Author Topic: Add: Andrew Lammie [Mill o' Tifty's Annie]

dmcg

 Posted - 06 May 03 - 02:31 pm
Andrew Lammie [Mill o' Tifty's Annie]

At Mill o' Tifty's lived a man,
In the neighbourhood of Fyvie:
For he had a lovely daughter fair
An' they ca'ed her bonny Annie.

Her bloom was like the springin' flower
That hails the rosy mornin',
And her innocence and graceful mein
Her beauteous face adornin'.

Noo her hair was fair and her eyes were blue,
And her cheeks as red as roses;
And her countenance was fair tae view,
An' they ca'ed her bonny Annie.

Noo Lord Fyvie had a trumpeter
Wha's name was Andra lammie,
And he had the airt for tae gain the hairt
O' the Mill of Tifty's Annie.

Noo her mother cried her tae the door,
Sayin', "Come her to me, my Annie.
Did e'er ye see a prettier man
Than the trumpeter o' Fyvie?"

Oh but naethin' she said, but sighin' sair,
'Twas alas for bonny Annie,
For she durstnae own that her hairt was won
By the trumpeter o' Fyvie.

And at nicht when all went tae their beds,
A' slept fu' soond but Annie;
Love so oppressed her tender breast
And love will waste her body.

"Oh love come in to my bedside,
And love will lie beyond me;
Love so oppressed my tender breast,
And love will waste my body."

"My love I go tae Edinburgh town,
An' for a while main leave thee."
"Oh but I'll be deid afore ye come back
In the green kirkyard o' Fyvie."

So her faither struck her wondrous sore,
An' also did her mother;
And her sisters also took their score,
But woe be tae her brother.

Her brother struck her wondrous sore
Wi' cruel strokes and many,
And he broke her back owre the temple-stane,
Aye, the temple-stane o' Fyvie.

"Oh mother dear, please make my bed,
And lay my face tae Fyvie,
For I will lie and I will die
For my dear Andra Lammie."

Noo when Andra hame fae Edinburgh came
Wi' muckle grief and sorrow:
"My love she died for me last night,
So I'll die for her tomorrow."


Source: Palmer, R, 1998, A Book of British Ballads, Llanerch Press


Notes:

Roy Palmer wrote:

"This is a homely ditty", says Child, "but the gentleness and fidelity of Annie under the brutal behaviour of her family are genuinely pathetic, and justify the popularity which the ballad has enjoyed in the North of Scotland." It seems reasonably sure that the ballad has some basis in reality. The ruin of the Mill of Tifty still exists in the glen of Fyvie, about half a mile from the castle, which has a figure of a trumpeter on one of the turrets. Annie was Agnes Smith, whose headstone in Fyvie churchyard shows that she died in 1673. Andrew Lammie, too, seems to have existed, though in the final analysis the ballad has a 'numinous confluence of exploit and dream, of myth and reality'. The phrase is by Hamish Henderson who, with Peter Cooke, recorded this version in 1974 from Sheila MacGregor.

Database entry is here.





Malcolm Douglas
 Posted - 06 May 03 - 02:51 pm
Roud 98, Child 223. Found quite often in tradition, but not, it seems, outside Scotland.

Sheila MacGregor is probably better known as Sheila Stewart (daughter of Belle) of Blairgowrie; she has been much recorded over the years, and her version of this song is currently available on the Topic CD From the Heart of the Tradition (Topic TSCD515, 2000) as well as on the CD reissue of The Muckle Sangs (Greentrax CDTRAX 9005).

There is a broadside edition at  Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads:

Andrew Lammie; or Mill of Tifty's Annie




masato sakurai

 Posted - 06 May 03 - 03:50 pm
Only one version (a fragmentary 3-stanza version in W. Roy Mackenzie, Ballads and Sea Songs from Nova Scotia, 1928; Folklore Associates, 1963, p. 60; text only) is recorded in Tristram Potter Coffin, The British Traditional Ballad in North America, rev. ed. (University of Texas Press, 1977).



Edited By masato sakurai - 06/05/2003 15:57:09






Malcolm Douglas
 Posted - 06 May 03 - 05:07 pm
Thanks; I had overlooked that one. According to Roud, it comprises one verse from John Henderson (Tatamagouche) and two from Alexander Sutherland (Toney River).

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