The Taylor's [sic] garland, or, The double marriage

This long narrative describes the resourceful lover’s tricks that overcome parental opposition. In Reading, England, the tailor courts a reluctant wealthy girl and wins her affection but not the approval of her parents. She is sent to London; the two rendezvous and marry and devise a successful plan to win over her parent’s approval. At the end, the lyric moves into the present tense, an unusually powerful conclusion. As stock characters, tailors are usually characterized as dumb and cowardly, thus this narrative might have been a test song or recitation of the tailor’s brains and smarts. It is not clear where Coverly found this text as we have found no concordances.

In discussions of these ballad texts with Dr. Edward Ives, he suggested that the very long texts such as this one may not have been intended to be sung but rather recited. This thought is supported by a comment by George Deacon in discussing the repertory of the early nineteenth-century English folk song collector, John Clare.

It is often assumed that the ballad tradition was essentially a sung medium but this is not true. Many of the ballad stories seem to have been performed as recitations, and not only does Clare include two songs he encountered in this form . . . but he also describes people reciting songs. (20)