Hares On The Mountain: A Song History

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"Hares on the Mountain" is a lyric song rather than a story ballad, in which the singer vows to chase young women if they were hares on the mountain or birds in the bushes; the Traditional Ballad Index lists it as Roud 329 and gives its author as unknown.[1] The earliest date the Index gives for it is 1836, in Samuel Lover's novel Rory O'More, and a note there, drawn from O Lochlainn's More Irish Street Ballads, says the song is sometimes credited to Lover but is probably an older piece he reworked.[1] Its link to "The Twa Magicians" (Child 44) is disputed: Bronson printed it as an appendix to that ballad, implying descent, while the Index's editor doubts any connection.[1]

Small bronze sculpture of a crouching hare on an oval base

Antoine-Louis Barye, Hare, bronze, c. 1830–1875. Shown for the song's title.

Mike Yates and Rod Stradling describe it as once very popular in England, where Cecil Sharp collected at least nine versions.[2] In 1904 Sharp and Charles L. Marson printed two versions in the first volume of Folk Songs From Somerset, one from Louie Hooper of Hambridge and one from Mrs. Lock of Muchelney Ham.[3] The song also turned up in America: in September 1950 Horton Barker of Chilhowie, Virginia, sang it for Maud Karpeles.[2]

Shirley Collins put the song on her first LP, Sweet England, in 1959, recorded it again with Davy Graham for Folk Roots, New Routes, and returned to it in 2023 on Archangel Hill.[2] Steeleye Span recorded it on Parcel of Rogues in 1973, and many revival singers have taken it up since, some under the alternate titles "Blackbirds and Thrushes" or "Sally My Dear."[2] Neal Walters and Heidi Cerrigione include it in The Doofus: Occasional Number 3, a mountain dulcimer book of 18 waltzes and old-time songs in 3/4 time drawn from the repertoire of their group, The Doofus.[4]

Our book that contains the song "Hares On The Mountain"

Sources

  1. Traditional Ballad Index: "Hares on the Mountain".
  2. Mainly Norfolk: "Hares on the Mountain".
  3. Mainly Norfolk: "Folk Songs From Somerset 1".
  4. Neal Walters and Heidi Cerrigione: "The Doofus: Occasional Number 3".
  5. Image: Antoine-Louis Barye, Hare, bronze, c. 1830–1875. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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