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HOO MONY MILES IS IT TAE GLESCA-LEA? 1. Hoo mony miles is it tae Glesca-Lea? Sixty, seventy, echty-three. Will I be there gin canle licht? Juist if yer legs be lang and ticht. Open yer gates and let me through! No withoot a beck and a boo. There's yer beck and there's yer boo, Open yer gates and let me through! 2. "Hoo mony miles tae Babylon? "Six, or seven, or aucht, or ten." "Will I get there by caun'le licht?" "Just if your legs are lang an' ticht." ________________________________________________________ (1) J.M. McBain, Arbroath: Past and Present (1887), whence SC (1948) 73 (no. 96). (2) MacLennan SNR (1909), 11. Moffat 50 TSNR (1933), 29 (with music), = no. 1 above, with var.: How many miles to Babylon?/ ten, Sir// Yes, and back again, Sir! -- more resembling the English versions, as also in Ritchie Golden City (1965), 150 (and 151, variant). There are two rows facing each other, each singing their own line, becking (bending backward) and bowing at the appropriate points. At line 8 Row 2 forms itself into arches, and Row 1 rush through, forming the next Row 2; and so on. Cf. "Chick my naigie", "King and Queen of Cantelon"; also "My theerie and my thorie", no. 6. [ODNR ("Babylon"), 63 (no. 26), with refs.] @Scottish @kids filename[ MILEGLES MS APR99 |
Hoo Mony Miles is it to Glasca-Lea? (A Scottish form of How Many Miles to Babylon?. The DT file has two texts, both from sources that did not print the tunes, but identifies the set given in Alfred Moffat's Fifty Traditional Scottish Nursery Rhymes (1933) as a close variant. Midi made from notation in that book, then, where it is called How Many Miles to Babylon? ) How Many Miles to Babylon? ( the set given in Alfred Moffat's Fifty Traditional Scottish Nursery Rhymes (1933) embedded the text as given by Moffat rather than modify the phrasing to accommodate the more Scottified text in the DT. Moffat has: How many miles to Babylon? Three score and ten, Sir. Will we be there by candle-light? Yes, and back again, Sir! Ope' your gates and let us through, Not with-out a beck and boo! There's a beck and there's a boo, Ope' your gates and let us through.) |
