Old Songs & Bothy BalladsHere's a Health to the Company |
The Songs 1: Bonnie Lass o Fyvie - Gordon Easton This song telling of the dragoon captain who died for the love of the bonnie lass o Fyvie has been and still is widely popular. There are over 20 versions in the Greig-Duncan Collection (GD 1:84) with considerable variation in text and tune. It is clear from the song and local tradition that Fyvie was a staging post on the military route from Aberdeen to Fort George on the Moray Firth. 2: For Greenland We Are Bound - Jock Duncan Northeast Scotland is home to a number of songs of whale-fishing and this was one of the best known with 16 versions in the Greig-Duncan collection (GD 1:10). During the early half of the 1800s the ports of Peterhead and Dundee were leading points of departure ‘for to pursue the whale.’ The whaler’s life was full of adventure and when the crew returned ‘full ship’ there was cause for celebrations that ‘made the taverns roar’. 3: Down the Moor - Roisin White The song is well known in this form in Ireland and is in the Sam Henry collection of songs from Ulster, Songs of the People. However, the song is clearly of Scottish origin and Robert Burns collected a closely related version that he took down from the singing of a girl Jean Glover of Kilmarnock as she was strolling through the countryside - and which he considered was her own composition. Other forms of the song are to be found in Scottish tradition today as Bonnie Lass among the Heather and Skipping Barfit through the Heather. 4: Ye Canna Pit it on tae Sandy - Ron Bissett This comic song, which was one of Jimmy McBeath’s favourites, is a Willie Kemp composition and one of the many songs, cornkisters and bothy ballads that he recorded on the Beltona 78s in the late 1920s. 5: Sir Patrick Spens - Duncan Williamson The ballad has been the subject of considerable argument over the years regarding its historical basis. Duncan is clear that the ballad relates to the Scots King Alexander III who sent Sir Patrick Spens on his ill-fated voyage to Norway to bring back his little granddaughter. Alexander’s eldest daughter Margaret had married Eric the young King of Norway (in 1281) but had died in childbirth leaving behind the little granddaughter (the Maid of Norway) as heir to the Scottish throne. The ballad (Child 58) is rare in the oral tradition with only two tunes in Greig Duncan (GD 1:17) and twelve in Bronson’s Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads. 6: Maids When You’re Young - Sheila Stewart A traditional folksong widely known throughout the British Isles often under the title of An Old Man Come Courting Me that tells a tale of a young maid married to an old man and her escape into the arms of a handsome young man. Sheila has only recently started singing this song which she inherited from the singing of a great friend, singer, piper and storyteller the late Willie McPhee of Perth. 7: The Bonnie Hoose o Airlie - Stanley Robertson Stanley learned this rollicking version of the ballad (Child 199) from his father. Airlie castle in Perthshire was burned in 1640 when the Earl of Argyle was granted a ‘commission of fire and sword’ against the Earl of Airlie and other adherents of Charles I. Airlie had fled to England, and when Argyle approached the castle in force, Airlie’s eldest son, Lord Ogilvie, left to find assistance leaving his wife and child with a small garrison to defend the castle. Apparently Lady Ogilvie and child escaped but Argyle’s men having burned the ‘bonnie hoose’ then went on to destroy the other Airlie stronghold of Forther Castle along with the Countess of Airlie herself. Although the Airlie of 1640 was ‘wi Chairlie’ at York, many versions of the ballad such as Stanley’s include elements which link the story to the later events of 1745 where the ‘clans were awa wi Chairlie’. A great ballad for all that - and still quite widely sung in Scotland, although more commonly to a quite different tune. The Greig Duncan collection has 9 versions (GD 233). 8: Johnnie He Promised to Marry Me or The Lover’s Ghost - Alison McMorland & Kirsty Potts A rather beautiful version of a ballad better known as The Grey Cock (Child 248) and in related forms as the Night Visiting Song. The ballad was first published in Johnson’s Scots Musical Museum (1787), but Alison and Kirsty’s derives from versions collected by Maud Karpeles in Newfoundland in 1929 and published in her Folk Songs from Newfoundland (1971) (Bronson 248.5). 9: The Muckin o Geordie’s Byre - Geordie Murison A song claimed by George Morris of Oldmeldrum as his composition and published in Kerr’s Buchan Bothy Ballads. George Morris and his brother in law Willie Kemp were both known as King of the Cornkisters and both singers recorded the song on the famous Beltona label. It may well be based on an earlier song, as both David Herd and Robert Burns knew songs under the same title. 10: The Plooman Laddies - Elizabeth Stewart & Alison McMorland This lovely old traditional song in praise of the ploughman became widely known in the Scottish folk clubs after it was recorded by the American folklorist Kenneth Goldstein from Elizabeth’s aunt Lucy Stewart of Fetterangus around 1960. 11: Bonnie Bessie Logan - Gordon Easton A song that has been widely popular. Gordon remembers the song as one from his granny and also as sung by the late John Mearns. 12: Jock Hawk’s Adventures - Arthur, Pete & Tom A song that tells the tale of a young man who ventures into Glasgow to ‘spend his penny fee’, ending up with the loss of more than he bargained for. This song is often sung to the same tune as that commonly found with the bothy ballad Guise o Tough. Here Arthur has taken a text for Jock Hawk from Greig-Duncan (GD 2: 295) (where there are ten versions) and set it to an unusual Guise o Tough tune that Peter Hall collected in the Alford area in the 1960s. 13: The Moorlough Shore - Roisin White Roisin learned The Moorlough Shore from Len Graham. A young man praises the beauties of the countryside and of the girl he loves but, after she rejects him, he boards ship and sails away, while still praising the girl he loves that dwells near the Moorlough Shore. 14: Muckle Friday Fair - Jim Taylor Another George Morris composition that captures the feel of the hiring fair that took place in the Castlegate in Aberdeen where the ferm chiels would be looking for their ‘decent fee’. In Kerr’s Buchan Bothy Ballads. 15: Sae Will We Yet - Jock Duncan A fine convivial song composed by Walter Watson and included in his Poems and Songs, chiefly in the Scottish dialect (Glasgow, 1853), later printed on Poets Box song sheets and in Ord’s Bothy Ballads (GD 3:552). 16: Dae Ye Mind on Lang Lang Syne - Maggie Macrae For Maggie this is a local song - based in Newmills a little down the Irvine valley from Darvel in Ayrshire. Composed in the 1800s by a minister, the Rev George S Lawrie, a friend to Robert Burns who had often been a guest at the manse in Newmills. The song takes a nostalgic view of childhood and places mentioned in the song such as Patie’s Mill and Whinniehill are in and around Newmills. 17: The Bonnie Hind - Norman Stewart A ballad that has only been discovered once in the English language - by David Herd, a native of St Cyrus in Kincardineshire, who was supplied with the text ‘as copied from the mouth of a milkmaid in 1771’. The story - one of unintentional incest - is closely related to that of the Scandinavian ballad Margaret found in Faroe and in Iceland. No traditional tune is known but several singers have recently given new life to the ballad. Norman’s version came from hearing Martin Carthy sing the ballad some years ago and putting this together with the text as in Francis J Child’s The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (Child 50). 18: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - Geordie Murison It was the singing of Jeannie Robertson in the folk clubs of the 1960s that brought this song to the wider public. The recruiting officer offered adventure and a tempting escape from poverty, the hardships of work on the land or from family responsibility. Versions of the song date back to at least the early 1700s (GD 1:77). 19: The Jolly Beggar - Elizabeth Stewart & Tom McKean This wonderful tale of the adventures of the king dressed in disguise as a beggar has remained widely popular in Scottish tradition. The subject of the ballad as well as its authorship is always attributed by traditional singers to James Vth, and Elizabeth remembers her aunt Lucy telling the story of the history behind the ballad when she learnt the song as a child. It was first published in Herd’s Ancient and Modern Scots Songs (1776). Whether the ballad dates back to James Vth is often disputed by academics, and the ribald nature of the story line has no doubt often kept the text out of print (Child 279; GD 2:274). 20: The Parting Glass - Sheila Stewart A song of parting, of farewell and of friendship and a fitting song to bring the CD collection to a close: Here’s a heath to the company, likewise to my lass, Let’s drink and be merry all out of one glass; Let’s drink and be merry all grief to refrain, For we may or might never all meet here again. The song, which Sheila remembers from Belle’s repertoire, has become one of her often requested songs in the last few years. A similar version is in Robin Morton’s Folksongs Sung in Ulster. Credits The Fife Traditional Singing Weekend is organised and promoted by The East of Scotland Traditional Song Group - a ‘not for profit’ organisation born in 2003 specifically to run the Fife Traditional Singing Weekend and with aims now extended to cover the general promotion of enthusiasm for Scots traditional song. |