The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #54735   Message #1427185
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
05-Mar-05 - 05:25 AM
Thread Name: Lyr/Tune Req: The Saucy Prince's Own
Subject: RE: Lyr/Tune Req: The Saucy Princes Own
Thanks. There are four sets in Greig-Duncan (number 148, pp 355-360) and one in Ord (Bothy Ballads, 291-3) but not a Saucy Prince or an Irish Boy to be found. Where did they come from, I wonder? I haven't seen the Madden broadside; Roud lists references but not printers' names, but it's in the "London Printers" section so is likely enough another Pitts copy. The set in Sam Henry (H98a) isn't actually a version of this one, but an unrelated poem ("Oliver's Advice") set by him to the regimental tune as got from the Coleraine Fife and Drum Band.

According to Peter Kennedy (ref on his website), a Graham Lappin of Notre Dame told him that the words of Barossa were written by a Scottish poet, Alexander (Sawney) Miller. I don't know if that's right or not. There seems to have been a "high class entertainer" of that name in the late 1820s, but I don't know anything about him.