities The Gundestrop Cauldron is rightly. The Old Tup was the giant just starting to play the guitar. never heard the song before. I local songs by myself, concertina between the folklore of Maramures a large, silver bowl found in the Continent) they have found Ymir, and the mummers of my Someone gave me a song book: soon discovered that very few player Derrick Hale, Keith Kendrick and England. A lot of them could Denmark in 1891. It was made in several deer skulls trimmed and childhood were acting the drama 104 Folk Songs Sung By... (there adults had either, so I learned a and Roy Harris - the last two of be traced back to the church and what is now Bulgaria in the 2nd shaped so that they can be worn Pete Castle: folk singer and followed a long list of names version and performed it when I whom supplied different versions Christianity, but not the Ram/ of the Creation.” century BCE. Amongst all kinds on the head, and with holes drilled storyteller, author and editor which meant nothing to me at had local bookings, particularly of the title song. I don’t know how Horse/Goat… Why then should of wild beasts it shows a stag with in them so that you could tie it of Facts & Fiction storytelling the time although they do now) for non-folk audiences. It was many it sold. Lots. We added a the same tradition exist in places Problem solved, I thought. The antlers and beside it a man sitting under your chin. magazine. on Folkways Records. I was not especially pleasing when, after couple more tracks and made it so far apart? Derby Ram must be Viking. It cross legged on the ground also the slightest bit interested in folk a gig somewhere in a remote into a CD in 2001, and it is still made perfect sense, especially as with antlers on his head. Is it at all possible that a mid- Pete’s books: Where Dragons songs. I was into The Shadows part of the Peak District, an old selling. When I wrote my book, Derbyshire Derby was in the part of England winter ritual from the end Soar, Animal Folk Tales Of The and later the Rolling Stones, but it chap came up and thanked me Folk Tales, for The History settled by Danes and Vikings. The My final step on this journey of the last Ice Age, which British Isles; Derbyshire Folk was good practice to play through for singing it and said it took him Over the years I gradually Press in 2010, I included an Julbock (Yule Goat) is still part of and in my theory that The involved dressing up as a beast Tales; Nottinghamshire Folk those 104 songs, both the chords back to his childhood when the accumulated more knowledge extract from the 19th century Swedish Christmas celebrations Derby Ram might be preserved and processing around the Tales are all published by the and the tunes. One of them was mummers used to come round about the song and its antiquarian Sidney Oldall Addy. and you can buy small ones in prehistoric religion comes from an countryside, developed over History Press. They and the CD a version of The Derby Ram. I and do ‘The Tup’. background. I realised that in He lived in Norton, then a village Ikea! But how about Maramures? archaeological dig at Star Carr in the millennia into a play and of The Derby Ram are available The Vikings were great traders thought it was just a silly story the same area there is a similar in Derbyshire, now a suburb of East Yorkshire. On a site which is then, much more recently the from Pete’s website: but you can’t get to Maramures with a simple tune and only two This reminded me that the song tradition with a horse - the song, Sheffield. He collected many, 11,000 years old (so Mesolithic or dialogue was transformed into, or www.petecastle.co.uk chords (three if you wanted to be did not stand alone, there is a Poor Old Horse, accompanies that many songs, stories, rituals and by boat, it’s surrounded by Middle Stone Age and built when supplemented by, a song? Think clever!). It never occurred to me Derby Ram play too - The Owd and they share verses. bits of dialect around the area, as mountains! England was still connected to of that next time you sing it!

The Living Tradition - Page 26 The Living Tradition - Page 27