The Venerable Bede's story of the cattleman and later ecclesiastical musician Cædmon indicates that in the early medieval period it was normal at feasts to pass around the harp and sing 'vain and idle songs'. The EFDSS sponsored the BBC Home Service radio program, As I Roved Out, based on field recordings made by Peter Kennedy and Séamus Ennis from 1952 to 1958, which probably did more than any other single factor to introduce the general population to British folk music in the period. Folk dance music also became popular in the 80s, with acts like the English Country Blues Band and Tiger Moth. When this was well received they adopted a full-time fiddle player and moved towards a signature folk and jig style leading them to be credited as the pioneers of folk metal, which has spread to Ireland, the Baltic and Germany. Lincolnshire has produced Martin Simpson, perhaps the most highly regarded folk guitarist of his generation.

Studwell, The National and Religious Song Reader: Patriotic, Traditional, and Sacred Songs from Around the World (Philadelphia, PA: Haworth Press, 1996), p. In 1932 the Folk-Song Society and the English Folk Dance Society merged to become the English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS). The first notations of Welsh music that survive are from the 14th century, including matins, lauds and vespers for St David's Day.

The English musical score is composed by Federico Jusid and a handful of compositions and arrangements feature throughout the series, including the credits scenes. Children's songs, unlike folk songs, have remained part of a living and continuous tradition, for although added to from other sources and affected by written versions, most adults pass on songs they learned from oral sources as children.

B. Sweers, Electric Folk: The Changing Face of English Traditional Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p.The series comes from Hugo Blick, who is best known for his work on previous shows including Black Earth Rising, The Honourable Woman and The Shadow Line. Percy Grainger ethnographic wax cylinders – World and traditional music | British Library – Sounds". Legman, The Horn Book: Studies in Erotic Folklore and Bibliography (New York: University Books, 1964).

Stokoe, eds, Northumbrian Minstrelsy: A Collection of the Ballads, Melodies, and Small-Pipe Tunes of Northumbria ( Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1882); and F. More seriously, the West Country and particularly Devon, have produced some of the most successful folk artists of recent years, including Show of Hands, Mark Bazeley and Jason Rice, Paul Downes, Jim Causley, Seth Lakeman and his brothers. Zadok the Priest’ is an energising choral anthem, written by the German-born English composer Handel.

The version of this chant linked to the liturgy as used in the Diocese of Salisbury, the Sarum Use, first recorded from the 13th century, became dominant in England. Even considering its position as the largest county in England, Yorkshire has a flourishing folk music culture, with over forty folk clubs and thirty annual folk music festivals. The second revival was generally left wing in politics and emphasised the work music of the 19th century and previously neglected forms like erotic folk songs. The show follows America, 1890 - two strangers who are drawn together in the violent landscape in 1890 America, and it has a star-studded cast including Emily Blunt, Chaske Spencer, Rafe Spall, Tom Hughes and Toby Jones.

It was not until the second folk revival that the full range of song from the region began to gain attention. Morris dance appears to have been widespread in England by the early 17th century, particularly in pastoral areas, but was suppressed, along with associated festivals during and after the English Civil War.Hiawatha is a three-part choral work inspired by the epic poem of the same name by American poet Henry, Wadsworth Longfellow. R. Casey, Making the Irish American: History and Heritage of the Irish in the United States (New York University Press, 2006), p. In a process strikingly similar to the origins of British folk rock in the 1960s, the English thrash metal band Skyclad added violins from a session musician on several tracks for their 1990 debut album The Wayward Sons of Mother Earth. These seem to have been interrupted by the Reformation and Civil War and Commonwealth in the 16th and 17th centuries. Some of these revivalists recorded folk songs on wax cylinders, and many of the recordings, including Percy Grainger's collection, are available online courtesy of the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library and the British Library Sound Archive.