Holy, holy holy, it’s Anne Briggs on YouTube.

Longtime readers will know that, like many a mainstay and folk pioneer (not that I’m comparing myself in that way, mind), Anne is one of my muses. She wasn’t on the scene for very long and footage of her is very, very rare. But sure enough, there she is — greeted on the couch by Louis Killen and then some impassioned banter with… oh geez, I can never tell those two dudes in the early Watersons apart… I think that’s Mike Waterson (someone help me out, if ya know).

I was stunned and drooling, but not for long, for there was much, much more to distract me. Apparently YouTube is just a veritable treasure trove of old skool British Isles folk clips. We have more Watersons (here’s a great performance of “Hal-An-Tow” — ELLEN KUSHER! I’m looking at you ’cause you turned me on to this album) and there’s a plethora of cool old Pentangle, including “Let No Man Steal Your Thyme”, “Wedding Dress” and — hang on to your 60’s medievalist Arthurian britches — “Hunting Song”.

Dang, that Jaqui McShee is just riveting. Reminds me of this cool girl I know, but I’m not gonna say who because she reads this.

Now, that last one may be a little hard for some of you to take. I totally understand. However, I’d just like to state for the record that Bert Jansch, in addition to being a bitchin’ guitarist gift from the Otherworld, was actually pretty hot back then. But I really don’t know what’s going on there. I do love how he calls it “a thirteenth century rock and roll song.” I don’t know if they wrote it or not, but, despite the glockenspiel, “Hunting Song” is in my personal top 10 favorite folk songs, hands down (lyrics, influences demystified and trivia here).

Lastly, I’ll leave you with a video of Richard Thompson singing “Beeswing,” a song supposedly inspired by/based on Anne. That’s how the legend goes; however, the story also goes that he only met her twice, and that both times she was “drunk and unconscious.” Whatever the case may be, it’s a beautiful song and well worth listening to. Fair warning: it is emotional; in fact, so emotional that one YouTube viewer has commented, “What a song. It makes me weep every time I hear it, and that’s a lot of weeping.”

Anyway, on the Annie tip, her Wikipedia entry is a good source for the basics — while it’s still up, anyway.