Folklore: Scottish Women and song

Subject: Folklore: Scottish Women and song
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 12 Jul 24 - 06:04 PM

OH BUT THEY SANG BONNY

Ewan McVicar has created the theysangbonny.website, gathering together information from diverse sources on Scotland’s women singers and song makers, and Scottish songs that feature women, from the earliest 12th Century lyrics up till 1960. Gaelic women songmakers, Scots ballads and songs and the ‘collectors’ who had them printed, gently-born Scots re-makers of traditional songs into art songs, the move from print to sound recordings, the Traveller singers, women in Scottish song lyrics and more.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Scottish Women and song
From: Helen
Date: 12 Jul 24 - 06:27 PM

Thanks Ewan,

Could you post the website address please?

I tried to find it to see if you mentioned the wonderful harp duo, Sileas, with Mary McMaster and Patsy Seddon.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Scottish Women and song
From: sciencegeek
Date: 12 Jul 24 - 10:10 PM

the Stewarts of Blair with their grand dame Belle immediately come to mind, along with Jean Redpath and Jeannie Robertson

Talitha Claypoole Nelson Douglas comes from Long Island (NYS) but now is doing dance and music in Scotland

so many more were involved in waulking songs ... the bothy songs were more from the men's huts where the workers bunked together

Subject: RE: Folklore: Scottish Women and song
From: Reinhard
Date: 13 Jul 24 - 12:45 AM

Helen, the address is theysangbonny.website

Subject: RE: Folklore: Scottish Women and song
From: Helen
Date: 13 Jul 24 - 01:16 AM

Thanks Reinhard. I tried searching for theysangbonny and had no results I didn't think ".website" was part of the name of the site. I over-complicated it. LOL

Subject: RE: Folklore: Scottish Women and song
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 13 Jul 24 - 04:07 AM

The site goes up to 1960, somewhat earlier than Silas, Jean Redpath, Talitha etc.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Scottish Women and song
From: Helen
Date: 13 Jul 24 - 04:53 AM

Thanks Ewan. I didn't realise you had a time line.

Sìleas recorded a lot of traditional songs so I thought they would be on your site. I have most of their albums and I think they are very talented and inspirational. The site I provided the link for has a full list of their songs if you click the Songs box and then click the All Songs box.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Scottish Women and song
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 13 Jul 24 - 10:33 AM

Thanks Helen. I did a gig with Sileas once. Nice people.
Sciencegeek - I know. I was pals with Sheila Stewart and with Jean. I met Belle and also Talitha a couple of times.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Scottish Women and song
From: sciencegeek
Date: 13 Jul 24 - 11:48 AM

LOL I loved hearing Talitha singing Cunla... along with some of the Celtic maritime music since she was a former shanty singer that grew up in Huntington along with Jeff Davis...

it's a small world at times :)

my late father in law was of Scots-Irish descent... the first Kennedy, an Orangeman, landed up in Lake Placid records in 1789 and the family joke was that he must have had a fast horse, otherwise the Family might have ended up in Australia. Mike's dad married a Douglas, Catholic, but only the youngest son took that faith... the others went to the church that was closest..

Subject: RE: Folklore: Scottish Women and song
From: Helen
Date: 13 Jul 24 - 02:46 PM

Thanks Ewan.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Scottish Women and song
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 13 Jul 24 - 03:50 PM

I've taken a quick look and found one surprise:
" ‘Willy of Winsbury’ rapes a girl and rides off, she angrily pursues him to the Royal court where the king makes him marry her, and it turns out she is of far nobler blood than him."
The ballad telling that story has a few names, but was ‘Willy of Winsbury’ ever one of them?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Scottish Women and song
From: GUEST,IS
Date: 14 Jul 24 - 02:23 PM

Richard Mellish, what titles hass the ballad with the plot you describe, please?Or what number in Child's collection, if it's in there?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Scottish Women and song
From: Reinhard
Date: 14 Jul 24 - 03:01 PM

It's Roud 67, Child 110, The Knight and the Shepherd’s Daughter / The Royal Forester

Subject: RE: Folklore: Scottish Women and song
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 15 Jul 24 - 02:51 PM

The Ewe Buchts has a similar opening, with the posh chap raping the shepherdess and riding off, but in that one she goes home rather than chasing him and he eventually comes back to marry her of his own accord. Opinions may differ as to whether that is a happy ending or not.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Scottish Women and song
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 17 Jul 24 - 12:01 PM

Richard, thanks for pointing that out. A brain slip by me, Norman Kennedy has a version - of the Knight etc I assume - in which she pursues him to the king's court, he names himself a fancy version of William but she says he is really named Willie. At the wedding it is revealed she is the daughter of a lord and he is just a blacksmith's son.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Scottish Women and song
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 17 Jul 24 - 03:19 PM

Tracked down Norman's version in Tobar an Dualchais website. He calls it The Forester. Here is the rack description.
Ballad in which a young woman is seduced by a forester in the king's service. He then tries to evade her, but she chases him to the king's court and demands justice. The king commands him to marry the woman, upon which it is revealed that she is the daughter of a lord, and he only a blacksmith's son.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Scottish Women and song
From: GUEST,Susanne (skw) sans cookie
Date: 20 Jul 24 - 06:05 PM

Thank you, Ewan! The site looks very interesting, but will likely provide you with a lot more work. Heather Heywood is also outside your time limit, I suppose?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Scottish Women and song
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 21 Jul 24 - 08:24 AM

Hi Suzanne. Yes, 1960 cutoff is deliberate, so many fine women singers like Heather appeared once the folk clubs and festivals got going in the 60s. Do you mean I will get work correcting my errors - probably!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Scottish Women and song
From: GUEST,Susanne (skw) sans cookie
Date: 24 Jul 24 - 10:53 AM

Ewan, no - I was thinking of additions to make, and that you might (hopefully!) not be able to resist the urge to go on after 1960. I still treasure your "One singer one song" book and Hamish Imlach's ramblings into your tape recorder ...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Scottish Women and song
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 24 Jul 24 - 05:26 PM

Very nice words to get, Susanne! Thanks.
However, it would feel rather likely to get me into trouble with various singing female friends and acquaintances if I started listing/describing them and evaluating their relative achievements with implied rankings. You will note that all the singers in the They Sang Bonny Book are [I think?] dead. The same applies to the Carpenter and Goldstein websites I made [though I have found a couple of living Buchan singers who were recorded by Goldstein].
Just finishing a website that puts on line my Eskimo Republic book text, adding in lots of images and song tracks and Youtube videos.
Next I have promised to reconstitute in scrambled Scots my Scots Sangs Fur Schools website that was blootered by the webhosters.
Can't load up on line my Doh Ray Me When Ah Wis Wee book because the publishers still hold it, but the publishers of the Hamish book handed that back to me - interesting possibilities there maybe? Tell more about the people etc he told about perhaps. We've lost so many of them. When I told him that the laws of libel applied to him as well as the publishers, that's when He went through the text and took half of the names out. Oye oye, too many possibilities. Run away, run away.
Ewan

Subject: RE: Folklore: Scottish Women and song
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 25 Jul 24 - 04:22 AM

Oops! Sheena Wellington at least is still with us.