Simple one-part tunes prevail, rarely reaching an octave in compass. The other two, tuned an octave apart, are always open, and keep up a bourdon nement not unlike that of the bagpipe, to the thread of melody played on the third string. Of the three strings, only the first is thus touched, and with the left hand. The melody is produced by the pressure of a bit of reed in the left hand upon the proper fret in the finger-board lying under neath the strings, as in a mandolin. It resembles a violin with greatly narrowed and elongated body and shortened neck it is made of walnut or maple wood and is strung with three strings plucked by a crow-quill held in the right hand. The 'dulcimore,' better known to dictionary folk as dulcimer, is an instrument indigenous to this region. To the thrum of banjo or 'dulcimore' they are sung or maybe it is fiddle or accordion or mouth-harp even in these latter degenerate days one finds an occasional cabinet organ from the metropolitan mail-order emporium. Any social gathering, whether a group around a banjo-picker by the stove in a cross-roads store, or a 'frolicking' among the young folks at their games and dances, is sure to call forth songs that thrill the lover of these native lyrics. A disaster in forest or mine, a murder or a quarrel, a county political campaign, in short, any unusual incident, is a ready source of inspiration to another 'song-ballet,' which in lieu of newspaper or telegraph becomes a very practical disseminator of local happenings and a real moulder of public opinion. Not only are old songs transmitted, but new ones are created.

In spite of recent changes, industrial and educational, in the lives of these people, the spirit of balladry is vigorous even yet.

My pastime for some years has been to gather the folk-songs of this region: over three hundred are now in the collection. Borne westward on the tide of emigration from England, Scotland, and even from Ireland, to Jamestown and Philadelphia, it has radiated by oral transmission thence through the 'gaps' and 'breaks' of the Alleghany ranges into its present seat, the land of the 'Lonesome Pine' and 'Kingdom Come,' already glorified by the pen of a well known living writer of Cumberland Mountain stories. Like the belated April snows upon their shady slopes, the folk-lore of the British Isles yet lingers here untouched and unchanged. 313-327īRITISH BALLADS IN THE CUMBERLAND MOUNTAINSįor two hundred years and more, the sequestered valleys of eastern Kentucky have by their very isolation preserved the traditions of our colonial forefathers. British Ballads in the Cumberland Mountains

Singing family of the cumberlands