THanks Susanne. I see you've put that on your good website. I'm glad to see this as Redpath's earlier record notes imply that she got it from that songbook rather than, as you show, got it from Dransfield but _found_ it in the songbook later.

Murray on SS: Good. Those are the words I have (except for light/lift) and the end of line two, BUT there's a problem. I'm not at all sure those are the words Beethoven used. (I'm really hung up on this song & can't quit 'till get as much as I can.) I've asked Inter-Library Loan for both Thomson's 1818 "A Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs..." and a copy of the Beethoven. That you pointed to. Seems all of Beethoven's Scottish song treatments were actually commissioned by Thomson. He wasn't an antiquarian, just a businessman and had no compunction about "improving" texts. One thing I've had info on that differs from your comment: Seems Thomson generally did not supply the actual text to B. (although he _may_ have in this case;) just a simple tune, the mood & subject matter. It was up to B. to set the lines & Thomson would squeeze the words in when he printed.

Further, I can't wait till I eyeball those books - there seem to be several texts available. If you look to the art song treatments. I now have a classical music CD that drops the second 'my faithful Johnny,' as you give, but has a completely different third verse. I've heard a clip at CDConnection that claims to be Beethoven but uses the Dransfield/Handle first line. I don't know if these are varient back-translations from the German or English texts collected elsewhere.

But it does seem very clear that you had that first-ever- printing right as being Thomson's. Hmm.