The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #5928   Message #34033
Posted By: John Nolan
03-Aug-98 - 08:43 PM
Thread Name: Tune Req: Heather on the Moor
Subject: RE: heather on the moor ABC/MIDI?
On this topic, the heather/moor songs in the database may be related to "O'er the moor amang the heather" collected in the late 1700s by Robert Burns. In Burns' Remarks on Scottish Song, he is quoted as follows: This song is the composition of Jean Glover, a girl who was not only a whore, but also a thief, and in one or other character, has visited most of the Correction Houses in the West. She was born, I believe in Kilmarnock. I took the song down from her singing, as she was strolling through the country with a sleight-of-hand blackguard.

Comin through the craigs o' Kyle
Amang the bonnie blooming heather,
There I met a bonnie lassie
Keeping a' her yowes thegither.

Chorus: O'er the moor amang the heather
O'er the moor amang the heather
There I met a bonnie lassie
Keeping a' her yowes thegither.

Says I, My dearie, where is thy hame
In moor or dale, pray tell me whether?
She say, I tent the fleecy flocks
That feed among the blooming heather
O'er the moor etc.

We laid us doon upon a bank
Sae warm and sunny was the weather
She left her flocks at large to rove
Amang the bonnie blooming heather.
O'er the moor etc.

While thus we lay she sang a sang
Till echo rang a mile and further,
And aye the burden o'the sang
Was, O'er the moor amang the heather.
O'er the moor etc.

She charmed my heart and aye sinsyne
I couldna think on any ither
By sea and sky she shall be mine!
The bonnie lass amang the heather
O'er the moor etc.

I hope this makes it into the database at a future point and poor Jean Glover gets some credit.