Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?

Subject: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: MudGuard
Date: 10 May 00 - 07:10 AM

In the song Peggy Gordon a place called Ingo is named ("I wish I was away in Ingo").
Do you know where it is? Or is it a misspelling? If so, what is the correct spelling and where is that place?
TIA
MudGuard

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: The Walrus (at work)
Date: 10 May 00 - 01:10 PM

MudGuard,

I've always heard that line as "I wish I was far away in England".

If, as the DT suggests, this song is from Nova Scotia, there is a certain logic in the next line ("Far across the briny sea").

Regards

Walrus

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: GUEST,Timbrel
Date: 11 May 00 - 07:52 AM

It's "Engle", dialect for "England."

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: MudGuard
Date: 11 May 00 - 08:29 AM

I thought it was some form of "England", but I hear what I as a non-English-native speaker would write down as Ingall every time I listen to my record. Engle and Ingall could be (in my un-knowing opinion) pronounced quite similar, so I guess you are right, Timbrel.
MudGuard

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: GUEST,lily
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 01:07 PM

Ingo is a place were only special humans can go
ingo is water the spirit of water
were everywere you breath is a mystery
in the sea you will find the mer people
people of the waves and ingo

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Lighter
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 04:52 PM

Turn right at Fennario.

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Joybell
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 05:39 PM

"... until you come to that silent spot that all true lovers know..."

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Greenacres
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 08:45 AM

That's interesting. I've been singing "I wish I was a winging eagle" for years!

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Snuffy
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 09:10 AM

Actually it's Ingrow, which is a mile or so south of Keighley, West Yorkshire

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: goatfell
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 09:19 AM

ingo in sScotland is the fireplace

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: GUEST,woodsie
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 09:37 AM

The Ingo in the song is in the East Indies I've read this somewhere else on mudcat.

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Lighter
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 09:41 AM

There's also "Imez" in the Penguin version of "The Whale-Catchers." When Lloyd recorded the song, he changed "Imez" to "Greenland."

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Dennis the Elder
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 12:47 PM

Done a little Googling, but actually found the following answer in Yahoo
"Ingo seems to be a mythical place, a paradise, a land without pain. The writer overlooks the fact that pleasure is meaningless without the fear of pain."
The second part of this answer is a little confusing, I for one have known pleasure without the fear of pain!

Unfortunatly the writer does not specify a source for the meaning. Other people quote a celtic connection, some a connection with childrens book by Barbara Dunning and many more that it is a Scandinavian first name.

I think the mythical place, a paradise, a land without pain, seems to fit the words exceedingly well and adds even more meaning to this beautiful song.

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Lighter
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 01:39 PM

Would that explain where gold (ingo)ts come from? (Warning: Joke).

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 02:27 PM

When this old, long-forgotten thread was resurrected the other day, I initially assumed that 'GUEST,lily' was just one of those slighty disturbed people who wander in here from time to time and post random nonsense; but I was wrong as it turned out. She was talking about a recent series of children's books by Helen Dunmore that feature an undersea realm called Ingo just off the Cornish coast. The books feature a boat called The Peggy Gordon, so it's pretty obvious where Ms Dunmore got 'Ingo' from. The word, anyway; using it for an undersea realm seems to have been her own idea.

I'd put money on that being the source of the (almost inevitable, nowadays) 'celtic connection' claim, and I'm pretty sure that that business describing 'Ingo' as some sort of Avalon is modern and made-up, though I'd be glad to hear any evidence to the contrary. Ingo certainly is found as a christian name, though; no dispute there.

The fact is that nobody knows what it means in the context of this version of 'Peggy Gordon', which was collected by Helen Creighton. The set she printed in Maritime Folk Songs (Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1962, 74-5) was a collation: text from Dennis Smith, Chezzetcook, tune from Mrs Edward Gallagher, Chebucto Head. The text is quoted without source information in thread Origins: Peggy Gordon and the DT file appears to be a cut-down form of that taken from a revival recording or possibly from Sing Out.

I don't know if any other traditional examples of the song mention 'Ingo' (or anything like it) at all, but I wouldn't be surprised if Mr Smith's were the only one that does. Chances are it's just a garbling of 'England' as already suggested, with no mysterious background at all. If Mr Smith understood anything in particular by it, Miss Creighton didn't say. 'Peggy Gordon' isn't a very old song as such (second half of the C19) though of course most of it is made up of much older floating verses from the common Anglo-Scots-Irish stock.

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Teribus
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 04:59 AM

Either "Eigle" in Ireland or "Ingle" in Scotland, both are farms (touns) or villages the one in Scotland is now better known as Ingleston.

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Jim McLean
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 10:49 AM

Ingle in Scottish means a fireside or chimney corner. I have never heard it meaning a town. If you split the town name Ingleston in two, the ton part means town or farm and the Ingles part means English.

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: GUEST,woodsie
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 03:03 PM

Ingo is the Island featured in the TV series "Lost"

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: meself
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 08:46 AM

I've long sung "Indigo" - don't know where I got that; I don't think it's my own corruption of "Ingo", but it could be. However, that may be, I've taken it for a corruption of "India" ... the idea being that the speaker yearns not merely to be far away but as far away as possible, on the other side of the world, and somewhere exotic, where he can be "alone in the crowd" and provided with distractions - if that's the case, then the name isn't terribly important, as long as it conveys that sense of distance and exoticism.

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: MikeofNorthumbria
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 08:35 PM

Ingoe is a village in Northumberland, not far away from Hadrian's Wall. It's very pretty in summer, but pretty bleak in winter. Put "Ingoe, Northumberland" into Google Maps to find its location. What connection this has with a song collected in Canada I cannot imagine.

Wassail!

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Teribus
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 03:08 AM

Written by an immigrant perhaps, crossed in love by the maid in question and being a bit miserable he is thinking of former happier or simpler times before he left home?

"I wish I was away in Ingoe
Oh far across the briny sea
Sailing over the deepest ocean
Where love nor care ever bothered me"

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Liam's Brother
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 09:29 AM

Thanks, Malcolm.

It's worth quoting, too, Dennis Smith's 10th verse:

I wish I was in Spenservania
Where the marble stones are as black as ink,
Where the pretty little girls they do adore me,
I'll sing no more till I get a drink.

If Ingo is England (which I suspect), then Spencervania is Pennsylvania by the same logic.

"Marble sones as black as ink," a geological statement, is interesting; particularly when one refers to the Irish song, "Carrickfergus"...

And in Kilkenny it is reported
On marble stone as black as ink,
With gold and silver I did support her
But I'll sing no more till I get a drink.
   
I would guess that somewhere in Nova Scotia there was once a particular Peggy Gordon who disappointed a young man and that the song, "Peggy Gordon," with all its floating verses coalesced around the first verse.      

All the best,
Dan Milner

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Canberra Chris
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 09:51 AM

Ingo is what you need before you can have an outcome. Just as an income is what you need for your outgoings.

If we are straying into Carrickfergus lyrics, the great threads on that will save you further pointless speculation. It's the song nobody wrote about anything, and everyone wrote about everything - a fascinating read.

Peggy Gordon is a great song to sing - even if a couple of bits are ingoherent.

Chris

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Liam's Brother
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 12:30 PM

Chris,

Rather than "straying," the point is that Dennis Smith's 10th and last verse shows in the use of "Spencervania" that someone in the disemination process corrupted not one but two place names, which were probably England and Pennsylvania originally.

In case you don't have Miss Creighton's book (cited by Malcolm above), the 9th verse is

I wish I was as far as Ingo
Way out across the briny sea,
A-sailing over the deep blue water
Where love nor care never trouble me.

All the best,
Dan

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 03:58 PM

I always thought "Ingo" was a slightly poetic reference to England, just as "Amerikay" means America (incidentally have you heard that America was not named after Amerigo Vespucci but a Welshman, at least according to the book based on the "QI" series hosted by Stephen Fry?).

It could have been originally sung as "England" (which would have the same number of syllables) and got transliterated, etc.

I haven't heard of Ingo as a Christian name (though this may be my ignorance) but have heard of Inigo Jones, the architect (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inigo_Jones. The nearest I know of is Ngaio Marsh, writer of the Inspector Alleyn mysteries, but according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ngaio_Marsh the "g" is not pronounced (it seems to be "naiou", something like the sound made by a cat.

Peggy Gordon is originally believed to be a Scottish song which became popular in all the English speaking countries such that if it wasn't for the Scottish surname, no-one would know of its true origin. Whether based on a real Peggy Gordon no-one knows. I suspect that even if someone wrote a song based on a real love affair they would change at least one of the names (probably the surname).

Anyway, Peggy Gordon is a fine song.

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Dennis the Elder
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 07:32 PM

Ingo is certainly a common Scandinavian first name, not sure but I believe most scandinavians are Christian and therefore it would be a Christian name. If you put Ingo in Google it comes up with a plethera of people named thus.
I still like the idea that Ingo is a place to go to be happy, pain free and tranquil, as I get older with the niggling pains that accompany age, I wish I was there now, how about you?
If anyone figgers out, wherever it may be, how to get there, could you please tell me?

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: meself
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 03:27 AM

"Peggy Gordon is originally believed to be a Scottish song ... "

"Originally believed" by whom, GUEST, and, more importantly, on what basis? There have been one or two fairly knowledgable contributors to this thread who are not prepared to express any certainty as to the origin of the song, beyond acknowledging that versions of it were collected in Nova Scotia by Helen Creighton ...

Btw, I'm not saying that it isn't Scottish, just that evidence is lacking.

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Dennis the Elder
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 04:59 AM

There have been other threads regarding the source of Peggy Godon, some say it started its life as Sweet Maggie Gordon in New York arround 1880 others, Canada, Nova Scota. It did not seem to exist in England, Scotland or Ireland before 1960 although some quote it was written by Robbie Burns.

Reading these previous threads there is belief that Ingo does infact refer to England, and one quotes that the "Corries" actualy sang England in their version, arround 1965, although this is unsupported.

I have copied the last message from Malcolm Douglas which he posted on 14th March 2003.

"What are nowadays thought of as typical Scottish and Irish "versions" of Peggy/Maggie Gordon don't seem to date back further than the 1960s; they all seem to derive from published example(s) found in Canada and subsequently recorded by popular Revival performers.

Whatever the ultimate source(s) of the song -and attempting to place all the floating verses of which it is made is practically impossible, so often do they occur in so many related and unrelated songs- its modern travels are really a separate issue from a consideration of its origins. The fact that the tune to which it is sung nowadays is that most associated with the English Banks of the Sweet Primroses further clouds the matter, perhaps.

On reflection, I see no reason to exclude -as I had suggested earlier- an Irish source (at least in part) for the American and Canadian sets, but the same arguments apply at least equally to possible Scottish and English traditional sources; on the whole I think it pointless to make outright claims for any. Certainly, the song in its present form is a direct product of none of them; all we can say is that it was put together in America and/or Canada, using material drawn from the common stock of Britain and Ireland, and set to a tune which was subsequently abandoned in favour of a traditional one.

This is really only to summarise what was said when this discussion was originally started nearly three years ago."

Will we ever realy know?

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Jim McLean
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 05:13 AM

The Corries did indeed sing 'England' but they also sang 'and when I'm drinking I'm seldom thinking', obviously confusing the line from 'Im a rover, seldom sober'.

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: The Doctor
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 06:32 AM

I believe the village of Ingo is just a little up the lonesome valley from the village of Outgo. Incidentally Carrickfergus, with its lines:

But the sea is wide and I cannot cross over,
And neither have I wings to fly

links up with The Water is Wide, that other famous floating verse song.

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: meself
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 10:06 AM

You can listen to the Corries do it here. Sounds like "England", although a little indistinct.

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Liam's Brother
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 10:16 AM

"Sweet Maggie Gordon" vs. "Peggie Gordon" is a chicken and egg conundrum. Did someone from Nova Scotia become a vaudevillian in New York or did a vaudeville singer play Nova Scotia and the verse lingered on there? I had completely forgotten about "Sweet Maggie Gordon" though I have a songster with the words in it. Food for thought...

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 01:00 PM

Still and all, the thread from which Dennis has quoted my closing comments ( Origins: Peggy Gordon ) was started by you with that very songster text. I added a reference to a very similar text from a songsheet of around the same date, which also included music. That music being very different from the published examples from later Nova Scotia oral tradition (as most of us know, Mrs Gallagher used the melody usually associated with 'Banks of the Sweet Primroses'), it would seem most likely that the vaudeville collage of floating verses found its way to Nova Scotia (and a few other places; in the thread cited, John Moulden referred to a version noted in West Virginia as 'Maggie Goddon') on printed songsheets without music.

The popularity of 'Peggy Gordon' in the Revival over the last forty years or so has led many people to assume that it 'must' have been known in that form in British or Irish tradition prior to the publication of Helen Creighton's book. There is no evidence at all of that, and no reason to suppose that any of the recordings of the song by popular revival performers like the Corries are anything but arrangements of the song as published by Miss Creighton (whether learned directly from the book or via other revival performers), as opposed to being independent 'versions' in their own right.

That is not a value judgement, but a general reminder that such recordings can by definition tell us nothing about what Mr Smith understood by 'Ingo'; only what later interpreters guessed he had meant. So far we have no other example from tradition that uses anything remotely resembling the word, so all answers to the original question must necessarily be guesses; it would be fatuous to pretend otherwise. Some guesses are likely to be better-informed than others, as this discussion clearly illustrates. Some guesses, indeed, are so desperately unlikely that other people have begun deliberately to post facetious 'answers'; it is not always easy to tell the difference.

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Liam's Brother
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 10:23 PM

Well, Malcolm, I did write a few inches above your post the admission that "I had completely forgotten about 'Sweet Maggie Gordon' though I have a songster with the words in it." I wish I could remember everything from 8+ years ago and then forget some matters selectively.

I agree when you write, "It would seem most likely that the vaudeville collage of floating verses found its way to Nova Scotia." I agree with you about recent popular recordings of Peggy Gordon in Britain.

About Dennis Smith, I assume that he heard "Ingo" and "Spencervania" from his source. I just had a ramble through Webster's Geographical Dictionary and found no entry for either place in its many pages, which was my suspicion. That leads me to conclude they don't exist. I've done three market surveys in Nova Scotia as a geographer, and parts of those studies had specifically to do with the name recognition of places beyond the province. From the results, I'm sure beyond a reasonable doubt - if we are, in fact, talking about real places rather than imaginary ones - that "Ingo" in all likelihood was once England.

There is no other "...vania" in North America to match Pennsylvania in fame of course. In Deep Cove, Nova Scotia in 1979, Amby Thomas sang

If I had pen from Pennsylvania
If I had paper of truly white
If I had ink of the rosy morning
A true love's promise to you I'd write.

He said this about the song, "Once a new song would come out everybody would have it. You'd hear everybody singing it around home and at parties. There's a lot of it mixed up with another song. They put them words in it about Cape Breton. I have no idea who wrote it." One thing I get out of Mr. Thomas's statement is that Nova Scotia working folk could be pretty free-and-easy about details (e.g. place names) in newer lyric songs. Another is that Nova Scotians definitely "mixed up" songs.

What Dennis Smith meant by "Ingo" and "Spencervania" was those very words. This thread asks, "Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?" Depending on how the question is perceived, the answer in all likelihood is either a) nowhere, or b) England.

All the best,
Dan Milner

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: meself
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 11:22 PM

Just to clarify: Amby Thomas was talking specifically about When First I Came to Caledonia, which contains the "pen from Pennsylvania" verse. When I first read his comments, I thought the other song When...Caledonia was "mixed up with" must be either Peggy Gordon or some other with some of the the same floating verses. Looking at his words now, I realize he was referring to the Gaelic song the melody and chorus of which are incorporated into When...Caledonia.

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 01:14 AM

Actually he may well have been talking about, if not 'Peggy Gordon', then something quite like it. In the course of looking out other versions of PG for the 'origins' thread which is currently also revived, I found a reference in Edith Fowke, A Family Heritage: The Story and Songs of LaRena Clark (University of Calgary Press, 1994) -a book that I don't have, though it turns out that extracts can be seen via Google Books- to a song in P W Joyce, Old Irish Folk Music and Songs (1909): 'When First I Came to the County Limerick'.

Although there are certainly parallels with 'Peggy Gordon', it's rather closer to 'When First I Came to Caledonia' and it seems possible that it, or something very like it, could have provided the model for the latter song. It may also provide an Irish antecedent for 'Peggy Gordon', but is of no help in identifying 'Ingo', on which I doubt there is anything further to say.

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Liam's Brother
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 01:33 AM

Amen.

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: goatfell
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 08:03 AM

this is the words from their songboook The Corries complete and it can found on page 53.

oh Peggy Gordon you are my darling
come sit ye doon upon my knee
and tell tae me the very reason
why I am slighted by thee

I am in love I cannot deny it
my heart is troubled in my breast
it's not for you to let the world know it
a troubled heart can find no rest

I put my head to a cask of brandy
it was my fancy for to do
for when I'm drinking I'm seldom thinking
and wishing Peggy Gordon was here

I wish I was away in Ingol
far across the bringy sea
sailing over the deepest ocean
where love and care ne'er bother me

I wish I was in a lonely valley
where womankind cannot be found
where all the small birds they change their voices
and every moment a different sound

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 07:27 AM

does it matter ,can in not be a mythical place,which is different for every singer .

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: goatfell
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 09:10 AM

why does people read what is said by myself and Jim Mclean in Scotland It's the firplace not a town or a country

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: goatfell
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 09:12 AM

Why Doesn't people read what I and Jim McLean say Ingol means fire pace in Scotland, it's not a town or a country or anything else please read the posts before you make a remark on them

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Jim McLean
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 10:11 AM

Ingle is a fire, not ingol.

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 10:23 AM

Piles've Ingo's here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=Ingo&fulltext=Search

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: The Sandman
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 12:37 PM

and ingle nook,is still a term in use in England.ingle nook is achimney cforner
to want to be back by the fire does not make sense,not unless the hero of the song is a chimney sweep ,who has got withdrawals since he retired from his trade.

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 01:51 PM

"I wish I were in the fireplace."

Somehow I doubt it.

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 01:58 PM

Ingo, outgo, who cares?

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Terry McDonald
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 02:37 PM

Why are people still debating this? Don't they trust Malcolm Douglas? He gave an authoritative explanation, fully referenced, history of the song yet fanciful (or wishful)ones are still being put forward.

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Apr 09 - 02:24 PM

that's doubtful, on account of the song being from the point of view of an english lord and land owner in scotland who is in love with a commoner (peggy gordon) and there is no sea to cross between scotland and england

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: Ross Campbell
Date: 07 Apr 09 - 03:30 PM

Talk about fanciful?
Ross

Subject: RE: Peggy Gordon: where is Ingo?
From: meself
Date: 07 Apr 09 - 03:35 PM

Poor Malcolm ...