The Ash Grove: A Song History

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"The Ash Grove" is the English name of the Welsh air "Llwyn Onn." Its earliest known Welsh printing came in 1802, when Edward Jones (1752–1824), harpist to the Prince of Wales, included it in his collection The Bardic Museum, published in London. There it appears as "Llwynn-onn," with a note tying the name to the house of a Mr. Jones near Wrexham, in Denbighshire.[1][2][3] The Traditional Tune Archive points to a possibly earlier history: it lists the tune, as "Sir Watkin William Wynn," in a Gow collection of strathspey reels that it dates to about 1800. The same annotation names "Cease Your Funning," from John Gay's Beggar's Opera, as a forerunner, and mentions "Beauty in Tears," a melody credited to the Irish harper Turlough O'Carolan, as a possible ancestor, while noting that the scholar Donal O'Sullivan doubted that Carolan attribution.[1] The Psalter Hymnal Handbook, reproduced on Hymnary.org, calls it "a harp tune rather than a folk song" and says it carried no religious associations in Wales.[4]

Eighteenth-century Welsh triple harp made by John Richards of Llanrwst

John Richards, Welsh Triple Harp, wood and various materials, ca. 1750. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). A Welsh harp of the century before the tune was printed; it has no documented link to this melody.

The Traditional Tune Archive places the first known English version in 1862, when the harpist John Thomas (Pencerdd Gwalia) issued the first volume of his Welsh Melodies, pairing Welsh lines by the poet Talhaiarn (John Jones) with English ones by Thomas Oliphant.[1][5][6] In the twentieth century the melody found a second life in churches. Katherine K. Davis set her own text, "Let All Things Now Living," to it in a 1939 anthem first issued under the pen name John Cowley, and a hymn-history article credits that anthem with spreading the tune across American denominations; Hymnary.org lists it in 145 hymnals.[4][7][8]

Outside the church, the air has also served dancers and folk players. The Traditional Tune Archive notes its use for English morris dancing and lists it in Laufman's 1973 contra dance collection and on a New England Country Dance Music recording by the Green Mountain Volunteers, as well as on a 1996 album by Robin Huw Bowen.[1]

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Sources

  1. Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Ash Grove (The)".
  2. Dictionary of Welsh Biography: "Jones, Edward (Bardd y Brenin; 1752-1824)".
  3. IMSLP: "The Bardic Museum (Jones, Edward)".
  4. Hymnary.org: "Let All Things Now Living" (Psalter Hymnal 453).
  5. Dictionary of Welsh Biography: "Thomas, John (Pencerdd Gwalia; 1826-1913)".
  6. Dictionary of Welsh Biography: "Jones, John (Talhaiarn; 1810-1869)".
  7. UMC Discipleship Ministries: "History of Hymns: Let All Things Now Living".
  8. Hymnary.org: "ASH GROVE" (tune).