The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #167781   Message #4050369
Posted By: GUEST,justcurious
04-May-20 - 09:23 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Strathairlie
Subject: Origins: Strathairlie
Does anyone know the author of the lyrics to this song, "Strathairlie"? I found them in the novel PENNY PLAIN by O. Douglas, in which the song was referred to as "early Victorian." I'm using a couple of lines as a chapter epigraph in a book, and while I could simply credit the source as "Scots Song" as Douglas did at the heading of her chapter, it'd be nice to credit the author of the lyrics if their name is known. I Googled both title and lyrics and couldn't find any hits besides PENNY PLAIN.

O, the lift is high and blue,
And the new mune glints through,
On the bonnie corn-fields o' Strathairlie;
Ma ship's in Largo Bay,
And I ken weel the way
Up the steep, steep banks o' Strathairlie.

When I sailed ower the sea,
A laddie bold and free,
The corn sprang green on Strathairlie!
When I come back again,
It's an auld man walks his lane
Slow and sad ower the fields o' Strathairlie.

O' the shearers that I see
No' a body kens me,
Though I kent them a' in Strathairlie;
An' the fisher-wife I pass,
Can she be the braw lass
I kissed at the back o' Strathairlie?

O, the land is fine, fine,
I could buy it a' for mine,
For ma gowd's as the stooks in Strathairlie;
But I fain the lad would be
Wha sailed ower the saut sea
When the dawn rose grey on Strathairlie.