Lamorna (folk song)

Lamorna (Roud 16636) is a traditional folk song/ballad associated with Cornwall, and dealing with the courtship of a man and a woman, who turned out to be his wife. The title comes from Lamorna, a village in west Cornwall.^[1] Sheet music held in the British Library dates the song to 1910.^[2]

Lamorna is a Cornish adaptation of a music hall song titled Pomona or Away down to Pomona which originates from Manchester in the north west of England. 'Albert Square' is a square in front of Manchester Town Hall, and Pomona Palace and gardens were a site of popular entertainment in Cornbrook, Old Trafford, southwest of the city centre.^[3][4][5] (Pomona Docks were built on the site of the Pomona Gardens.^[6]) Inglis Gundry notes in his introduction to Canow Kernow (published by the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies, 1966): '...the process of balladry still goes on. In the Logan Rock Inn at Treen a popular song called Way down Albert Square is gradually being transformed into a folk-song called Lamorna." And at the time of the publication of his seminal collection of songs and dances from Cornwall he did not consider the song sufficiently old or important enough to be included in his selection.

The song became popular in Cornwall the 1960s and 70s through performance in Cornish folk clubs and has since gained wider currency. Versions of the song have been recorded by Brenda Wootton, The Yetties, and The Spinners (on the album All Day Singing, 1977).

• It is claimed that the Albert Square in the song was a place in Penzance now called Albert Street. There are claims by the folk group The Yetties, that Albert Square was in fact in Manchester and the place was Pomona Docks. There is an "Albert Square" in St Just in Penwith, about 5/6 miles from Lamorna.
• The cab referred to in the song would have been a horse-drawn cab (an essentially urban vehicle, most unlikely to be found in a small coastal village).
• donah in verse 3, pronounced 'doe-na', is slang for a woman; (perhaps from Italian donna or Lingua Franca dona) which had been adopted into London argot by the early 1890s.
• Some versions of the song interchange roved with rode both versions are acceptable.
• "they rode all night" comes from the habit of couples hiring a cab with curtained windows so that the two could "be alone" for several hours if necessary. Women (possibly married) would disguise themselves with a veil so that they would not be recognised by their acquaintances while they picked up a young gentleman for the evening.

The songs below share some of the key lyrics and are mainly sea shanties.

Her eyes are like two stars so bright,

Mark you well what I say!

Her eyes are like two stars so bright,

Her face is fair, her step is light;

I'll go no more a roving from you, fair maid.^[7]

And her eyes they shined like diamonds,

I thought her the pride of the land.

Her hair hung over her shoulder,

Tied up with a black velvet band.^[8]

Oh she'd a dark and a rovin' eye and her hair hung down in ringlets

She were a nice girl, a decent girl but one of the rakish kind^[9]

• Cornish Songs: Lamorna
• Translation of song into Cornish language
• Words in Cornish dialect
• Down to Pomona, words of the Manchester version of the song from the Bodleian Library