Scotish song Hugh the Graeme

Subject: Scotish song question
From: kendall
Date: 05 Apr 12 - 02:30 PM

The Corries sang a song about a poacher named Hewie the Graeme, and as he was about to be hanged he asked that his brother come and see him...pay the Bishops......what?

Subject: RE: Scotish song question
From: Jim McLean
Date: 05 Apr 12 - 02:42 PM

mare ... try Google, it's all there.

Subject: RE: Scotish song question
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 05 Apr 12 - 02:43 PM

Well he was charged with stealing the Bishop's horse, and condemned to die.
I assume it was compensation for the loss of the beast, and in so doing, a hope of a pardon.

Subject: RE: Scotish song question
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 05 Apr 12 - 02:43 PM

He allegedly stole the Bishop of Carlisle's mare in retaliation for the Bishop seducing his wife.

Incidently it's Hughie The Graeme.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Scotish song question
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 05 Apr 12 - 02:46 PM

Capter and verse

Subject: RE: Scotish song question
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Apr 12 - 02:47 PM

Hughie Graham
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hughie Graham or Hughie Graeme is Child ballad number 191, existing in several variants.
Synopsis
Hughie Graham is caught for stealing the bishop's horse, and sentenced to hang. Several pleas to ransom him are unavailing. He sees his mother or father and sends greetings to his father, his sword to Johnnie Armstrong, and a curse to his wife. (The legend is that his motive for the horse-theft was that the bishop had seduced his wife.)
Recordings
The great socialist Ewan MacColl recorded a version on his album of traditional Scottish ballads.
Dáithí Sproule recorded a version with fiddling master James Kelly and button box master Paddy O'Brien (Tipperary) that is still available on the compilation album Traditional Music of Ireland.
The Scottish folk band Malinky recorded a version of this song, called Hughie The Graham, on their 2005 album, The Unseen Hours
English folk singer, June Tabor, recorded a version of this song on 'An Echo of Hooves' in 2003.

~M~

Subject: RE: Scotish song question
From: GUEST,kenny
Date: 06 Apr 12 - 07:08 AM

Tom Smith sang it on "In The Wind", the 2nd album by the London-Irish group "Shegui".

Subject: RE: Scotish song question
From: Vic Smith
Date: 06 Apr 12 - 08:24 AM

Ewan MacColl sings this ballad on The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (The Child Ballads), Volume III (Riverside, 1956).
I still have it on my vinyl shelves and for me this is by far the most convincing of Ewan's early recordings.

Subject: RE: Scotish song question
From: GUEST,Kendall
Date: 06 Apr 12 - 08:28 AM

If he committed this theft after 1701, did he know about McPherson who was hanged for the same thing?

Subject: RE: Scotish song question
From: Susan of DT
Date: 06 Apr 12 - 02:07 PM

Hughie 1 in DT
Hughie 2 in DT

Subject: RE: Scotish song Hugh the Graeme
From: GUEST,gsfm22
Date: 06 Apr 12 - 03:27 PM

Splendid version of this on the CD "Fyre and Sworde" by Maddy Prior and others (Fellside). Singer Ross Kennedy, with fiddles and Northumbrian Small Pipes as backing, to a variant of the Sir Patrick Spens melody. Texts in various English Ballad Collections ~ their editors reckon not to know which Bishop of Carlisle it was, and to have found no historical record. The sleeve notes have found a reference to 1560, but acknowledge that no Hugh Graeme is apparently found at that time. I wonder whether (if historical, rather than imaginative) it was one of the Percy bishops in the 15th Century ~ who may well have been more Percy than Bishop, with an axe to grind on the Border. The appeals from various well-wishers/family are a commonplace in ballad style, but shed an interesting side-light on The Graeme's love life, perhaps. Highly dramatic finale ~ gory but clever: shorten the bishop's cloak by the hood!

Subject: RE: Scotish song Hugh the Graeme
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Apr 12 - 03:31 PM

"Ewan MacColl sings this ballad on The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (The Child Ballads), Volume III (Riverside, 1956).
I still have it on my vinyl shelves and for me this is by far the most convincing of Ewan's early recordings."

The same recording is on the double CD of MacColl singing ballads which Topic released a couple of years ago.

Subject: RE: Scotish song Hugh the Graeme
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 07 Apr 12 - 12:54 PM

"If he committed this theft after 1701" I'd always thought of it as a Border Ballad though maybe I'm biased being from this area. Generally in the Border versions he's taken to Carlisle after having been captured by Lord Scrope for the stealing of the Bishop of Carlisle's horse in retaliation for the said bishop's affair with his wife. Scrope was a 16thC character. One of the wardens on the English side. I don't know if Hugh actually existed but the Grahams were certainly very common, and still are, in the Borders.

Subject: RE: Scotish song Hugh the Graeme
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 08 Apr 12 - 02:36 AM

Following on from the last post. It is at least possible that the ballad could be based on real people and events. In John Marsden's book of the Border Ballads he says that according to Stenhouse's Musical Museum tradtion has it that the bishop in question was Robert Aldridge. Marsden states that Aldridge was bishop between 1537 and 1555. Scrope was warden of the West March between 1542 and 1547 so if the events involve these figures then it dates to the 1540s. The most infamous Johnny Armstrong (Black Jock of Gilnockie) was executed in 1530 so Hughie couldn't ask him for revenge but there were other infamous John Amrmstrongs. Marsden suggests it could have been a reference to Jock o' the Side who was contemporary and named in a petition made to the Scottish Queen by the said bishop. He named various Grahams too but no Hughie - however he only names a few of the leading reivers but complains that there are 400 or so malefactors. There is no contemporary mention of a Hugh Graham. However one of the Grahams listed as being transported from the Borders to Ireland after James VI becomes King of England is a "Hugh's Francie". In other words a Francis Graham who's father was called Hugh. Of course it doesn't prove anything other than there were people called Hugh Graham living on the border in the 16thC.

Subject: RE: Scotish song Hugh the Graeme
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 08 Apr 12 - 05:32 AM

John Reavey used to intoduce this ballad as saying that Hughie the Graham (or Graeme)stole the Bishop's mare in retaliation for the Bishop conducting an affair with Hughie's wife. The gentry decided that he should be hanged since he gained the better part of the deal.