Sacred Harp 133 Hebrew Children

[Archonymus]

Great song, great performance.

For some incomprehensible reason the English folk group "The Young Tradition" used this tune in an LP recording c. 1972 to carry the North country miners' song ' Byker Hill'. (They also did Idumea, oddly recasting it in duple time). Some of their performances are on Youtube.

[PLBrayfield]

@Archonymus Perhaps the compiler of the 1844 ed of Sacred Harp, B.F.White, set these words to an existing folk tune. This would not have been at all unusual, nor is it unusual for songs (such as Idumea) to be seen in variant versions in different tunebooks or folk traditions. I have a recording of a song about the Irish potato famine which is set to the tune I know as Wondrous Love, which is a variant of an old English ballad, 'Captain Kidd', for example.