Minourie (Binorie, Minorie, The Two Sisters)

Subject: RE: Minourie (Binorie, Minorie, The Two Sisters)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Oct 12 - 05:22 AM

For me, the finest version of this ballad is to be found on th School of Scottish Studies album 'The Muckle Sangs', sung by Betsy Whyte; but the two below have always appealed to my sense of the 'quirky'
Jim Carroll

The Berkshire Tragedy
A farmer he lived in the West Countree,
With a hey down, bow down
A farmer he lived in the West Countree,
And he had daughters, one, two and three.
And I'll be true to my love
If my love'll be true to me.

As they were walking by the river's brim,
With a hey down, bow down
As they were walking by the river's brim,
The eldest push'd the youngest in,
And I'll be true to my love
If my love'll be true to me.

O sister, O sister, pray gie me thy hand,
With a hey down, bow down
O sister, O sister, pray gie me thy hand
And I'll gie thee both house and land,
And I'll be true to my love
If my love'll be true to me.

I'll neither, I'll neither gie thee hand nor glove
With a hey down, bow down
I'll neither, I'll neither gie thee hand nor glove
Unless thou'lt gie me thy own true love,
And I'll be true to my love
If my love'll be true to me.

So down she sank and away she swam,
With a hey down, bow down
So down she sank and away she swam,
Until she came to the miller's dam,
And I'll be true to my love
If my love'll be true to me.

O father, father, here swims a swan,
With a hey down, bow down
O father, father, here swims a swan,
Very much like a drownded gentlewoman
And I'll be true to my love
If my love'll be true to me.

The miller he got his pole and hook
With a hey down, bow down
The miller he got his pole and hook
And he fished the fair maid out of the brook,
And I'll be true to my love
If my love'll be true to me.

O miller, I'll gie thee guineas then,
With a hey down, bow down
O miller, I'll gie thee guineas then,
If thoul't fetch me back to my father again.
And I'll be true to my love
If my love'll be true to me.

The miller he took her guineas ten,
With a hey down, bow down
The miller he took her guineas ten,
And he pushed the fair maid in agen,
And I'll be true to my love
If my love'll be true to me.

But the Crowner he came and the Justice too,
With a hey down, bow down
But the Crowner he came and the Justice too,
With a hue and a cry and a hullabaloo,
And I'll be true to my love
If my love'll be true to me.

They hanged the miller beside his own gate,
With a hey down, bow down
They hanged the miller beside his own gate,
For drowning the farmer's daughter Kate,
And I'll be true to my love
If my love'll be true to me.

The sister she fled beyond the seas,
With a hey down, bow down
The sister she fled beyond the seas,
And died an old maid among black savagees,
And I'll be true to my love
If my love'll be true to me.

So I've ended my tale of the West Countree,
With a hey down, bow down
So I've ended my tale of the West Countree,
And they calls it the Barkshire Tragedee,
And I'll be true to my love
If my love'll be true to me.

Peter And I
1   Peter and I went down the lane,
Down the lane, down the lane,
Peter and I went down the lane,
And sister followed behind.

2    Both of us sisters loved him well,
Loved him well, loved him well.
Both of us sisters loved him well,
And only I can tell.

3    Peter could marry but one of us then,
One of us then, one of us then,
Peter could marry but one of us then,
So sister must go away.

4    Sister was leaning over the well.
Over the well, over the well,
Sister was leaning over the well
When over and in she fell.

5    Sister did cry with all her might,
All her might, all her might,
Sister did cry with all her might.
But I did not help her out.

6   Out of the well they pulled her then,
Pulled her then, pulled her then,
Out of the well they pulled her then.
And laid her on the lawn.

7    In the black hearse we carried her then,
Carried her then, carried her then,
In the black hearse we carried her then.
And buried her on the hill.

8    Peter and I were wed next day,
Wed next day, wed next day;
Peter and I were wed next day.
And O, what people did say !

9    Sorrow and pain are in my heart.
In my heart, in my heart,
Sorrow and pain are in my heart
As sharp as an arrow could be.

10 Peter then left for foreign parts,
Foreign parts, foreign parts,
Peter then left for foreign parts,
And I'll die of a broken heart.

Subject: RE: Minourie (Binorie, Minorie, The Two Sisters)
From: GUEST,Jane Ann Liston
Date: 25 Oct 12 - 05:17 PM

The 'surplus third sister' reminds me of Jane Austen's 'Sense & Sensibility'; at least one TV version dispensed with the youngest sister Margaret because she plays no part in the main story.

Binorie is mentioned in passing by Lord Peter Wimsey in Dorothy L. Sayers 'Strong Poison:

'Two ladies lived in a bower. Binnorie O Binnorie!'

Subject: RE: Minourie (Binorie, Minorie, The Two Sisters)
From: Owen Woodson
Date: 24 Oct 12 - 12:51 PM

I knew a guy once who wanted some information on The Rolling Of The Stones, an American version of Minourie. He googled the title. Google, as it does removed the words The and Of and turned up every single page it could find on some rock group or other called The Rolling Stones.

Subject: LYR ADD: Prince by the Northern Sea
From: Joe_F
Date: 23 Oct 12 - 04:29 PM

_Pace_ MacColl, it is not quite always true that the murderer goes free. In the following version, which is fairly well known (I have it on a Burl Ives record, and it is in the MIT Outing Club Songbook), but seems not to have made it into the DigiTrad, she and the miller both get their comeuppance:

The Prince by the Northern Sea

There was an old prince by the northern sea,
    Bow down, bow down,
There was an old prince by the northern sea,
    Bow and balance to me.
There was an old prince by the northern sea,
And he had daughters one, two, three.
I will be true, true to my love, love,
And my love will be true to me.

A young man he came a-courting there,
And he did choose the young and the fair,

He gave the youngest a gay gold ring,
The eldest thought 'twas a terrible thing,

He gave the youngest a beaver hat,
The eldest sister thought ill of that,

As they walked down by the river's brim
The ugly one pushed the pretty one in,

She floated down where the miller sat,
He took the ring and the beaver hat,

The eldest sister was burned at the stake,
The miller was hanged for what he did take,

In this version, as in some noted above, a superfluous third sister is mentioned only at the beginning. I have sometimes wondered if she wandered in from King Lear. If one wished to button up the story, one might add

The middle sister went off with the prince,
And neither of them has been heard from since.

%^)

Subject: RE: Minourie (Binorie, Minorie, The Two Sisters)
From: GUEST,Djiril
Date: 23 Oct 12 - 03:25 AM

I recently wrote about this ballad on my blog. I don't think I said much that Jim Carroll didn't already say, but I did collect a variety of versions from Youtube.
http://betterknowachildballad.wordpress.com/2012/10/15/child-10-twa-sisters/

Subject: RE: Minourie (Binorie, Minorie, The Two Sisters)
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Oct 12 - 10:08 AM

In the collection of recorded versions of Child Ballads, "The Two Sisters" is the 3rd most common, after #200-"Gypsie Laddie" and #84-"Barbry Allen"

Between 120-140 recorded versions so far, depending on how you count- (multiple recordings by one artist) Some are, of course, almost identical lyrics.

Betsy Whyte's rendition is indeed a classic!

Subject: RE: Minourie (Binorie, Minorie, The Two Sisters)
From: Dave Sutherland
Date: 10 Oct 12 - 07:35 AM

Also worth searching under"The Swan it Swims So Bonny"

Subject: RE: Minourie (Binorie, Minorie, The Two Sisters)
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 10 Oct 12 - 04:07 AM

There is a notion that Binnorie is a contraction of By Norham, which makes a certain sense as to the location of the thing if anyone's familiar with that [art of the world. Here's our version anyway, using the melody as given in the Northumbrian Minstrelsy, desribed as a real ancient Northumbrian air...

http://soundcloud.com/rapunzel-and-sedayne/binnorie

Subject: RE: Minourie (Binorie, Minorie, The Two Sisters)
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 10 Oct 12 - 01:42 AM

Yet another name for this song is The Berkshire Tragedy. Recorded under that name by Nancy Kerr and James Fagan on the CD, Starry Gazy Pie.

Subject: RE: Minourie (Binorie, Minorie, The Two Sisters)
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 09 Oct 12 - 08:12 PM

Bronson includes 97 variants (with tunes)

Subject: RE: Minourie (Binorie, Minorie, The Two Sisters)
From: Deckman
Date: 09 Oct 12 - 02:56 PM

On the "Bob Nelson Folk Music Archive". just posted on MC, you can listen to DON FIRTH sing this ballad. bob

Subject: RE: Minourie
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 02 Oct 12 - 03:42 AM

Never heard of The Holohan sisters before, absolutely brilliant, I also listened to their version of ' Cam Ye Ower Frae France ' superb.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Minourie
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Oct 12 - 03:39 AM

You're welcome
You'll probably get a better result by Googling The Twa (or Two) Sisters, Binorie, or Minorie.
It is an incredible song, one of the first to get me hooked on ballads.
Some of the Scots versions from source singers are well worth seeking out - particularly Traveller Betsy Whyte's recording on 'The Muckle Sangs - if you're into that kind of performance it makes the hairs on the back of your neck bristle.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Minourie
From: GUEST,Jim Clark acoustc archive youtube
Date: 02 Oct 12 - 03:05 AM

Jim Thanks for that info.For such an amazing song it hardly gets a mention via the google search facility.

Kind Regards

Jim

Subject: RE: Minourie
From: GUEST,Jim Clark acoustc archive youtube
Date: 02 Oct 12 - 03:01 AM

The Holohan Sisters at youtube

Subject: RE: Minourie
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 02 Oct 12 - 02:58 AM

Everything you wanted to know about Binorie, Minorie, The Two Sisters.... but were afraid to ask.
Child Ballad 10 - The Twa Sisters
One American scholar (Eleanor Long??) devoted a whole book to it.
Below are the notes to the 4 versions sung by MacColl and Seeger on 'The Long Harvest'
Jim Carroll

The Story
There are many small plot mutations, but the basic story is of two sisters. If there is a third, she disappears after the first verse. A young man comes courting to the younger, the elder becomes jealous and pushes her sister into the water to drown. The oldest versions have a miller pull her out, dead, and leave her on the bank. Several musicians come by and cannibalize the body for parts for musical instruments. They make a harp, or a fiddle, which the musicians take to a wedding—the wedding of the older sister to the younger's lover. The instrument sings the itory of the murder and the older girl is punished or put to death. The vounger is miraculously resurrected and everyone lives happily forever after.
Child has 21 versions and Bronson gives 97. The earliest printed text in English is of a broadside version, 'The Miller and the King's Daughter' (1656). Variants of this popular ballad have been found in England, Scotland, Ireland, North America, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland and the Faroe Islands. It has also been found both as a folk-tale and cante-fable in Hungary, Turkey, Greece, Yugoslavia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, France, Germany, Italy, Holland and Spain. Many of the elements of the archetypal story provide stock motifs for fairy   tales.
To quote Paul G. Brewster, who has written an extended monograph (BIB 4 on this ballad: 'All available evidence points to the Norwegian as the tradition from which the other [versions] have been derived. Ii is not suggested that a Norwegian or any other Scandinavian text is the ultimate source of the story. What does appear certain, however, is that Scandinavian, and particularly Norwegian, tradition, has preserved more of the primitive traits than have any of the others ... it seems likely that the source of the story may have been Slavic, probably Polish'. On the other hand, Harbison Parker (JAFL, Vol. 64, No. 254, pp. 347-360) argues convincingly for the ballad having originated in Britain !
The 'primitive traits' mentioned by Brewster refer to a number of features which are absent in the Scots, English and American versions given here. In the majority of variants, the number of sisters is given as two. Occasionally a third sister is mentioned in the opening stanza (version C) but she is a lay figure and plays no part in the development of the plot. In the older versions of the ballad, the sisters belong to a farming or small land-owning family. Occasionally, in what are probably more recent versions, they are the daughters of a king or an aristocrat (version C) a fact which usually remains undiscovered until the closing stanzas.
Most of the Scandinavian versions stress the contrast in the physical appearance of the two girls; the younger one is fair, 'as white as the sun', often with bonnie yellow hair (version A) and the older is dark, dun, dirty as the earth. Almost all the Scots versions compare the younger sister to a milk-white swan. The disparity in appearance has dire consequences in that the younger sister attracts wooers first and even attracts her sister's would-be suitors. This, in a society where the younger girls were expected to tarry until their older sisters were taken ! The suitor over whom the quarrel and finally the murder takes place is a knight, a lord, squire, miller, merchant, sailor, landlord and sometimes a king's son. In many American texts, he is merely Sweet William, or 'Willie'.
It is always the older sister who proposes the excursion to the water, or seaside, the pretext being to see ships, to bathe or to wash clothes. The mention of a stone from which the younger sister is pushed into the water, is a prominent feature of Scandinavian texts (it being the washing stone) and is prominent in both the Scots texts given here (versions A and B).
The younger sislcr, finding herself in the water, offers a variety of objects in exchange for her deliverance—in the Scandinavian texts it is trinkets, a gold band, a knife; but in the Anglo-American tradition she quite voluntarily offers her land and her lover. Refused help by her sister, she sinks or swims downstream, and a miller (fisherman, minstrel, harper, fiddler) recovers her body or finds it washed ashore. Here our version A terminates. By way of contrast, version C contains a feature common to many English and American variants, i.e., the miller who robs the body, pushes it back into the water and is finally punished for the crime.    At this point version C ends and the murderess goes free.
Where the minstrel-harper-fiddler theme is retained, parts of the girl's body, usually the breastbone, fingers and hair, are taken to make a harp or a fiddle. When played in the presence of the guilty sister, the instrument accuses her (version B ends here). In older forms of the ballad, this disclosure of the murder takes place not in the king's court but in a farmstead or nearby village where the wedding of the elder sister to the younger's lover is being celebrated. Strangely enough, this wedding motif is still present in version D, a children's song.
In the folk-tale form, there often follows a resurrection of the dead girl brought on by the breaking of the harp or fiddle—this element, however, is entirely absent from all the ballad variations.
Finally comes the punishment. The most frequently encountered form is that of being burned at the stake; next is banishment, drowning, stabbing, burying alive and being torn to death by horses. In some bastardized English texts, the elder sister is banished and 'dies an old maid among black savages'.

Subject: RE: Minourie
From: GUEST,Jim Clark acoustc archive youtube
Date: 02 Oct 12 - 02:26 AM

Arghh I see the song has several versions such as this at mudcat

BINNORIE

There lived twa sisters in yonder ha'
Binnorie, o an' Binnorie,
They hid bit ae lad atween them twa,
He's the bonnie miller lad o Binnorie.

It fell aince upon a day
That the auldest ane to the youngest did say
At the bonnie mull dams o Binnorie.


O sister O sister will ye gang to the brooms,
An hear the little blackbirdie changing its tunes
At the bonnie mull dams o Binnorie.


O sister O sister will ye gang to the dams
An see your father's fish boats safe on dry land
An see the mullart lad o Binnorie.


They hidna been half an hour at the brooms
Till they thrice heard the blackbirdie changing its tunes
At the bonnie mull dams O Binnorie.

They hidna been an hour at the dams
Till they saw their father's fish boats safe on dry land
But they sawna the bonnie mullart laddie.

The youngest ane she stood on a stane
The aulest ane dung the youngest in
To the bonnie mull dams o Binnorie.

She swam up an she swam down
Till she swam back tull her sister again
In the bonnie mull dams o Binnorie.

Sister O Sister will ye reach me yere glove
An I'II make you heir o my true love
The bonnie mullart lad O Rinorie.

It wisna for that, that I dang ye in,
It's because ye are fair an I am din*
An ye'll droon in the dams o Binnorie.

Oot cam the aul' mullart's daughter to the dams
For water tae wash her father's hands
Fae the bonnie mull dams o Binnorie.

O father O father go a-fishing your dams
For there's either a mermaid or a milk-white swan
In the bonnie mull dams o Binnorie.

They socht up an they socht down
But they got naething but a droon'd woman
In the bonnie mull dams O Binnorie.

Some o them kent her by her skin so fair
But weel kent the millart by her bonnie yellow hair
She's the millart's bonnie lass o Binnorie.

Some o them kent her by her goon o silk
But the millart laddie kent her by her middle so jimp
'Twas his ain bonnie lass o Binnorie.

Mony a ane was at her oot takin
An mony ane mair at her green grave makin
At the bonnie mull dams o Binnorie.

Subject: Minourie
From: GUEST,Jim Clark acoustc archive youtube
Date: 02 Oct 12 - 02:19 AM

I cant seem to find anything about the lovely song "Minourie" I am just reposting my video of the Holohan Sisters singing the song. all that seems to come up when I imput the name "Minourie" into google is reference to my Holohan sisters video. I must be either doing something wrong of getting the title of this gorgeous song wrong ? Pleas can a kind Mudcatter furnish me with some info about this song ?

Thanks

Kind Regards

Jim Clark
poetryreincarnations and acoustc archive at youtube