Helen Creighton and the Traditional Songs of Nova Scotia

Helen Creighton has been called by her biographer,Clary Croft, "Canada's first lady of folklore".1 If by"first" is meant pre-eminent, Edith Fowke might haveequal claim to that title, but Creighton was theearliest female Canadian folksong collector and forseveral decades the only important one.2 In the lateryears of her life she was awarded many tokens ofrecognition for her pioneering work in recording thefolksongs, tales and customs of her native province ofNova Scotia. These included the Province of NovaScotia's Cultural Life Award and an honoraryfellowship in the American Folklore Society, as wellas doctorates from six academic institutions,including Mount Allison University, Mount SaintVincent University and I'Universite de Laval. In1976 she was made a Member of the Order ofCanada.

He/ell Creighulfl receivil/g Oil hOllorary doctorate from/'Unil'ersile de Laval IPANS IIC Fonds Binder 18:1041]

Nonetheless, Creighton has remained a controversialfigure whose oeuvre has been largely neglected byCanadian academics, and whose methods andachievements have been subjected to severe criticism,It is now fifteen years since her death and overseventy-five years since she began collectingfolksongs, so a reappraisal of what she didaccomplish would seem well overdue. To date, thereare only two major attempts to come to terms withher legacy: Clary Croft's biography and Ian McKay'sThe Quest of the FoLk, in which Creighton is pairedwith handicraft revivalist Mary Black as a staunchopponent of "modernization".3 To these books mustbe added a few scholarly articles, including twoperceptive pieces by Diane Tye, "RetrospectiveRepertoire Analysis: The Case Study of BenHenneberry,,4 and "'A Very Lone Worker': Woman-

Centred Thoughts on Helen Creighton's Career as aFolklorist",5 but what is striking is the lack of any

full-length study of Creighton's work either as afolksong collector or as a 'popular' folklorist, theauthor of FoLkLoreof Lunenburg County,6 BLuenoseGhost/ and BLuenose Magics.

Ghost stories, witchcraft and even curious oldcustoms are a little passe these days, and Creighton'sapproach as a collector of traditional folklore hasbeen out of fashion in academic circles for severaldecades now - she is often written off as a"survivalist" - so the reluctance of the small band offolklorists teaching in Canadian universities to claimher as their own and to champion (or even study) herwork is understandable, if none the less regrettable.Yet the apparent neglect of her very large andextremely impressive collection of Maritimefolksongs is more difficult to fathom. Even if oneaccepts Ian McKay's dubious claim that Creightonengaged in a quest for a mythical Nova Scotian"folk", the songs that she noted from farmers,fishermen and housewives retain their ownauthenticity and beauty, independent of thecollector's values and ideology. We may notempathize with Creighton's political and culturalconservatism, but we can surely stilI appreciate, singand study the tunes and lyrics that she preserved forus. My aim here is to provide a brief overview of herwork as a collector of "old songs" (the term preferredby most of her informants), in the hope that this willstimulate a resurgence of interest in her publishedcollections (most of which are now out of print butought to be reissued) and in the many treasures to befound in the Creighton Fonds at the ProvincialArchives of Nova Scotia in Halifax.

Helen Creighton was born in Dartmouth, NovaScotia, in 1899, and had a sheltered upbringing in aprosperous middle class family whose incomederived mainly from the profits made by her father'swholesale merchandising business.9 She nevermarried, and by the early 1920s she was looking for acareer that would provide her with an independentlivelihood. Neither social work nor teaching provedto be her metier (although she briefly tried each ofthem), but she had some success as a writer ofchildren's stories and as a journalist and localbroadcaster. A move to Ottawa to pursue a career as afreelance writer for Saturday Night and MacLeansMagazine met with some limited success, but Helenwas soon back in Dartmouth looking for a new wayto make some money. A family friend, Henri Munro,

1

They moved around about us, till land was most in sight,

Or rather I should say so, the lighthouse shone its light,

And then those ghostly sailors moved to the rail again,And vanished in an instant before the sons of men.

We sailed right in the harbour and every mother's sonWill tell the same sad story, the same as I have done.

The trip before the other, we were off Georgia then,We ran down another vessel and sank her and her men.

These were the same poor fellows, I hope God rests their souls,That our old craft ran over and sank on Georgia Shoals.So now you have my story, it is just as I say,

I do [did] not believe in spirits, until this very day.

~

When I Was In My PrimeAnon

Enos Haitian

t ~.\M1en I was in my prime,

~fl

.h

"k

.'our-Is ed I e a vine.

~~false young man,

.J

There~

came a . long a

~Came stole a - way my thyme. thyme.

~.stole a . way my thyme.

When I was in my prime,I flourished like a vine,There came along a false young man,Came stole away my thyme, thyme,Came stole away my thyme.

My thyme it is all gone,And that's what makes me mourn,The garnet [gardener] standing byThree offers he gave to me,The pink, the violet and red rose,Which I refuse all three, three,Which I refuse all three.

Now pink's no flower at all,For they fade away too soon,

~

And the violets are too pale a blue,I thought I'd wait till June, June,I thought I'd wait till June.

In June the red rose bloomsAnd that's no flower for me,For then I'll pluck up a red rose, boys,And plant a willow tree, tree,And plant a willow tree.

The willow tree shall twist,And the willow tree shall twine,I wish I was in the young man's arms,The one the love of mine, mine,The one the love of mine.

10

~Came

I

There is a glorious plantThat grows allover the land,And everybody my plant shall seeI love that false young man, man,I love that false young man.

If I am spared for one year moreAnd God shall grant me grace,I'll buy a barrel of crystal tearsFor to wash his deceitful face, face,For to wash his deceitful face.

Taping for the National Museum

With the advent of the tape-recorder, a new phase inHelen's career had begun, and from this point on shebuilt up a large body of reel-to-reel tape recordings oftraditional singers and storytellers from a variety ofregions throughout Nova Scotia and southern NewBrunswick. The originals of these tapes are housed inthe Museum of Civilization in Hull, Quebec, butcopies were made for Helen's own use and these arenow part of the Helen Creighton Fonds in theProvincial Archives of Nova Scotia in Halifax. Theywere the principal source of the material madeavailable in print form in Helen's later publications,especially Maritime Folk Songi2 and FolksongsfromSouthern New Brunswick.23

Helen made her first tape-recordings in LunenburgCounty, working her way down the coast to WestPubnico and Cape Sable Island, but spending muchof her time closer to home in such communities asTerence Bay, Sambro, Seabright and Little Harbour.In Terence Bay she recorded Edward and EverettLittle singing "Franklin and his Bold Crew", and inRagged Harbour a fine rendition by Charlie Harnishof the marine ballad "Brigantine Sirocco". Sambrowas where she found an important new source singer,William Gilkie, from whom she obtained "SeventeenCome Sunday" and "Madam, Madam, You CameCourting" as well as another version of "CaptainWedderburn's Courtship". In West Pubnico sherecorded more Acadian songs from Laura McNeiland the Amirault and Pothier families. She also wentback to the lighthouse at Chebucto Head to captureCatherine Gallagher on tape for the first time.Catherine was now experiencing health problems(she died in 1957, after a long illness) and therecordings that Helen made of her singing during theyears 1949-51 are not as extensive as one would likebut they do include such ballads as "The GallantBrigantine", "Plains of Waterloo" and "YoungRiley".

The first half of the decade of the 1950s sawCreighton working regularly each summer for theNational Museum. She was never a fulltimeemployee of the Museum, but she received a modestsalary and travel expenses for her collecting trips, andshe was usually given a free hand in deciding whereto go, what to look for, and whom to record. It was aconvenient arrangement, and it resulted in aninvaluable series of recordings, far too many todiscuss in any detail here. However, a brief overviewof her activities may give some sense of what sheaccomplished. The first year of the new decade sawher working mainly in coastal communities south and

west of Halifax. William Gilkie was again one of herchief informants, but she also picked up a RobinHood ballad from Mrs. Gilbert Flemming of KetchHarbour and several songs, including "LordBateman", "Willie 0" and "The Wounded Hussar",from David Slaunwhite of Terence Bay. In additionto songs of British derivation, Helen was findingshanties and other sea-songs that reflected the closedependence of these fishing villages on the harvestfrom the Atlantic Ocean. For example, Otis Hubleysang "Stormy Weather Boys" and "In Canso Strait",as well as the grisly broadside ballad ''The DreadfulGhost". Tom Cornealy of Halifax was an informativeold shellback who claimed to have composed themarine ballad "Captain Conrod" in 1883, and he alsosang "The Schooner Mary Anne" and severalshanties. John Obe Smith of Seabright was anothersinging sailor discovered by Helen and he providedher with "Quays of Belfast", "A Sailor's Alphabet",and a song about Harbour Grace in Newfoundland.Edward Deal of the same coastal communitycontributed "The Eight Famous Fishermen", andGordon Connelly of nearby Glen Haven offered a"Newfoundland Sealing Song" and "MoonlightTonight Boys". Another highlight was Mrs. LottieGrey's performance of "Jack the Sailor". Twodecades had passed since Helen had begun her questfor pirate songs, but now she found several of them,including "Kelly the Pirate" from David Slaunwhiteand "The Pirate's Serenade" from William Gilkie.Perhaps the most exciting find of all, however, was aChild ballad: Marguerite Letson's rendition of "MaryHamilton".

By now Creighton had built up a lengthy list ofinformants to whom she could periodically return formore songs. The next few years saw her revisitingold haunts and former sources. For example, in 1951she went back to West and East Petpeswick andrecorded several members of the Young family, withBernard, Berton and Freeman Young proving themost prolific of the singers: Bernard's contributionsincluded "The Brown Girl", "The Banks of the Nile"and "When First To This Country", Berton's "TheBanks of Newfoundland", and Freeman's "The Girl ILeft Behind" and "Lovely Molly". John Roast ofChezzetcook offered "Down By the Fair River",while another pre-war discovery, Dennis Williams ofMusquodoboit Harbour, sang "Three EnglishRovers", "In Lonely Belvedere" and "Cape BretonMurder". The francophone informants of WestPubnico were again a fruitful source of Acadiansongs, with Laura McNeil performing "Catherineetait fille", "C'etait les fils de Babylone" and"Ecrivez-moi" and Sephora Amirault "Chanson sur lamort de la Dauphine" and "Trois graines de

11

Primprenelle". But Helen also followed up new leads.One example was her discovery of Halifax seamanDan Livingston, from whom she recorded a ballad,"The Wreck of the Caribou", about the torpedoing ofthe Nova Scotia/Newfoundland ferry by a German U-boat in 1942. She also located a new singer whomshe would count among her best informants, Mr.Grace Clergy of East Petpeswick, whose repertoireincluded such sea songs as "On Board the Victory","Jovial Young Sailor" and "The Bold PrincessRoyal" as well as such folk lyrics as "Early, Early inthe Spring". And she added another important sourcesinger to her roster the next year. This was NathanHatt of Middle River, near Chester, on the coast westof Halifax.

Nathan and ,'<frs. Halt [PANS HC Fonds Binder 17:0738J

A dozen of the many songs that Helen collected fromNathan Hatt in 1952 would find their way into hersubsequent publications, and she went so far as towrite an article about him for Dalhousie Review. Thefollowing extracts from that piece,"The Songs ofNathan Hatt", give us a sense of the kind ofrapportthat Creighton developed with some of herinformants as well as a picture of a fairly typicalNova Scotian traditional singer:

To see him you would not expect Nathan Hatt tobe a singer. He is an old man now, turned eighty-seven, and spends his days sitting in his rockingchair with head bowed solemnly until something

12

pleases him when he looks up and his whole facebecomes alight. Occasionally he enjoys amagazine because the pictures interest him, buthe has to pass the stories by, for he can neitherread nor write. Yet his life is full of stories -stories in song. If he had the strength he couldsing a whole night through and never repeat. Hisvoice has been heard of a summer evening as hesat on his back porch and his neighbours listenedfrom their homes all along the Middle Rivervalley. Others remember him carting lumber toBeech Hill, a nine mile trip begun before dawnwith a return at sunset, walking proudly in frontof his ox team and singing all the way... As ayoung man he must have been very strong. Heowned and operated a mill first at.Beech Hill andthen at Middle River, which accounts for hisnickname, Chippy. Then his world crashed abouthim.. .and he has suffered for the last fifteenyears from pernicious anaemia. Being deaf andilliterate a less resourceful man might have givenup in discouragement, but not Nathan Hatt. Hehad his songs for recreation, and they have beenhis constant companions.

[When I arrived at the Hatts' small white house]Mr. Hatt was sitting in a rocking chair in theroom next the kitchen and seemed pleased tohave a visitor. The doctor made the introductionsand left immediately. I asked Mr. Hatt to sing.He started off in something less than a minute,but with head averted from shyness. As he got toknow me better his head came gradually around,and he would break into merry chuckles whensomething in his songs amused him. His firstsong was "The Gay Spanish Maid", pleasant,tuneful and a love song with a sea motif. Hisvoice for all his years and his manner of singingit were encouraging, but I had often taken thissong down before, and wanted to hear morebefore jumping to any conclusion. He followedthis with 'The Foot of the Mountain Brow"which was also tuneful, and one I had onlyrecorded once before. But it was his third songthat settled the matter... This was a variant of'The Twa Brothers" found in Child's Englishand Scottish Popular Balla£ls and in myTraditional Songs from Nova Scotia as well as afew other collections. It was so changed from myonlyother variant that at first I failed torecognize it although I knew it belonged to thecategory of songs known as Child ballads....[T]he words set my eyes to dancing, as theyalways do when a rare ballad is discovered. Thetune has not yet been written down.. ..For severaldays I worked with Mr. Hatt, adding more andmore songs to my collection. Ten, twenty, thirty,where was it going to end? And what of the taperecorder in my car, useless in a house withoutelectricity?.. Chester Light and Power finallysolved the problem by running a cable some.three hundred feet from the nearest house

[although] the power was always disconnected atnight and put on again in the morning. Forty-seven songs: could I get him up to fifty? Threemore songs would do it, but that day he sangfifteen. To date he has sung seventy-two...[Hisdaughter, Nellie McInnes] proved a great help[since] if Mr. Hatt sang a song in the evening

that he had not thought of during the day, shewould jot it down on the calendar. His mindapparently is at its best in the evening, but thepower was always off then and we could notrecord. In fact we only worked three hours in theafternoon each day because he did not get upuntil noon, but that was enough. One afternoonwe turned the recording machine off and pluggedmy radio in to listen to the e.B.e. program FolkSong Time. Singers love to hear their own songs,but it is seldom that two people sing themexactly the same. He listened to "Lady Isabel andthe Elf Knight" which he had sung a few daysbefore, and then repeated it as soon as theprogram was over Other Child ballads sung byMr. Hatt are "Geordie", "Bonny Barbara Allan",'The Farmer's Curst Wife", 'The CruelMother", 'The Gypsy Laddie", and two verses of"Lord Bateman". He also sings "He's Young ButHe's Daily A-Growing".24

Nathan Hatt's repertoire was not limited to ballads,Child or otherwise, since he also provided Creightonwith texts and tunes of a considerable number of folklyrics. She would return to record him again in 1954,at which time he sang another Child ballad, "TheKnight and the Shepherd's Daughter". By then Helenhad under her belt two more collecting seasons with atape-recorder, and they were among the most fruitfulof her entire career as a folklorist. The list of herinformants in these years runs to over two dozen.Many of them were located in the coastalcommunities east, south and west of Halifax, theareas that remained her best sources of Nova Scotiantraditional song, but she was also ranging furtherafield, to Wolfville and the Annapolis valley, toRiver John and the northern coast (in search ofsurviving informants who had sung to RoyMackenzie), to Cape Breton, and to New Brunswick.

In New Brunswick Helen worked out an informalterritorial division of labour with Louise Manny, andfocused on the countryside just north of the Bay ofFundy, although, in conjunction with Louise, she didalso record Acadian songs from Joseph McGarth andCharles Robichaud in Newcastle, picking up from theformer the lyric, "La fleur du rosier", that wouldeventually be used as the title-song of her lastpublished collection. Of the many singers and songsHelen captured on tape in Nova Scotia during theearly fifties, a few new names stand out in addition toNathan Hatt: Harold Hilshie of Pope's Harbour who

sang "Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard", JackTurple of Upper Kennetcook who contributed 'TheConstant Farmer's Son", Ernest Bell of West NewAnnan who knew "Robbie Tampson's Smitty", andLeander Macumber of Cheverie who offered "HindHorn". But some of her older informants were not tobe outdone; Berton Young, for example, provided a"Nova Scotia Sealing Song", Bernard Young offeredhis version of "Lost Jimmie Whalen", and FreemanYoung sang a rare Canadian variant of "Rinordine".

~~W~)'If'

Hden Creighton, wilh I?;JYand Mrs. Mackellzi(~ [PANSHC Fonds Binder 17: 07021

The mid- I950s were also banner years for Creighton,with 1954 particularly rich in discoveries. For onething, she was making some progress with herresumed quest for Gaelic language songs from CapeBreton. Hugh F. MacKenzie of Grand Narrows hadhelped start the ball rolling again with "Bu DeonachLearn Tilleadh" ("I Would Willingly Return"), andHelen discovered a Cape Breton Club in Halifaxwhose members regaled her with "Mairi NigheanDomhnail" ("Mary, Donald's Daughter"). During thenext few years she had located Lauchie Gillis inGrand Mira, John R. McKeigan in Marion Bridge,and Mr. & Mrs. Archie MacMaster in Port Hastings.From McKeigan she collected "Oran Do CheapBreatainn" and from the MacMasters "Mo NigheanDonn as Boidhche" ("My Most Beautiful Brown-Haired Maiden").

When Helen drove to Cape Breton in 1954 she alsohad good luck finding francophone inforn;ants andAcadian songs. Peter Chiasson of Grand Etang, forexample, contributed "Dans la prison de Nantes","Haid do lai do" and "Quandj'etais su' mon pere".Moreover, Helen's usual informants in West Pubnico(Laura McNeil, the Amiraults and the Pothiers)seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of newAcadian songs, and she also recorded severalchildren's songs from "Ies enfants de l'ecole dePubnico-ouest". This was the time, too, when Helen

13

discovered the Redden family of Middle Musquodoit:Fred Redden, from whom she recorded "The Swan"and "Lovely Jimmy", and his daughter Finvola whocontributed "By Kells Waters". Helen was muchtaken by Finvola's voice and musical abilities, andsubsequently took her to arts festivals, employed heras a singer to illustrate lectures, and encouraged herto train for a professional career (an option thatFinvola eventually decided against).

Creighton's field-work in southern New Brunswickturned out to be the most productive of all hercollecting expeditions for the National Museum. Themain reason was Angelo Dornan, one of the two orthree most prolific and talented singers that she everr~corded. Dornan, a farmer of Irish extraction whohad spent much of his life in Western Canada, nowlived in Elgin, N.B., and he had a huge repertoire,which he sang in an elaborately decorated manner. In1953 he had contacted Helen by mail, inviting her tocome and record him and his friend, William Ireland,the local blacksmith. A year later, after the invitationhad been renewed, Helen somewhat reluctantly tookhim up on his offer, since she regarded NewBrunswick as primarily Louise Manny's turf.

Angelu Doman [pANS HC Fonds Binder 17:08281

This is the way Helen described Angelo Dornan inMaritime Folk Songs:

Mr. Doman's father had a great reputation forold songs, which he had learned in logger'scamps while river driving.. .He would sit bentover with his hand covering one eye, alwaysindoors and unaccompanied, the children sittingfascinated on wood box, floor or bench. At theage of nineteen Angelo moved to Alberta, wherehe never heard his songs again and where hesang them only occasionally when teaming hishorses. Even his wife had no idea that he knewany songs. In his middle sixties, however, hegrew homesick and bought a farm near the oldhome, and when he visited his relatives theywould ask, "Angelo, do you remember such andsuch a song?" Gradually the old time songs cameback until by now one hundred and thirty-fivehave gone into my microphone. Like his fatherhe sings slightly bent, usually twiddling a stickin hands between his knees, and always as a sortof ritual wearing a clean shirt. He embellishes histunes with grace notes as his father must havedone before him, and says that now he has cometo the bottom of his barrel of memory. Even he issurprised that so many have returned to him, andhe is especially proud of one that takes twentyminutes to sing.25

The twenty-minute song was the "The True Lovers'Discoursion", which had twenty verses in Dornan'sversion. Helen would eventually publish about eightyof Angelo's songs, the first nine (including "EasterSnow", "Phoebe" and "He's Young But He's DailyA-Growing") appearing in Maritime Folk Songs. Therest, a mixture of broadside ballads, Child ballads,English folk lyrics, Irish and Scottish songs, and sea-songs, comprised the core of FolksongsfromSouthern New Brunswick, which Helen described inher introduction as "The Dornan Book of Songs".26They included (among many others) "GypsieLaddie", "The Golden Vanity", "Sir James the Ross",'The Banks of Claudie", "Plains ofWaterloo","TheSea Captain (Maid on the Shore)" and "The StormyWinds of Winter". Creighton also collected asignificant number of songs from other residents ofthe region, with blacksmith William Ireland inparticular proving a valuable informant. She includedhis "Jack Munro" in Maritime Folk Songs. and nearlytwenty more of his songs, including 'The HouseCarpenter", "The Sheffield Prentice" and "BraveNelson", appeared in Folksongs of Southern NewBrunswick.

While she spent her summers collecting for theMuseum, Helen devoted the winters to cataloguingand writing up her research. She had continued tocollect other kinds of folklore as well as songs, and in1957 she published the book for which she is mostwidely known and which provided her with thelargest financial return, Bluenose Ghosts. She would

14

follow it just over a decade later with a sequel,Bluenose Magic.

After the publication of Bluenose Ghosts Helen was aminor celebrity and spin-off media activities werebeginning to take more and more of her time. Forexample, in 1953 she was involved with theproduction of a folk opera, The Broken Ring, in 1956with a Nova Scotia Travel Bureau movie titledMarine Highway, and in 1957 with the CBCtelevision program Graphic and the National FilmBoard production Songs of Nova Scotia.27She alsobelieved firmly in the importance of publicizing thefolksongs and folk tales that she had collected, and tothis end wrote a number of articles, including"Fiddles, Folksongs and Fishermen's Yarns" inCanadian Geographical Journal (1955i8 and "Songsfor Christmas" in the Atlantic Advocate (1959).29

These shorter pieces were followed in 1962 byCreighton's third major published collection of(mainly) Nova Scotian traditional songs, MaritimeFolk Songs. It was based on a selection of her tape-recordings for the National Museum, and thetranscriptions were predominantly the work ofKenneth Peacock. This was the best documented ofHelen's books, the only one in which she (or perhapsPeacock) took care to include both the date and theplace of collecting for each song, yet the scholarlynotes were inferior to those provided in TraditionalSongs from Nova Scotia or even Songs and Balladsfrom Nova Scotia.

Helen continued collecting songs throughout the late1950s and early 1960s, in part with a view toexpanding her Acadian collection. For example, in1957 she went back to Cape Breton to tape moresongs from Peter Chiasson in Grand Etang, on whichoccasion she also recorded nine items at a millingfrolic. Other Acadian songs were to be heard at theMiramichi Folk Festival organized by Louise Mannyin Newcastle, N.B., and Helen took along her taperecorder for several years running, from 1958 to1962, to record, among others, Chiasson and Allanand Roger Kelly.

Helen's other major project in the early sixties was topull together the scattered results of her episodiccollecting of Gaelic-language songs. She found aGaelic-speaking collaborator, Calum MacLeod, whoundertook to check the accuracy of her Gaelic textsand to create poetic translations of them. He alsosuggested that it would be a good idea to re-collectthe songs that Helen had tried to capture duringWorld War II with the Library of Congress discrecorder but had lost due to technical difficulties.This prompted Helen's last major burst of field

collecting in Cape Breton. She went back to LauchieGillis at Grand Mira and also recorded many othermembers of the Gillis clan (including Angus,Christine, Malcolm and Mrs Sandy Sheumais Gillis)at Gillisdale and Margaree. Other prolific informantsincluded Angus MacLellan from the same region ofCape Breton, Frank McNeil from Big Pond, andVincent MacPherson from Upper South River, nearAntigonish on the mainland. Their contributions,added to the fruits of Helen's earlier collecting from1932 onwards, formed the basis of her 1964publication, Gaelic Songs in Nova Scotia.30

By the beginning of the 1960s, however, Helen'srelationship with the National Museum, excellentwhile Marius Barbeau was a powerful influence inOttawa, was beginning to deteriorate. The Museumbureaucracy, perhaps in an effort to satisfy itspolitical masters, perhaps just following changingintellectual fashions, was becoming dismissive of"mere collecting" and anxious that its field workersshould engage in more "scientific" forms of folklore.Helen's supervisor at the Museum, Carmen Roy,suggested that she conduct a series of interviews todetermine whether Nova Scotians believed thatCanada was suffering from an inferiority complex.Helen balked at this, and proposed instead a field-tripto Grand Manan Island, located off the southern NewBrunswick coast. She got her way, but wasdisappointed to find that ballad singing was notcommon on the island, although she collected otherfolklore from the inhabitants.

Another of Helen's projects, which Roy and theMuseum rejected, was to work on repertoire for anewly created choir of Cape Breton miners andformer miners called Men of the Deeps. Helen didthis anyway, as a volunteer, but Gaelic Songs of NovaScotia was the last major publication on which sheworked under the museum's auspices. She continuedto do some field-work in the early '60s, mainly onCape Breton and at the western end of Prince EdwardIsland, but she was getting weary of life on the roadand becoming less tolerant of the foibles ofinfonnants. Among her last recordings were thoseshe made at the 1962 Miramichi Folk Festival and atTignish, P.B.I., where she collected "La belle rose"and "Parti pour un voyage" from Hector Richard andhis wife.

Thereafter Helen concentrated on editing, publishing,and publicizing the fruits of her earlier work. At thebeginning of the sixties she participated in a CBCdocumentary, Land of the Old Songs, about her song-collecting in Nova Scotia, and in 1966 she appearedin another CBC film, titled Lady of Legends, about

15

herself and the stories she had printed in BluenoseGhosts. This was good publicity for her books, aswas the staging of The Broken Ring at Expo the nextyear.

Helen's twenty years as a part -time employee of theNational Museum had came to an end in 1966, andthereafter the Museum did little to further publish orcirculate the fruits of her work. It was unwilling tosubsidize the publication of her Acadian songcollection, and it failed to bring out any LP records ofher field recordings. Luckily Moses Asch had a betterunderstanding of the importance of those recordings.So a few dozen selections from the recordings Helenhad made for the Library of Congress and for theNational Museum did find an outlet, on two LPrecords released in the USA on the Folkways label.The first, Folk Music from Nova Scotia, 31firstappeared in 1956 and was reissued in 1964; itincluded English folksongs and ballads by AngeloDornan, Catherine Gallagher, Nathan Hatt, EdmundHenneberry, and Fred Redden, shanties by LeanderMacumber and William Smith, a Gaelic song byMalcolm Angus MacLeod, Acadian songs fromLaura McNeil and Mrs Louis and Mrs SephoraAmirault, and a Mi'kmaq war song by Chief WilliamPaul. .

The second LP, Maritime Folk Songs from theCollection of Helen Creighton,32was released in1962 to coincide with the publication of the book ofthe same name. Several of the same source singerswere included: Angelo Dornan performing "When IWake in the Morning", Catherine Gallagher with"My Gallant Brigantine" and "Young Riley", andNathan Hatt singing "He's Young But He's Daily A-Growing". There was one Gaelic selection (JonRanny McKeigan's "Oran Do Cheap Breatainn", oneAcadian one (Laura McNeil's "Catherine etait fille"),and one Afro-American spiritual (Charles Owens'"What Harm Has Jesus Done You"), and the recordprovided a chance to hear what some of Creighton'smore recent informants sounded like. They includedGrace Clergy, who sang Helen's favourite "PeggyGordon" as well as "On Board of the Victory" and"In Cupid's Court", and David Siaunwhite, whoperformed "Kelly the Pirate" and "Young Beichan".Other highlights included Neil O'Brien's version of"All 'Round My Hat", Mrs Stan Marshall's "A MaidI Am in Love", and Porter Brigley's "I Dyed MyPetticoat Red" (which employed the Jacobite air"Shule Aroon"). These two records nonethelessprovided only a tantalizing taste of the wealth ofNova Scotian traditional music captured on disc andtape by Creighton between 1943 and 1954. Thereshould have been more.

When she parted ways with the National Museum,Creighton's active career as a folklorist and folksongcollector was effectively over. She brought outBluenose Magic in 1968, wrote her autobiography (ALife in Folklore, published in 1975), and lived to seethe belated publication of La Fleur du Rosier in1988.33 She died in 1989, soon after celebrating herninetieth birthday.

Helcn Cft'jg!rlOf/ !rof/oured aJier (1 performance of "77//:

Collector" in /980 IPANS HC Fonds Binder 19: 1261]

Opinions will vary concerning the validity and valueof Creighton's work as a professional folklorist, andunfortunately some critics will no doubt continue towrite off The Folklore of Lunenburg County,Bluenose Ghosts and Bluenose Magic as examples ofsurvivalism and vulgarization. Despite herinvolvement with Men of the Deeps and her efforts tocollect from such ethnic minorities as Afro-Americans, the Mi'kmaq, and the Acadiancommunity, she will likely continue to be attacked asinterested primarily in rural Nova Scotia and in theAnglo-Celtic cultural heritage of the province. Herconservative moral values and her rightwing politics(which, at worst, extended to virulent anti-communism) will not endear her to some readers ofher autobiography or Clary Croft's biography.

Yet, when all this is said, one cannot gainsay Helen'stremendous accomplishment as a collector of "oldsongs". Her song collection is huge, and much of it isof high quality. It lives on in two forms: in print insix books, and on disc and tape in three locations (theLibrary of Congress, the Museum of Civilization,and the Provincial Archives of Nova Scotia). What

16

we need nowadays is much greater and easier access,in digital form, to these audio collections.

David Gregory, Athabasca, Alberta

Notes

1Clary Croft, Helen Creighton: Canada's First Ladyof Folklore. Halifax, NS: Nimbus, 1999.2 Elisabeth Greenleaf did begin collecting a few yearsearlier, but she was American and Newfoundlandwas at that time not part of Canada.3 Ian MacKay, The Quest of the Folk: Antimodernismand Cultural Selection in Twentieth-Century NovaScotia. Montreal: McGill-Queen's U.P., 1994.4 Diane Tye, "Retrospective Repertoire Analysis: TheCase Study of Ben Henneberry, Ballad Singer ofDevil's Island, Nova Scotia", Canadian JournalforTraditional Music, 16 (1988): 3-15.5 Diane Tye, '''A Very Lone Worker': Woman-Centred Thoughts on Helen Creighton's Career as aFolklorist", Journal of the Canadian Folklore StudiesAssociation, 15:2 (1993): 107-117.6 Helen Creighton, ed., Folklore of LunenburgCounty. Ottawa: National Museum of Canada, 1950.7 Helen Creighton, ed., Bluenose Ghosts. Toronto:McGraw, 1957.8 Helen Creighton, ed., Bluenose Magic. Toronto:Ryerson Press, 1968.9 All factual information in this article about thepersonal aspects of Creighton's life is taken fromCroft's biography, cited above.10Roy Mackenzie, ed., Ballads and Sea Songs fromNova Scotia. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UniversityPress, 1928. Reprint: Hatboro, Pa.: FolkloreAssociates, 1963.11 John Murray Gibbon, ed., Canadian Folk Songs.Toronto: Dent, 1927.12Helen Creighton, A Life in Folklore, 48-49.Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1975.13At this time it was customary in Nova Scotia formarried women to be known by their husband's firstname as well as by his surname. Unfortunately inmany instances Creighton seems to have failed tofind out and record her female informants' real firstnames, as in the case of Mrs. Osborne.14Creighton, A Life in Folklore, 52.15Creighton, A Life in Folklore, 58-60.16Dave Harker, Fakesong: The Manufacture ofBritish 'Folksong' 1700 to the Present Day. MiltonKeynes: Open University Press, 1985.17Helen Creighton, ed., Songs and Ballads fromNova Scotia. Toronto: Dent, 1933. Revised edition:New York: Dover, 1966.18Creighton, A Life in Folklore, 71.

19Creighton, A Life in Folklore, 95-96.20Helen Creighton & Doreen H. Senior, eds.,Traditional Songs from Nova Scotia. Toronto:Ryerson Press, 1950.21Creighton & Senior, Traditional Songs from NovaScotia, x.22Helen Creighton, ed., with musical transcriptionsby Kenneth Peacock, Maritime Folk Songs. Toronto:Ryerson Press, 1962.23Helen Creighton, ed. , with musical transcriptionsby Kenneth Peacock, Folksongs from Southern NewBrunswick. Ottawa: National Museums of Canada,1971.24Helen Creighton, "The Songs of Nathan Hatt",Dalhousie Review, 32 (1953): 59-64.25Creighton, Maritime Folk Songs, 47.26Creighton, Folksongsfrom Southern NewBrunswick, 1.27The list of films with which Creighton wasinvolved in one way or another is quite lengthy. Itincludes The Rising Tide (1950), Marine Highway(1956), Graphic (1957), Songs of Nova Scotia(1957), Land of the Old Songs (1960), Garry Karrand Friends (1963), Nova Scotia Byways (1963),Lady of the Legends (1966), Take Thirty (1967),Bluenose Ghosts (1975), The Nova Scotia Song(1986) and Evergreen (1987).28Helen Creighton, "Fiddles, Folksongs andFishermen's Yarns", Canadian GeographicalJournal, 51 (1955): 212-221.29Helen Creighton, "Songs for Christmas", AtlanticAdvocate, 50 (1959): 62-68.30Helen Creighton & Calum MacLeod, eds., GaelicSongs in Nova Scotia. Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1964.Reprinted: Ottawa: National Museums of Canada,1979.31Folkways FM 4006.32Folkways FE 4307.33Helen Creighton & Ronald Labelle, eds., La Fleurdu Rosier: Acadian Folksongs. Sydney, N.S.:University College of Cape Breton Press, 1988.

17

the province's Superintendent for Education, showedher a copy of Roy Mackenzie's Ballads and SeaSongs from Nova ScotialO and suggested that asimilar publication showcasing songs collected in thesouth-west of the province might be a profitableventure. In her autobiography, A Life in Folklore,Creighton recalled that at the time she had no ideawhat a folksong was, but before long she wasenthusiastically pouring over Mackenzie's book andJohn Murray Gibbon's Canadian Folk Songs. II

Munro's advice seemed worth consideringseriously. 12

Early Years

Creighton's life-long involvement with folksong. began in the Spring of 1928. Invited to a picnic on

the beach at Eastern Passage, a fishing community afew miles along the coast from Dartmouth, she tookthe opportunity to inquire of the villagers whetherthey knew any folksongs or folk tales. She foundboth, and also began a friendship with the Osbornefamily that would endure for several decades. Mrs.Thomas Osborne,13 who would later provide Helenwith versions of such broadside ballads as "TheDark-Eyed Sailor", "The Lakes of Ponchartrain" and"Caroline and her Young Sailor Bold", told her aboutthe Hartlans, a singing family who lived in theneighbouring community of South-East Passage.

From Enos Hartlan, who proved to be a story-tellerwith a sizeable number of yarns, Helen collected herfirst folksong, "When I Was a Young Man I TookDelight In Love", and a love lament that wouldremain a favourite of hers for the rest of her life, thebeautiful "When I Was in My Prime".

This is how, many years later, Helen recalled her firstmeeting with Enos:

Mr. Enos answered our knock; he was a smallman with bright blue eyes, wispy graying hairand a grey moustache, and he greeted us with oldworld courtesy. Being naturally direct I said, "Ihear you sing old songs down here." He agreed."We don't sing nothin' else. I used to be a prettysinger. I could sing all day and all night and allthe next day and never sing the same song twice.You see them stars in the sky? As many stars asthere are up there is as many songs as I used tosing, but now me teeth is gone and and me voice

is rusty. But come in, come in." Then he told meabout the Ghost House, that it had been builtfrom wrecks, which was risky as the drownedseamen might still be in the wood.. .Eventually Ibrought the conversation back to songs. It was apity Mrs. Hartlan was out, for men sing morewillingly and freely with their wives' support.

There was much clearing of the throat andrepeated regrets that "the bats" had got into it,but he finally started with his tune pitched muchtoo high, a common practice among folk singers.The tune of "When I Was a Young Man I TookDelight in Love," a song I've never taken downsince nor found in any book, wandered alloverthe scale and I wondered how I would ever get itdown.14

Enos Hartlan (pANS HC Fonds Album 14: 14.2J

One of Enos' relatives, Richard Hartlan, had an evenlarger and more varied repertoire of songs. Theyincluded such Child ballads as "CaptainWedderburn's Courtship" and "The Golden Vanity",Irish songs (including "The Croppy Boy"), sea songs("The Flying Cloud" and "The Banks ofNewfoundland"), lumbering songs such as "PeterRambelay", and even a local song about a nearbyisland, "McNab's Island". Creighton had nodifficulty obtaining the words of these songs from herinformants, but getting the tunes down accuratelywas another matter, even when she recorded themusing her father's Dictaphone machine. For a whileshe had assistance from music teacher Peryl Daly, butDaly's heart wasn't in folksong collecting. Analternative solution was to take along a melodeon andtry to play the tunes back to the singers. This workedfairly well, as most informants were willing to tell

2

When IWas a Young ManAnon

Enos Haitian

~ ~ 'If -\M1en I was a young man I took de-light in love, I

She promoisedfor to be my

~But now I find she has changed her mind to

~-own true love.

~.\M1ich makes me sigh and say.

~a quite con-trar-y way

I

When I was a young man I took delight in love,I gave my heart unto a girl who did inconstant prove.She promised for to be my own true love,Which makes me sigh and say,But now I find she has changed her mindTo a quite contrary way.

I went unto my love one day and this to her did say,

"As we have loved each other this long and many a day,But now I've come to let you knowThat married we should be.So then," said he, "Let us agreeAnd point a wedding day."

"Oh no," replied this fair maid, "I think you are in haste,For I never knew a young man to spend his days in waste.For the time is gone since you might 'a hadAll opportunity,For now you see, you shan't have me,Some other you may go and try.

"You may go and tell your mother dear that love you have not crossed,And if you went the right way to work your love you ne' er would have lost.You ne'er would 'a lost, my boy,The truth I do intone,Or in the spring had you cropped my wing,From you I never would have flown."

Now come, my boys, fill up your bowls, don't let it be said we die,If she proves false I will do so, and some other I will go and try.I will go try, my boy,We'll sail the ocean o'er,For the loss of one is a gain of two,And a choice of twenty more.

3

her when she hadn't got the melody or the rhythmquite right, but it was a laborious process, and therewere some tunes that Creighton was never quitesatisfied that she had noted correctly. She was rightabout this; "Dark-Eyed Sailor" was an example of atranscription that she would later correct on the basisof a subsequent recording of the song's distinctivemelody.

From another family at South-East Passage, theFaulkners, who had relatives living on nearby Devil'sIsland, Helen not only obtained such local songs as

."Back Bay Hill" and "Canso Strait" and Irish songslike "Tim Finnigan's Wake", she also found outabout the island's most famous singer, BenHenneberry. Perhaps because of their isolateddwelling place, the Henneberrys were a singingfamily par excellence, and Ben's son Edmund wouldeventually inherit his father's huge repertoire andsing selections from it for Helen on CBC radio. In1928-29, however, it was Ben, the family patriarch,who was Helen's most prolific informant,contributing several dozen songs. Helen gave thisaccount on collecting on Devil's Island:

Devil's Island is one mile in circumference andnever more than eleven feet above sea level. Atthat time there were seventeen houses there,fourteen of which were occupied. Theinhabitants were of English, Irish and Welshdescent and the Henneberrys, whose name waspredominant, probably came with AlexanderMcNutt early in the nineteenth century when hebrought 300 Irish settlers over. Fishing was theiroccupation and they found their catch in watersnear at hand. They also had a governmentlifeboat of which Mr. Ben was coxswain...1realized that if I wanted songs I must go to theisland and stay, so...1 asked Mrs. Faulkner if shewould board me. Then came one of the moststrenuous weeks I've ever spent...In themorning, Mr. Ben, so called to distinguish himfrom all the other Henneberrys, would sing whilemending his nets, and I would sit in the door ofhis fishhouse with the melodeon at my side. Ithad a wooden case with a leather handle, but itwas too heavy to carry, so I pushed it in theFaulkners' wheelbarrow. In the afternoon thechildren sang their fathers' songs, and it wasstrange to hear from them of Villikens and hisDinah, and how he "kissed her cold corpus athousand times o'er." Later, at his home, Mr.Ben would sing for another hour songs learnedwhen fishing off Newfoundland's banks, or fromsailors shipwrecked on their island. Mrs.Henneberry would give what encouragement shecould. One afternoon he sang the whole seventy-eight verses of "The Courtship of Willie Riley"at one sitting. I shifted from one hand to theother, trying to keep up with the words. After the

briefest rest, I would hear the latch lift as the firstevening visitor arrived. Mr. Ben would come atseven, and as long as he was there nobody wouldsing because he had taught them most of thesongs they knew, so they felt the songs were his.The singers were never interrupted except to helpif a word or line was forgotten. If the tempo wastoo quick to write down all the words at the firstsinging, I would get the opening line of each newverse and fill in later because in repeating, awhole verse might be left out. Then carne thetune and everybody helped. They felt that what Iwas doing was important, but if their songs werebeing preserved, they wanted them to beright...During my stay on the island, Mr. Benwould leave soon after nine... The younger menwould sing then and it was usually three a.m.before the last one left. 15

Ben Henneberrv, with Hden Creighton. on Devil':; Island[PANS HC Fonds Binder 16: 03771

Ben Henneberry's repertoire reflected the mixedancestry of the islanders. Some of his songs, such as"Whiskey in the Jar", "Mantle So Green" and "WillieRiley's Courtship", were obviously of Irish origin,but many were English or Scottish ballads. Therewere Child ballads, such as "The Cruel Mother","Catherine Jaffray" and "The Farmer's Curst Wife",and, perhaps surprisingly, a couple of Robin Hoodballads ("The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood" and"Robin Hood's Progress to Nottingham").Henneberry also knew a variety of broadside ballads:"Silvy", "Well Sold the Cow" and "Napoleon'sFarewell to Paris" can serve as three quite diverse

4

examples. And there were local songs narrating thefate of ships known to sailors along the province'sAtlantic coastline, such as "The Mary L. MacKay".Most of these ballads Creighton collected on Devil' sIsland, with the help of her melodeon, althoughHenneberry, who was justifiably proud of hisrepertoire, was willing occasionally to sing into theDictaphone (which required electricity) at theCreighton residence in Dartmouth.

Creighton, who at this early point in her career seemsslightly to resemble Dave Harker's caricature offolksong collectors as 'mediators' who exploitworking class culture, 16tried immediately to garnersome income from her discoveries by selling six ofher informants' sea songs to John Murray Gibbon foruse at a Sea Music Festival in Victoria sponsored bythe Canadian Pacific Railway. She also set to workcompiling a songbook modeled on Mackenzie'sBallads and Sea Songs from Nova Scotia, but soonrealized that she needed help. Helen not only lackedthe expertise to transcribe the melodies accurately inmusical notation, her knowledge of other folksongcollections and the related secondary literature was asyet quite inadequate. After an abortive attempt atcollaboration with an academic from DalhousieUniversity, she eventually went to Toronto to searchfor what she needed. In ballad scholar John Robins ofVictoria College she found the necessary guide tofolksong scholarship, and Healey Willan of theToronto Conservatory of Music proved to be themusic editor she required to take charge of themusical transcriptions. Eventually, too, a publisherwas located, and early in 1933 there appeared in printSongs and Ballads from Nova Scotia, the first ofHelen's six principal published folksongcollections. 17It comprised one hundred and fiftysongs, and quickly became recognized by British andAmerican folklorists as a Canadian classic, to beconsulted alongside Mackenzie's works andElisabeth Greenleafs parallel Newfoundlandcollection. There are two versions of Songs andBallads in existence: the original 1933 publication(often erroneously dated as 1932, an error made byCreighton herself in 1966 and again in 1975 anddutifully repeated thereafter by many other people),and a 1966 second edition which has the superficialappearance of a facsimile reprint but is actually nosuch thing, since Creighton took the opportunity tocorrect what she had subsequently decided wereerrors in noting some of the tunes (the corrections,however, were made on the basis of later recordingsof the songs, so it is always possible that they do notin fact reflect the way the melodies were originallysung in 1928-30).

Collaboration with Doreen Senior

By 1932 Creighton was ready to start work on asecond folksong collection, but it was obvious thatshe needed to improve her skills as a musician or,alternatively, she required a collecting partner whocould note melodies by ear. She found the latter inDoreen Senior, a young English music teacher whohad been hired to teach a summer school in Halifaxon folk dancing. Doreen was a graduate of theEnglish Folk Dance Society's training program, and adisciple and friend of Maud Karpeles. Once she hadfinished her teaching duties in Halifax, she was eagerto explore the beauties of rural Nova Scotia andhappy to help out Helen at the same time. The twowomen headed for Cape Breton in Helen's father'scar - nicknamed "Cecil" (after Doreen's hero CecilSharp) - and, to their mutual surprise, found notEnglish folksongs but Gaelic ballads. Their principalinformants were Donald B. MacLeod of Breton Cove(on the Atlantic coast of the island, north of St. Ann'sBay) and Malcolm Angus MacLeod of nearby BirchPlain. According to Helen's later testimony the twocollectors spent about a week on Cape Breton andobtained about three dozen songs, some of whichwere recorded on an Edison phonograph that Helenhad purchased for the occasion. The disadvantagewith this collecting method turned out to be that thewax cylinders could be played only a few timesbefore they became worn down, although a few ofthese recordings have apparently survived and arepreserved (albeit in poor condition) in the ProvincialArchives of Nova Scotia. Doreen, in any case, hadlittle difficulty in noting tunes directly from thesingers, although the Gaelic lyrics gave Helenendless trouble. Ten of the melodies transcribed byDoreen would eventually be included in a bookpublished thirty-two years later: Gaelic Songs inNova Scotia, which Helen co-edited with CalumMacLeod.

Collecting Gaelic material had not been in Helen'splans, but she and Doreen enjoyed their trip and goton well together; moreover, it was evident that.Doreen possessed the musical skills that Helenlacked. Blessed with perfect pitch, she was alsofamiliar with many of the traditional songs, takenmainly from his own and Sabine Baring-Gould'scollecting, that Cecil Sharp had published andpopularized for use in English elementary schools.Helen later recalled that "Doreen sang a lot as wedrove. She knew so many English folk songs that Iwas continually learning about my craft" .18 MeetingDoreen had rekindled Helen's desire to visit theUnited Kingdom, and she did just that in the summerof 1933, taking part, accompanied by John Murray

5

Gibbon, in a package tour designed for Canadianauthors that included meetings with Thomas Hardy'swidow, Rudyard Kipling (Helen's favourite author)and George Bernard Shaw. Doreen, meanwhile, wasback in Halifax, teaching another summer school, sothe two friends got together for a second collectingtrip that fall. Their plan was to make their way alongthe Atlantic seaboard, east of Halifax. They started inWest Petpeswick, and ended up by spending all theirtime in that community and two others: EastPetpeswick and nearby Ostria Lake. By a stroke ofluck their first informant was Thomas Young, and hewas willing to sing to them such songs as "BlackEyed Susan", "The Maid I Left Behind" and "WhenFirst Into This Country", as well as several ballads,including "The Bailiff s Daughter of Islington", "TheShip's Carpenter" and "The Rich Merchant'sDaughter". The Youngs were another singingfamily: James Young, for example, contributed(among other songs) "The Rocks of Scilly" and "PaulJones", while more relatives were to be found in EastPetpeswick, where Doreen transcribed songs fromTom, Garvie, Freeman, Roy and Gertrude Young.Other valuable informants at East Petpeswickincluded Mrs. Dennis Greenough, from whomDoreen and Helen collected "Barbara Ellen", "DarkEyed Sailor", "Lost Jimmy Whalen" and, mostfamously, "Farewell to Nova Scotia". In total,Doreen noted eighty-eight songs in less than a week.

Given the success of this brief expedition in 1933,one might have expected the two women to haveeagerly continued their partnership whenever theyhad the chance. In fact, although Doreen was back inNova Scotia in 1934, Helen was too busy with familyresponsibilities, and several more years passed beforeshe once again settled down to do some seriouscollecting. In the Halifax/Dartmouth region shediscovered Mrs. R. W. Duncan and Mrs. WilliamMcNab and even tried her hand at noting tunes aswell as words from the latter. Returning to theAtlantic coast east of Halifax she located promisingsingers in the communities of Chezzetcook andMusquodoboit. So when Doreen arrived back inHalifax in early July 1937 Helen had a long list ofplaces and people for them to visit. The singersincluded not only Mrs. Duncan, Ben Henneberry,Enos Hartlan and Tom Young but also suchChezzetcook residents as Dennis Smith and John andWalter Roast. Dennis Smith was the one of her recentdiscoveries whom Helen most wanted Doreen tohear, especially his rendition of "Peggy Gordon". InA Life in Folklore she remembered her first meetingwith the Smiths as well as subsequent visits:

I crawled wearily from the car and knocked atthe door. What a pleasant sight met my eyes, adear old man sitting in a rocking chair with hisgentle wife in a strait-backed chair besidehim... They greeted me cordially, and I told him Iheard he was a great singer of old songs. He saidhe'd be proud and happy to sing and thatalthough his eyes were failing, his memory wasperfect. It nearly was and if he did forget a wordor line, his wife was quick to remind him. Ididn't stay for more than half an hour for fear oftiring him but in that time, among other things,he had sung a rare and ancient Child ballad, 'TheGrey Cock" On my next visit Mr. Smith wassitting in a chair wheezing badly, the result of along damp spell. He said, "You should have beenhere last night; we had a great sing." His friend,Tom Young, had come from East Petpeswick,and they often sang together. At Christmas theywould sit at a table and hold hands, swingingthem to the music's rhythm. This is the way theyloved to spend their leisure, singing stories insong to one another. He wasted no time beingcoaxed but started a song which unfoldedbeautifully with some lines like those in theEnglish "Waly Waly." Words and music of"Peggy Gordon" were so lovely I was to singthem over and over to myself for yearsafterwards as I drove alone over country roads.Now I thought what a calamity it would be ifanything happened to the old man before Doreenarrived to capture the music. Mr. Smith sangleaning forward, knees wide apart, whittling apiece of wood with a jackknife and, in thecustom of old-timers, he spoke the last two orthree words, sometimes with great emphasis, toshow that the song was finished. His range wasfrom middle C to high G, as in the song "Nancy"on page 189 of Traditional Songs from NovaScotia, and he embellished his tunes with gracenotes and embroideries which varied with hisstate of mind and mood... When he forgot, hewould say, "douce take it," his utmost inprofanity, and often when I left he would say,"Comesoon again dear. Comeas often as youlike, I'll always give you a couple of songs," andhe was as good as his word. 19

In the event Doreen was equally delighted with"Peggy Gordon" and with the Chezzetcook singers.The two women made a good team and most of theircollecting went well that summer, although Doreenhad an aversion to Devil's Island and spent only oneday there, noting nine melodies from BenHenneberry. On the other hand, at the lighthouse onnearby Chebucto Head the two women discoveredCatherine (Mrs. Edward) Gallagher, who became aclose friend as well as one of their most prolific andaccomplished informants. By the end of AugustDoreen had added nearly two hundred tunes to theircollection. Together with those previously noted in

6

1933 these transcriptions would provide the bulk ofthe songs that Creighton later published asTraditional Songs from Nova Scotia.20 This thirdcollaboration between Doreen and Helen was by farthe longest and most concerted attempt the twowomen ever made to find old songs of British originin Nova Scotia. The first fruit of their work wasevident the next year, when Helen scripted andhosted for CBC a ten-part radio series titled "FolkSongs from Nova Scotia". The programs featuredthree ofthe principal informants from 1937 : WalterRoast, Catherine Gallagher, and Edmund Henneberrysubstituting for his father Ben. It was followed thenext year by a repeat series, featuring the samesource singers, with the addition of professionalsinger Nina Bartley Finn.

Helen's and Doreen's fourth collecting trip tookplace in August 1939, during which Doreen notedanother thirty melodies, mostly from Mrs. Duncanand Catherine Gallagher but also in communitiesalong both sides of Minas Basin, north of Halifax.However, the imminent outbreak of World War IIinduced her to cut short her stay in Nova Scotia, andthereby brought to an effective end her partnershipwith Helen. On the boat back to England in 1937 shehad met Douglas Kennedy, Director of the EnglishFolk Dance & Song Society, and he now arranged forher to give a recital at Cecil Sharp House of songsshe had noted in Canada. This performance, asuccess, led to a contract with British music publisherNovello for a dozen piano arrangements, and theresult, titled Twelve Folk Songs from Nova Scotia,appeared in print the next year. Helen's nameappeared on the cover, but the publication was hardlywhat she had hoped for, given the small number ofsongs that it contained and the lack of scholarlynotes. Doreen would be equally disappointed withTraditional Songs from Nova Scotia when it finallyappeared ten years later. Nonetheless, the two womendid subsequently keep in touch by mail, if onlyepisodically, and, despite Doreen's chagrin aboutbeing merely the nominal music editor of TraditionalSongs, they would renew their friendship when theymet again in England in 1959. But they never againcollected folksongs together.

The Disc Recorder Decade

Creighton does not appear to have done any songcollecting during the first few years of World War II,but in 1942 she received a grant to attend an Instituteof Folklore at Indiana University, where sheparticipated in seminars led by Stith Thompson, JohnJacob Niles and Alan Lomax. Lomax invited her to

visit the archives of the Folk1ife Centre at the Libraryof Congress, where she also met Charles, Ruth, Peteand Mike Seeger. Best of all, Lomax lent her aLibrary of Congress disc recorder, and asked her tomake a series of folklore recordings designed tocapture different aspects of Nova Scotian cultural lifeduring the war: songs (including those popular in thenavy), stories, topical events and even musicalreviews. Helen willingly interviewed naval officersand other sailors in the ports of Halifax andYarmouth, Afro-Americans from the local blackcommunity, and aboriginal informants from a nearlyMi'kmaq reserve. She even went to Cape Breton insearch of Gaelic material, although in the event sheobtained more French songs from the Acadiancommunities at Cheticamp and Grand Etang thanScottish songs from her Gaelic-speaking contacts onthe island. Helen experienced some technicaldifficulties with the heavy and complicated Prestodisc recorder (for example, her Gaelic recordingswere unsalvageable duds) and some of the recordsthat she shipped to Washington were broken intransit. Nonetheless, the quality of most of therecordings that she made during 1943-44 was muchsuperior to anything done earlier with the Dictaphoneor the Edison phonograph. Indeed, they wereprobably the first listenable recordings of EnglishCanadian traditional singers made anywhere outsidea radio or recording studio. Taped copies of most ofthe extant discs are held in the Creighton Fonds atthe Provincial Archives of Nova Scotia, although theoriginals presumably remain at the Library ofCongress.

Of the total number of nearly five hundred items inthe Creighton LC collection approximately onehundred and fifty are successful recordings madefrom source singers during 1943-44. It is difficult tobe exact about these figures because some items wererecorded more than once, quite a few discs areimperfect, broken or missing, and there appear to besome gaps in the LC listings; also one can alwaysargue about what is and what is not a folksong, andthe correct classification of some informants isdebatable. Nina Bartley Finn is a case in point.Impressed with her performances of folksongs on thesecond CBC radio series, Helen devoted nearly thirtydiscs to re-recording them for posterity. She alsorecorded a few items from family members,neighbours and visiting servicemen.

Nonetheless, one can say with some assurance thatmore than a quarter of the LC recordings feature afamiliar group of Helen's key informants, Mrs.Duncan, Catherine Gallagher, Enos and RichardHartlan, Ben Henneberry, Walter Roast, and Dennis

7

Smith among them. Mrs. Duncan, for example,contributed fifteen songs, including "All Around MyHat", "He's Young But He's Daily Growing" and arare Child ballad, "Famous Flower of Serving Men".Catherine Gallagher's fifteen items included "YoungHunting", "Henry Martyn", "Golden Vanity", the"Broken Ring Song", and a rare ballad about a navalbattle, "The Chesapeake and Shannon". BenHenneberry's eighteen offerings were mainlytraditional ballads, including "Henery" (a variant of"Lord Randal"), "False Knight on the Road", "CruelMother" and "Hind Horn", not to mention two RobinHood ballads. Although only two songs wererecorded from Enos Hartlan ("The Derby Ram" and

. "When I Was In My Prime"), Richard Hartlancontributed more than twenty, including his signaturesea-song "The Flying Cloud", "The Banks ofNewfoundland", and the Child ballad "CaptainWedderburn's Courtship". Walter Roast was the mostrecorded of all the traditional singers, with nearlythirty items from his repertoire captured for posterity,including "Farewell to Nova Scotia", "The GhostlySailors", "Lost Jimmy Whalen", "Dark-Eyed Susan","Lovely Nancy" and "Spanish Ladies". Afro-American informant William Riley's ten songs weremainly spirituals, carols and lullabies, and theyincluded "Auction Block", "Go Down Moses", "TheBlessings of Mary" and one of Helen's favourites,"The Cherry Tree Carol". Other highlights amongthese discs include a set of sea shanties performed bya group of Yarmouth sea captains led by ArthurHilton, and six songs (five of them in French) fromAcadian informant Armand Mongeon. Although oneregrets the absence of performances by a few ofCreighton's best informants - the various members ofthe Young family from Petpeswick can serve as anexample - there is no question that we should be verygrateful to Alan Lomax for his foresight in havingHelen make these recordings.

By the time the war ended, Creighton was againbereft of recording equipment, but she was eager tocontinue collecting. Her attendance at the IndianaUniversity Institute of Folklore and her visit to theFolklife Center at the Library of Congress hadbroadened her intellectual horizon. Folklore, she nowrealized, covered a lot more than traditional songs,and with the encouragement of Stith Thompson shebegan to collect tales and other items of folk culture.

In 1945 Helen made her first fieldtrip to LunenburgCounty, visiting Tancook Island, Mahone Bay, EastLe Havre, Petite Riviere and Lunenburg itself. By1947 she had extended her reach to the Annapolisvalley and to the entire "French Shore" of south-western Nova Scotia. She had also concluded that

ghost stories, which seemed to be quite common inthe region, were a genre of folktale that might make aparticularly interesting specialized collection. Someof the communities she visited were francophone,and she picked up the words (but unfortunately notthe melodies) of a number of Acadian folksongs.That year, thanks to Marius Barbeau, she obtainedher first contract as a freelance fieldworker for theNational Museum, and eventually, although it took awhile to negotiate, Barbeau succeeded in supplyingher with another Presto disc recorder, borrowed fromthe Library of Congress.

The acquisition of recording equipment made itfeasible for Helen to resume song collecting. Shenow made her first recordings in Lunenburg County.They included sea shanties sung by William Smith atLiverpool, and the first of what would prove to be anextensive body of Acadian folksongs performed by agroup of residents of the francophone village of WestPubnico. The songs that Helen recorded from suchinformants as Mme Louis Amirault, Mme SephoraAmirault, Mme Henri Pothier and Mme LauraMcNeil (among others) would form the core of hercollection of Acadian songs, although shesupplemented this material with other songs collectedelsewhere, including Grand Etang and Cheticamp onthe island of Cape Breton. Her Acadian collectionwould eventually be published in 1988, after a verylong wait and just before Helen's death, as La Fleurdu Rosier, edited by Ronald Labelle. Fortunately theNational Museum was much readier to facilitate thepublication of Creighton's study of the customs andculture of the Lunenburg region, and Folklore ofLunenburg County appeared in 1950, the same yearas Traditional Songs from Nova Scotia.

Helen also made a return visit to the community ofEastern Passage, where the Henneberry family andother Devil' s Island residents had been relocatedduring the war. The elderly Ben Henneberry was nowpast his prime as a singer, but his son Edmund stillsang much of his father's repertoire, including "TheGay Spanish Maid", which Helen recorded at thistime. According to Creighton's own testimony, thetotal number of songs that she recorded on the Prestodisc machine in 1948 was one hundred and fourteen,most of them in the west of the province. In herestimate that made a grand total of 357 folksongscaught on disc, not to mention the other wartime fieldrecordings of stories, talk and Navy music.21

In 1949 the National Museum supplied Helen withher first tape-recorder, an early Revere model.Although heavy and somewhat unreliable, it wasmore portable than the old Presto disc recorder.

8

The Ghostly SailorsAnon

\M!lter Roast

~ or ~You can smile if you've a mind to,

~tbut

~-Fpemaps you'll lend

~ ~As boy and man

~an ear. to -

~ geth - er,~~

for nigh on fif. ty

~) §years ,

~Id

'f

'h

'sal e In IS - Ing

Er ~in sum. mer's pleas - antvess - els

~-~-~days

~.A1d all through storm. y win- ters

awhen the

~h

.' d d"dowl- Ing win s I rage,

t t ~

You may smile if you want to, but perhaps you'll lend an ear,For boys and girls together, well on for fifty yearsI've sailed in fishing vessels, in summer's pleasant gales,And all through stormy winters where the howling winds did rage,

I've been tossed about on Georgia Shoals, been fishing in the Bay,Down south in early seasons, most anywhere would pay,I've been in different vessels on the Western Banks and Grand,I've been in herring vessels that went to Newfoundland.

There I saw storms, I tell you, and things looked rather blue,But somehow I was lucky and quickly I got through,I will not brag, however, I will not say so much,I have not been easily frightened like most of other men.

Last night as we were sailing, we were sailing off the shore,I never will forget it, in all my mortal days,It was in the grand dog watches I felt a thrilling dreadCome over me as if I heard one calling from the dead.

Right over our rail there clambered all silent, one by one,A dozen dripping sailors, just wait till I am done,Their face were pale and sea worn, shone through the ghostly night,Each fellow took his station as if he had a right.

9