Anne Malcolmson (1910–2013)

Content Considerations: "There is a chapter called Ole Massa and His Chillun that includes a short folk tale called Why the Negro Works So Hard. In this story Ole Massa sees that the children of earth have become lazy and declares that there will be a race for prizes. In the race the white man loses to the black man and they both get their prizes. The white man gets a pen and ink and the black man gets a plow, a hoe, a sickle, a pick, and an axe.

The white man opened his prize first. There lay a pen and a bottle of ink. He knew well enough what to do with them. Without any further ado he pulled down a big piece of paper and began to write. He wrote figures, accounts, letters, stories, books, orders, laws, and anything that could be written with pen and ink.

Then the black man opened his big prize. He wept when he saw what it contained. Inside lay a plow and a hoe and a sickle and a pick and a shovel and an axe. These were the tools of hard work. He knew well enough what to do with them.

Ever since that day the white man has been figuring with his pen, sitting in an office in his store clothes; and the negro has been bending his back and straining his muscles, hoeing the corn and chopping the wood and picking the cotton and plowing the field.
This is why, said the slaves, the negro has to work so hard." -Time period use of the term "Negro" in reference to slaves from Africa.
Time period use of the term "pickaninny" in the story of John Henry. As a child he is referred to as a "pickaninny child" and as a man his child is referred to as "his pickaninny".… (meer)

Dear Reader Who Comes To This Book Having Been Exposed Only to Pop Accounts of Robin Hood:

Let's be clear: The stories of Robin Hood are folktales, but they are not nursery tales. The three oldest known stories of Robin Hood -- "The Gest of Robyn Hode," "Robin Hood and the Monk," and "Robin Hood and the Potter" -- are metrical romances, probably designed to be sung, and are aimed squarely at adults. The "Gest" and the "Monk" both involve multiple deaths, and in the "Monk" at least one death is pure and simple murder.

So we shouldn't expect Robin Hood tales to be pretty. But we should expect them to be musical.

Unfortunately, very few of the tunes of the Robin Hood ballads survive. The fact that the best versions are old means that they were taken down before it became habitual to take down the tunes of folk songs.

Yet this is a book of texts and tunes. Where do the tunes come from? A few are genuinely traditional (although often from versions of the songs much later than the earliest texts). Others are, frankly, guesses and reconstructions. So be warned: These are not true traditional Robin Hood songs.

And there are no background notes. For that, you need Francis James Child's The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, or some other scholarly Robin Hood work. On the other hand, those books won't get you the ornate woodcut-type artwork you see here.

So if you want pretty versions of Robin Hood songs, this may be the book for you. If you want real songs of Robin Hood... get Child, or Dobson and Taylor's Rhymes of Robin Hood, or some other serious book.… (meer)