Lyr Req: False, False Hae You

Subject: Lyr Req: False, False Hae You
From: GUEST,Kathy Kestner
Date: 11 Apr 03 - 09:14 PM

I know the lyrics to this. It appeared on the National Geographic album of Scot music that came out sometime in the '70's. I memorised it but I never found out the meaning of one of the verses.

Oh, but I mean to climb,
Up some higher tree
To harrie{sic} a white snowflake's nest.
Oh, and doon sall I fall
Aye without any fear
Tae the arms that love me the best.

It is the line about harrying the white snowflakes nest that I don't understand the meaning of.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: False, False Hae You
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 11 Apr 03 - 10:52 PM

Kathy, that's one of my favorite albums! I found it in the Hershey, PA public library in 1973 when I was a first year medical student. I still have the rather fuzzy cassette tape I made of it on my cheap recorder, and listen to it often. It was my first introduction to folk music of the British isles. I love "A Lum Hat Wantin' a Croon" -- I was tickled to learn, through the Mudcat, that it was written by a doctor!

As far as that line, I believe that "harry" means the same thing as "harass" (the accent of which is properly on the first syllable), namely, to bother or disturb--as in "harried". I figured that "snowflake's nest" was either a poetic metaphor or referred to the local name for a kind of bird.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: False, False Hae You
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 12 Apr 03 - 12:02 AM

Yes, to harry surely means to harass, because there's a hawk-like bird called the Northern Harrier.

2. What luck! My unabridged dictionary says that "snowflake" is another name for a snow bunting. Ta da!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: False, False Hae You
From: Hrothgar
Date: 27 Apr 03 - 06:18 AM

Coincidence - just catching up here after being away for the National Folk Festival in Canberra - where I heard this song sung for the first time.