The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #20820   Message #218762
Posted By: GUEST,Murray on Saltspring
27-Apr-00 - 01:07 AM
Thread Name: Lyr/Chords Req: Musselburgh Field
Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: Musselburgh Field
See the other thread on M.Fair, where I confess my ignorance of a Scots song of that title. I don't see how the Aussie tune could fit the "Field" ballad--the scansion is all wrong. That's an English ballad, by the way, made in triumph over the Scots, who were slaughtered to bits at the battle (usually called the Battle of Pinkie). Child gives the fragment as quoted above, from the Percy Folio (and printed thence by Hales and Furnivall)-- Kittredge adds a query, is this the song quoted by Sir Toby in "Twelfth Night", "O, the twelfth day of December"? - That date being an accurate one for the battle, in spite of the ballad's first line. Bronson omits Child 172 as having no tune (from anywhere). There's nothing like the title in Simpson's British Broadside Ballads, either. So I'm dubious about any connection with the Australian song, wherever THAT tune came from. Did Lloyd say it was Scottish??