Lyr Add: Archie of Ca'field / Archie o Cawfield

Subject: Lyr Add: Scottish Borders cowboy song
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 08:38 AM

This song doesn't seem to be in the database. It's from Walter Scott's Border Ballads, rather heavily edited, the tune added by me. I'm not sure if it's really singable, there's only one rhyme throughout which gets a bit monotonous, and the plot is a bit linear. But so what.

As I was walking all alone
'Twas at the dawning of the day,
I met two brothers making moan
And stopped to hear what they might say.
The younger to the older said,
"How could we ever happy be?
For we were once three brothers born,
Now one of us is condemned to die."

"But be we happy, be we sad,
What better should our brother be,
Unless we had a hundred men
To storm Dumfries and set him free?"
And then up spoke the brave John Hall,
The best of Teviotdale was he,
"We'll do it with a dozen men
If all of you will ride with me."

"To horse, to horse, and ride in haste",
And men were riding o'er the lea,
Until they came to Dumfries town
And there dismounted speedily,
A smith dwells by the water's side,
A crown they gave him for a fee
To turn the horses' shoes around
That none might know which way they flee.

"Here's five to hold the horses' heads
And five of us shall watchmen be,
But who will come in Dumfries town
And help to set my brother free?"
Again up spoke the brave John Hall,
Was e'er a braver man than he?
"Though this night's work should cost my life,
I'll break the prison doors with thee!"

"Be of good cheer now Archie lad,
Here's Teviotdale is come for thee,
Thou work within and we without,
Tonight you'll dine at home with me"
John Hall knelt down upon the floor,
His back against the door put he,
He's torn the hinges from the wall,
And so he's set young Archie free.

He carried him out from the jail
And through the town so silently,
And mounted him upon his mare,
I'll swear that ne'er a foot stirred she.
He's laid the chains across her neck,
Her decoration for to be,
And so the've fled from Dumfries town
As fast as horse and man could flee.

And on they rode all through the night
And through the dawn so wearily,
Till then up spoke young Simon Bold,
"O can't you see what I do see?
Lord Gordon riding o'er the hill,
A hundred men in company,
Our wives must sing the Lyke Wake Dirge,
This very morn we'll surely die!"

"So spur your horse and ride in haste!"
And men were riding o'er the lea
Until they came to Annan's flood,
And it was flowing like the sea.
"My horse is young and very tired,
She'll never bear the weight of two,
But you take mine, and I'll take thine,
And all of us shall make it through"

And they have plunged in Annan's flood,
And horse and man swam gallantly,
Until they reached the further brim,
And there they landed soddenly,
"Come o'er the stream, Lord Gordon, now,
And drink a glass of wine with me,
Last night I lay in prison bound,
Tonight in Teviotdale, and free!"

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Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Scottish Borders cowboy song
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 09:36 AM

It looks like one of his own creations.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Scottish Borders cowboy song
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 02:32 PM

Number 188 in Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads, where several versions appear under the heading Archie O Cawfield. Scott actually published two "versions" ("... with many improvements, besides Scotticising the spelling"), apparently based on the Glenriddell MSS text; one in the original edition of his Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802), and an expanded form with material added "from recitation" appeared in subsequent editions.

The text above certainly isn't the second one. It seems in its turn to have been altered from the form in which Scott printed it; where did you get it? See also

Child, III, 484-496 (number 188)
Bronson, Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads, III, 175-178: seven texts with tunes.

DT: Bold Archer (copied from the condensed Bronson, but with source information omitted. Taken from F M Collinson and F Dillon, Songs from the Countryside, I, 1946, p 20)

Forum: Lyr Req: Tony Rose - Bold Archer Brief discussion of a collated set recorded by Tony Rose, and link to broadside printing.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Scottish Borders cowboy song
From: GUEST,Uncle DaveO
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 03:14 PM

I don't understand whence cometh "cowboy song" here.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Scottish Borders cowboy song
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 03:19 PM

The Halls were notorious cattle rustlers.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Scottish Borders cowboy song
From: GUEST,Allen
Date: 25 Mar 05 - 04:16 PM

Which Borderer wasn't?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Scottish Borders cowboy song
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 06:27 AM

Malcolm Douglas:
"The text above certainly isn't the second one. It seems in its turn to have been altered from the form in which Scott printed it; where did you get it? "

From Scott's Mistrelsy, about mid- century edition.

I said I'd edited it rather heavily. I've stuck to the plot, cut out the dull bit Scott said he'd added, shortened the whole thing and translated it into English and added a tune. All to try to make it singable.

Why cowboy? Well, the whole thing reads like a saturday afternoon cowboy film.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Scottish Borders cowboy song
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 07:42 AM

Ah, I see. I wasn't sure whether you meant that Scott had edited it heavily or that you had.