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This fantasy was composed in 1972 and was awarded the first prize for a chamber work at Huddersfield the following year. It uses melodic material adapted from a song sung to Ralph Vaughan Williams by Mr and Mrs Verrall in Sussex in 1904. The song, some verses of which are given below, was first published in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society, No. 8 (1906).
As I walked over Salisbury Plain, / Oh, there I met a scamping young blade. / He kissed me and enticed me so, / Till along with him I was forced for to go.
Early next morning my love he arose / And so nimbly he put on his clothes. / Straight to the highway he set sail, /And ’twas there he robbed the coaches of the mail.
Oh, it’s now my love in Newgate Jail do lie, / Expecting every moment to die. / The Lord have mercy upon his poor soul, / For I think I hear the death-bell for to toll.