Finally, we can access the blog again! (Technical difficulties were experienced)
A very happy New Year from the Orkney Archive. Are you saying 'twenty ten' or 'two thousand and ten'? David Hockney says that we should be saying the first one, so I'll follow him.
Pictured above is a copy of the words and music for the New Year Song which was (is?) sung in Orkney and Shetland each New Year. There are slightly different versions for each parish but all seem to refer to 'Queen Mary'. Ernest Walker Marwick and Stanley Cursiter believed that this might not be a reference to any Royal Queen such as Mary Queen of Scots, but to the Virgin Mary.
The pavements have thawed slightly, so we are no longer slithering to work but these sub-zero temperatures are hard to take! We are lucky compared to many in the South, however. Roll on Spring...
The document and information is taken from the Ernest Walker Marwick collection and has the reference D31/1/2/5
And you can listen to it on the Orkney Singers website www.orkneycommunities.co.uk/orkneysingers (mp3-listen, singalong and watch page)
ReplyDelete