Annotation:Children in the Wood (The)

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 CHILDREN IN THE WOOD, THE. AKA and see "Now Ponder Well Ye Parents Dear." English, Air (6/4 time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. A ballad written in 1595, whose lyrics tell the tale of "The Norfolk gent his will and Testament and how he Commytted the Keepinge of his children to his owne brother who delte moste wickedly with them and howe God plagued him for it" (Merryweather, 1989). Like Hansel and Gretel, the children were abandoned to die in the woods. It was included by John Gay in his ballad opera The Beggar's Opera (1728) under the title "Oh ponder well, be not secure," and, under a different name in Pills to Purge Melancholy (1709). Printed source: Merryweather (Merryweather's Tunes for the English Bagpipe), 1989; p. 34.

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