The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #748   Message #753128
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
23-Jul-02 - 01:00 PM
Thread Name: Origin: Glencoe Massacre (Jim McLean)
Subject: RE: Who wrote
Yes, but not a very old or widespread one, and very different from Jim McLean's take on the story; The Massacre of Glencoe, which I believe I mentioned in another discussion on the subject (and was referred to earlier in this one). There are two sets (one with tune) in the Grieg-Duncan Collection, vol.I; both noted in the first decade of the 20th century and apparently deriving from 19th century broadsides, one example of which can be seen at Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads:

Flora & Donald, or the massacre of Glencoe Printed between 1840 and 1866 by J. Harkness, Printer, 121, Church Street, Preston. [2806 c.14(26)]

It reads more as Victorian melodrama (complete with cannons) than traditional song, though, and was presumably knocked together long after the event, which I don't expect many people will have felt much like singing about at the time. It uses the same characters, Flora and [Mac]Donald, who appear in the vastly more popular (and, probably, earlier) "broken token" song, The Pride of Glencoe, and curiously refers to the Campbells as "The English"!