Tune Req: Words/notes to the Blackbird slowair?

Subject: Tune Add: Words/notes to the Blackbird slowair?
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 06:24 AM

I'm looking for lyrics or the notes to the melody of the Blackbird SLOWAIR. I know that there's a set dance but I'm looking for the original.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Words/notes to the Blackbird slowair?
From: masato sakurai
Date: 30 Mar 07 - 07:20 AM

"The Blackbird" [1] (An Londubh) and [3] at The Fiddler's Companion are "Slow Airs" (click here).

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Words/notes to the Blackbird slowair?
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 31 Mar 07 - 05:44 AM

There's quite a few versions of it knocking about. This one is from P W Joyce Old Irish Folk Music and Songs, where it is printed together with the air. In my opinion the tune is vastly superior to the words.

On a fair summer's morning of soft recreation
I heard a fair lady a making great moan
With sighing and sobbing
And sad lamentation
A-saying," My Blackbird most royal is flown.
My thoughts they deceive me,
Reflections do grieve me.
And I am overburden'd with sad misery;
Yet if death it should blind me as true love inclines me,
My Blackbird I'd seek out wherever he be.

Once in fair England my Blackbird did flourish,
He was the chief flower that in it did spring;
Prime ladies of honour his person did nourish,
Because that he was the true son of a king.
But this false fortune,
Which still is uncertain,
Has caused this parting between him and me.
His name I'll advance
In Spain and in France;
And I'll seek out my Blackbird wherever he be.

The birds of the forest they all met together.
¬The Turtle was chosen to dwell with the Dove:
And I am resolved in fair or foul weather,
In winter or in spring, for to seek out my love.
He is all my heart's treasure,
My joy and my pleasure,
And justly my love my heart shall follow thee;
He is constant and kind,
And courageous of mind;
All bliss to my Blackbird wherever he be.

In England my Blackbird and I were together,
Where he was still noble and generous of heart;
And woe to the time that he first went from hither,
Alas, he was forced from thence to depart;
In Scotland he is deemed
And highly esteemed;
In England he seemed a stranger to be ;
Yet his name shall remain
In France and in Spain;
All bliss to my Blackbird wherever he be.

It is not the ocean can fright me with danger;
For though like a pilgrim I wander forlorn,
I may still meet with friendship from one that's a stranger
Much more than from one that in England was born.
Oh, Heaven so spacious,
To Britain be gracious,
Tho' some there be odious both to him and to me;
Yet joy and renown
And laurel shall crown
My Blackbird with honour wherever he be.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Words/notes to the Blackbird slowair?
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Mar 07 - 07:02 AM

These are the words to the set dance...