The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #57366 Message #901961
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
02-Mar-03 - 05:55 PM
Thread Name: Tune Add: What are these tunes?
Subject: RE: Tune Add: What are these tunes?
The set of Fause Foodrage in question (Child 89C) came from the Harris MS (No. 18, fol. 22). Mrs Amelia Harris learned it at around the age of 8 from her nurse, Jannie Scott, in Perthshire, c.1790. Her daughter wrote down her mother's texts and some tunes; when Child wrote, the manuscript was in the possession of Harvard College Library. She had only four verses. Her set is in the DT, taken from a record made by Hermes Nye, who for unknown reasons of his own called it neither by Child's group title nor the one usually given it, Eastmuir King, but instead re-named it King o' Luve.
The tune appears in Child V, p.416; there is a tune for Willie o Winsbury on page 418, which is presumably the one Andy Irvine intended to copy. Sadly, the error has resulted in a lot of people believing that the song, as recorded by Sweeney's Men, is Irish; it isn't. It is Scottish, as is the text they used, which -so far as I can recall- is mainly Child's version A. Other versions of the ballad have been found in Ireland, of course, as also in England, the USA and Canada.
I have no idea at all where Archie Fisher comes in. Bronson comments that " the Harris tune is of the Æ / D plagal variety, and belongs to a type which is found with several other Scottish ballads; Hind Etin (No. 41), Child Waters (No. 63), Child Maurice (No. 83), Young Johnstone (No. 88), Jellon Grame (No. 90), Sir James the Rose (No. 213)."