Passed down through generations and shaped by the landscapes where they were created, England’s folk songs capture the spirit of the country's rural life.
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These melodies hold stories of moorland wanderers, mill workers, shepherds and star-crossed lovers — voices that still echo through the countryside today. Here are some of the most enduring traditional songs, and the tales behind them.
Best folk songs in England
Whitby Lad
The dramatic North Yorkshire landscape has provided the backdrop to centuries of folklore and storytelling – and this 18th-century tune is as haunting and mysterious as you’d expect. Its lyrics tell the tale of a young lad (a thief) from Whitby who has been sentenced to life in a penal colony in Australia, “bound for Botany Bay”. It warns of the joylessness of life in Australia, with the narrator dreaming of the “lass in Whitby town and the girl I love full well”, remembering his final glimpses of England as he set sail.
Four-Loom Weaver
Believed to have originated in the 19th century during the Lancashire Cotton Famine, “Four-Loom Weaver” is a tragic lament on starvation and poverty.
A four-loom weaver is a power loom weaver that uses four Lancashire looms at mills in the North of England. The cotton trade had been interrupted by the American Civil War, leaving the Lancashire mills in disarray. Prior to the industrialisation of weaving, handloom weavers would have had other streams of income – owning livestock or small vegetable patches. But during this era, weavers were entirely dependent on the market and whims of the mill owners.
The narrator – a four-loom weaver – sings of the difficulties of having “wore out me clothes”. The tune is based on an earlier folk song, “The Poor Cotton Weaver”, which is thought to have been written before 1800, and reflects the ongoing struggle of people working in challenging labour conditions.
Greensleeves
The origins of “Greensleeves” have been the subject of a great deal of speculation, but some believe King Henry VIII wrote the song for his lover and future Queen Consort Anne Boleyn. A more commonly held view is that the subject of this song was a promiscuous young woman, or perhaps even a sex worker, as the word “green” often had sexual connotations – and “green sleeves” referenced the grass stains on a woman’s dress from having had sex outdoors.
We do know a broadside ballad by the name of “A Newe Northen Dittye of ye Ladye Greene Sleeves” was registered at the London Stationers’ Company in 1580, perhaps an early version of this much-loved tune. Regardless of the origin story of this 16th-century tune, it’s one of the most famous folk songs in history and has been adapted and arranged by many composers and singers in the years since.
Bushes and Briars
“Bushes and Briars” is believed to be the first folk song Ralph Vaughan Williams collected in Essex. Over the next decade, he continued to collect folk songs – over 800 songs and carols – from East Anglia, Sussex and Herefordshire.
He attended a party held by the vicar of Ingrave in Essex, where he hoped to meet some villagers who would know some songs. A 70-year-old shepherd named Charles Potiphar sang the haunting melody from this folk song – the first verse of which Vaughan Williams jotted down, later completing the text from a broadside.
The Seeds of Love
Purported to be the first song ever collected by the greatest folk song collector of all time, Cecil Sharp, “The Seeds of Love” is a joyful song celebrating the joys of love (and flowers) blooming. Sharp heard the tune when he was staying with Charles Marson, the vicar of Hambridge in Somerset, in 1903 – the same time as Vaughan Williams heard “Bushes and Briars” for the first time. He heard a gardener, John England, quietly singing to himself as he mowed the vicarage lawn, and quickly jotted down the tune and persuaded John to give him the words. He then added harmonies and performed it that same evening at a choir supper.
Shepherd’s Hey
Well known among Morris dancers, “Shepherd’s Hey” is a folk tune also collected by Cecil Sharp, which is best known today in the many settings composed by the Australian composer Percy Grainger. The tune is a Morris dance, denoted by the term “hey”, which is a dance including a weaving theme in which people on both sides weave among one another.
The Wild Rover
Many countries have laid claim to “The Wild Rover”, with many people attributing it to Ireland, thanks to the many Irish artists who have performed it in recent years. But some believe it to be a 17th-century English broadside written by Thomas Lanfiere, so we’ve chosen to include it here. Classed as an “alehouse ballad”, the song travelled across the world – including to Australia, where it enjoyed significant popularity.
Scarborough Fair
One of the best-known English ballads, “Scarborough Fair” dates back to the 17th century – but possibly even earlier. It is set in an old market fair in the North Yorkshire seaside town of Scarborough, with a young man giving a series of impossible tasks to his former lover, demanding she complete them before returning to him. In turn, she requests equally impossible things of him.
Barbara Allen
This ballad is believed to be one of the most widely collected songs in the English language, with various versions found across Europe and North America following roughly the same storyline. On his death bed, a man sends a servant out to get Barbara Allen, the woman he says he loves – saying that a kiss from her will save his life.
She refuses, accusing him of flirting with other women, so he gives up and dies – but only after giving her some of his most treasured possessions. She then decides she too can’t face life without him and dies. They are buried in the same churchyard. Samuel Pepys even mentioned “Barbara Allen” in a diary entry in 1666.
