| Author | Topic: Add: Ho ro, My Nut-Brown Maiden | |
| dmcg | Posted - 16 Jul 05 - 10:43 am | |
(Chorus) Ho ro my nut-brown maiden, Hi ri my nut-brown maiden, Ho ro, ro, maiden! Oh she's the maid for me. Her eyes so mildly beaming, Her look so frank and free, In waking and in dreaming Is evermore with me. O Mary, mild-eyed Mary, By land, or on the sea, Though time and tide may vary, My heart beats true to thee. In Galsgow or Dunedin Were maidens fair to see; But ne'er a Lowland maiden Could lure mine eyes from thee. Mine eyes that never vary From looking to the glen, Where dwells my Highland Mary Like wild-rose 'neath the Ben. And when with blossom laden, Bright summer comes again, I'll fetch my nut-brown maiden Down frae the bonnie glen. Source: C Findlater and M Campbell,Scottish Songs, Lomond Books, 2004 Notes: This book contains a good selection of songs, but unfortunately no background to any of them. To me, this seems to be either composed or a reworked version of a traditional song, since certain phrases such as "mine eyes" do not ring true to my ears. It was one of the first songs I remember learning at school and thought it was from 'Singing Together'; if so it must have been between 1958 and 1960 since that covers the time I was at school that I don't have the 'Singing Together' booklets for. | ||
| Malcolm Douglas |
Posted - 16 Jul 05 - 08:11 pm | |
It's Professor Blackie's free translation of the Gaelic song Mo Nighean Donn, Bhòidheach. A verse is omitted. | ||
| dmcg | Posted - 17 Jul 05 - 12:41 am | |
Thanks, Malcolm. I was slightly exaggerating when I said there is no background on any of the songs. Quite a few are identified as translated by Professor Blackie, or by Burns, Scott or whoever, but it never gives any more detail. For some reason, though, they did not identify this one at all. As like as not, they either didn't manage to trace where it came from, or simply made an editing error. | ||
| Malcolm Douglas |
Posted - 17 Jul 05 - 02:04 am | |
If they couldn't trace it, they can't have tried very hard. It's in standard popular editions of Scottish song like Boulton and MacLeod's Songs of the North and Moffat's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Highlands. John Stewart Blackie's authorship of the English-language text has always been common knowledge; in recent years, for instance, Wilma Patterson's Songs of Scotland (Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 1996) includes all the usual details. I don't see how these two can have failed to miss all that. I do hope that it was a printer's error, and they weren't just carelessly tossing out a pot-boiler. | ||
| dmcg | Posted - 17 Jul 05 - 07:47 am | |
It IS a pot-boiler, I'm afraid, but one including quite a nice set of raw ingredients! | ||