Origin: Scotland the Brave

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Jack Campin
Date: 25 Feb 26 - 01:43 PM

Let's blickify it:

hand typed

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Lighter
Date: 25 Feb 26 - 08:29 AM

Again?? What's happening?

We'll do it this way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tjDJCFFnIM

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Lighter
Date: 25 Feb 26 - 08:25 AM

The link was cut off:

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Lighter
Date: 25 Feb 26 - 08:23 AM

OK. It's "Scotland the Brave," all right.

As a Mormon hymn, in the U.S. Utah Territory in 1878.

It apparently is the tune's first printing anywhere, though it is not credited to a composer, to tradition, or to anyone.

Presumably a Scots emigrant brought it to the American West, years before its first printing in Scotland,

I know, I know. Incredible. But true:

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Lighter
Date: 24 Feb 26 - 10:55 AM

Nice find, Mick. The title may refer to this, better known as the melody of James Hogg's "Cam Ye by Atholl?"

"The tune was published [1822] with the note: "Slowly by Niel Gow Junr. Sung by Miss Paton in London under the title of Bonnie Brave Scotland."

https://tunearch.org/wiki/Annotation:Lady_Ann_Carnegie%27s_Favorite

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 24 Feb 26 - 10:50 AM

Lighter, having just researched Bonny Brave Scotland, found Niel Gow's tune, and discounted its association, I just spotted that you'd already done that earlier! I must have skipped over that bit when I was reading the thread earlier. Oh, well!

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Lighter
Date: 24 Feb 26 - 10:43 AM

Jack, the source of the music for these singers is a fascinating question.

The evidence strongly suggests that Hyslop's song was rarely if ever sung before 1866, seven years after its appearance under the new title "Scotland the Brave."

The title "Scotland the Brave" does not appear in Levy.

Surprisingly none of the 19th century UK/US newspaper runs I've been able to search seem to include any advertisement for any sheet music of "Scotland the Brave" (or "Scottish National Melody," for that matter). Literally millions of pages have been searched.

Here is an earlier example of a march with the right title played by a Highland regimental band:

Edinburgh Evening News (March 4, 1878):

"DEPARTURE OF THE 78TH REGIMENT FROM EDINBURGH CASTLE...On the Esplanade a small crowd soon collected, and as the men marched down Lawnmarket to the music of 'Scotland the brave,' the numbers rapidly increased."

A recent Wikipedia update eventually took me here:

https://archive.org/details/utahmusicalbouqu00unse/page/78/mode/2up

Flip to Number 79, "Praise to the Man." I'm not clever enough to read all the notes, but the first bars may well resemble today's "Scotland the Brave."

How about the rest of it? In a Mormon hymnal of 1878? The same year as the 78th left Edinburgh?? What the...????

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 24 Feb 26 - 09:12 AM

Re: Bonny Brave Scotland mentioned above, LOC has a copy of the sheet music (songs, high voice with piano) Published: G. Willig [between 1824 and 1827], Philadelphia. The music is not available online, only the index entry, so no way to check relevance.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Jack Campin
Date: 24 Feb 26 - 07:43 AM

I wonder what sources those American singers would have used? Probably single-song sheets with salon piano accompaniments? Libraries are lousy at cataloguing that genre, is it in the Lester Levy collection?

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Lighter
Date: 23 Feb 26 - 07:05 PM

Lennox [Scotland] Herald (Feb. 17, 1866):

"He also...sang 'Scotland the Brave.'"

Cincinnati Daily Inquirer (Dec. 1, 1869):

"Mr. Lawrence Maxwell...sang 'Scotland the Brave.'"

Fall River [Mass.] Daily Evening News (Nov. 1, 1873):

"'Scotland the Brave' [was sung] by Mr. McAlpine."

Minneapolis Tribune (Dec. 1, 1875):

"St. Andrews Celebration...Song, 'Scotland the Brave,' John Miller."

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Allan Conn
Date: 17 Aug 21 - 12:14 PM

It was not only Lowland Scots who fought on the gvt side. Many Highland Scots did too. It was the last kick of civil conflict that had been going on in Scotland since the late 1630s.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Aug 21 - 07:07 AM

Let's all have a go now at what the Irish have nicked & claimed as theirs over the years

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Megan L
Date: 17 Aug 21 - 04:21 AM

Guest at least try to get facts correct Many who fought in the British army at Culloden were lowland Scots. There were reasons for the hatred Glasgow had to petition the King to recompense the tradesmen of the city who were forced to make shoes coats and other items for the rebel army amid threats.

quote from Electric Scotland since I am away from my books
"Prince Charles Edward Stewart reviewed the Jacobite army at Glasgow Green. The city of Glasgow was coerced into supplying the Jacobites with goods including twelve thousand shirts, six thousand coats and six thousand pairs of hose."

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Aug 21 - 07:08 PM

nicked from the older O'Donnell Abú

like a lot of things a$$umed scottish
Kilt tartan - invention of Germanic so called royals - not long after dividing and slaughtering real Scots at Culloden.

Whiskey recorded much earlier & invented in Ireland.

Pipes as above though perhaps invention is of the world, but oldest pipes found are in ireland!

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Lighter
Date: 17 Sep 15 - 02:23 PM

Sung slowly and dramatically enough, I think Hyslop's words do scan the melody reasonably well - at least as well as they do "Roderick Vich McAlpine" - assuming Hyslop was thinking of Sanderson's "Hail to the Chief."

While Guest is right that we don't know for sure what words or melody was used for "Scotland the Brave" on the stage, his discovery of an 1859 newspaper printing of "Scottish National Melody" under the new title of "Scotland the Brave" - added to the fact that the apparently new melody fits the words well enough (especially the internal rhymes that are emphasized by the high part of the tune)- makes it far more likely than not that Hyslop's lyrics were sung to a recognizable version of the familiar tune. Otherwise we'd have to conjecture additional tunes and perhaps additional lyrics, even though there's no evidence they existed.

To push the analysis just a little further: the "STB" march may be a military adaptation of a more leisurely melodic style. Think of various pop songs played by marching bands today.

Jack's observation about the key change from Logan to Macdonald is valuable. The two editors seem to have learned the tune independently. Hence the disparate titles of "Brave Scotland" and "Scotland for Ever." (The latter phrase, of course, is also in Hyslop's song. It is said to have been the battle-cry of the Scots Greys at Waterloo in 1815.)

It is significant that Macdonald specifically calls it a "trumpet march" rather than a pipe march.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 08:11 PM

JUST CHECKED AND THE ADVERT MADE ME MAKE A MISTAKE. IT IS IN THE INVERNESS COLLECTION, NOT SIMON FRASER'S THE PUBLISHERS DIDN'T SPLIT THE ADVERTHEADING VERY WELL.

SO CAPTAIN S. FRASERS COLLECTION DOES NOT INCLUDE BRAVE SCOTLAND MARCH. It's in the INVERNESS COLLECTION BOOK 4 3rd Edition.

If only we could upload images life would be much easier!   Thanks for helping me unravel this mystery a bit Jack, and Lighter.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 08:02 PM

Sorry Jack I thought you were Lighter!!! That's fantastic research.   It's you and Lighter who have done all this work and disprove some of the stuff that's floating on the Internet.   In the advert It has Inverness Collection and a long spiel below the Captain S. Fraser and doesn't split the two it's all on one advert. Maybe I'm mixing The Inverness Collection books with Fraser's? Is it in various parts? The advert is a bit confusing and runs together. I have the 1878 edition of the Fraser book (free PDF) and the 1816 one (free PDF) and it's not in either. I'll check the ad. again. The 1859 newspaper printing is definite for the Hyslop 'Scotland the Brave' and the first newspaper mention of the title (so far) - but we'll never know the tune!

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Jack Campin
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 07:11 PM

Captain Simon Fraser died in 1852, and as far as I know the only edition of his collection that he had anything to do with was published in 1816 (it bankrupted him). Anybody republishing it in the 1890s with their own additions would not have been referring to any older source for the new stuff. They probably just got it from Keith Norman Macdonald.

"Brave Scotland" is in F in the Gesto Collection. It's in C a bit later in two of Logan's collections (Highland Music and the Inverness Collection). The key variation suggests it didn't come from the pipe band repertoire - if it had, it would have stayed in A/D within the 9-notes-from-G, 2-sharps scale. The pipe tunes recycled for the fiddle by Kerr and Mozart Allan, or the known ones recycled by Logan himself, weren't messed around like that.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 06:48 PM

Lighter, you and I are the only ones enjoying the challenge!   My last contribution. We know that it was also called 'Brave Scotland' and is in the Gesto collection 1891-5.

I have also found that in 1891-2 'Brave Scotland March' was published in Book 4, 3rd edition of Captain S. Fraser's collection put out in Inverness. So does this mean it appeared in an earlier edition - or was it added then?

The 1859 use of the title 'Scotland the Brave' on the front page of the newspaper, is the first time the phrase appears as a title in a musical context in any British Newspaper (so far scanned). This could though be any tune called 'Scotland the Brave' as annoyingly we have no full proof. We do know that there is a military march of that name. That's probably as far as we can go!

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Jack Campin
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 06:31 PM

Hyslop's words are a very bad fit to the modern StB tune. If somebody was trying to write a new tune for them (why? they're crap) they'd have used a different metrical scheme.

Hanley described how he came to write StB and the occasion of its first performance, but I don't recall him saying anything at all about the tune.

The earliest copy of a tune called Scotland the Brave for the pipes that I can find in Pekaar's index was from:

Piping For Boys, J. Percy Sturrock; Stirling: Eneas Mackay, 43 Murray Place; 1909 (Cannon 340)

which would have been the source for the Boys Brigade manuscript I read in the NLS. Pekaar doesn't do dates very well, though.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Lighter
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 05:21 PM

Guest, our posts crossed. Congratulations on your investment and your crucial 1859 discovery, as well as further references.

It would be perverse to doubt that the stage song "STB" was based on Hyslop's lyric and sung to more or less the modern marching tune.

The evidence reinforces my suggestion that the tune appeared in the '60s - though 1859 is just as likely. (It could be earlier, of course, but the evidence seems not to be there.)

Now who was the genius behind the tune?

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Lighter
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 05:09 PM

Very interesting. Elsewhere I read that "Bonny Brave Scotland" was sung to the outstanding tune by Niel Gow to which James Hogg set the words of "Cam Ye by Athol?"

The melody is called "Lady Ann Carnegie's Favorite" :

http://abcnotation.com/tunePage?a=tunearch.org/wiki/Lady_Ann_Carnegie%27s_Favorite.no-ext/0001

So there's no real relationship to "Scotland the Brave."

The early mentions of the tune "Scotland the Brave" all relate to military bands as far back as the 1860s. The composition of the melody may well have been inspired by the words of Hyslop's poem and by Haliday's "O'Donnell Abu."

If it was composed in the 1860s by a regimental bandmaster (say, in the 92d Gordon Highlanders, Charles R. Martin's regiment) it might well have escaped notice in print for many years and its composer might have remained anonymous.

And the song performed by Miss Hunter in the '70s may plausibly be explained as Hyslop's words wedded to an arrangement of the same march.

Without a manuscript notation of the 1870s or earlier (preferably with the date and the name of the composer), the details of the origin of "Scotland the Brave" - beyond its apparent inspiration in the words of Hyslop's "Scottish National Melody" are likely to remain permanently elusive.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Sep 15 - 02:53 PM

I've got a temporary subscription to Find My Past. It has the newspaper index and pages.   I have found a reference to "Scotland the Brave" AS THE FORMAL TITLE of Hyslop's 'song'. ... "Following stirring and patriotic song".   It then has Hyslop's words claimed to be a fresh work under the STB name - when the were in fact published decades earlier in 1821 by the Scots magazine under the completely different title.   This is in the Dumfries and Galloway Standard of 9th November 1859.

From the early 1860's - 1880's (before the known printed editions) there are then numerous entries for a music theater song of the name 'Scotland The Brave', and a military band tune which is stated to be a march - and associated with a number of regiments.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 07:42 PM

Lighter There is a 19th century print of 'Bonny Brave Scotland' lyric here.   Ballads on line.

http://ballads.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/static/images/sheets/25000/22960.gif

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Lighter
Date: 15 Sep 15 - 07:16 PM

Relevant?

Concert Program, Theatre Royal, Covent Garden (Feb. 15, 1826) [from database Nineteenth Century Collections Online]:

"Part III, A GRAND MISCELLANEOUS ACT To commence with the celebrated overture to ZAUBERFLOTE. - (Mozart)

"Song, Miss PATON - 'Bonny brave Scotland.'"

The bill for May 13, 1826, elaborates the description of Miss Paton's number to "Scotch Song...'Bonny brave Scotland.'"

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Sep 15 - 10:39 PM

Whoops!   Sorry misread my own writing

IT'S FRANCIS T. ROBERTSON by TOM ANDERSON!!!!

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Sep 15 - 10:35 PM

This reel mentioned above by Lighter- originally a fiddle tune was a Tom Anderson work, Susan T. Robertson. It is very similar to STB in cadences but with suitable changes to create another copyright work. The late Tom Anderson is not credited on the link, but is credited with the MCPS/PRS and it appeared in one of his printed tune collections.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Sep 15 - 09:24 PM

A reel learned in Edinburgh in 1995 that clearly derives from "STB" - and almost deserves the same title:

http://www.folktunefinder.com/tune/17195/

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Sep 15 - 04:12 PM

If you type in exact phrase search of the British Newspaper Archive search it helps. Then it gives a date range to narrow it down further. However, the Optical Recognition software that they used often gives misread gibberish characters - so it's hit and miss as to what comes up. Then you have to pay to actually see the full entry.

From this index there seems to be an entry 'Brave Scotland' in an advert from 1891 for the fourth edition Simon Fraser collection. However, I am seeing the two words without full context. So it may not be real.   I found FULL free download scanned PDF's of an 1870'S edition of Fraser's collection and an earlier edition - neither contain the title 'Brave Scotland' or 'Scotland the Brave' etc.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 14 Sep 15 - 03:25 PM

Newspaper searches for "Scotland Forever/...for Ever" and "Brave Scotland" in musical contexts before 1893 seem to be virtually impossible.   There are just too many appearances of the words.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Sep 15 - 02:48 PM

Thanks Lighter, that is a superb and important summary.   You and all earlier contributors take a work of national importance back further in history than sources such as NLS and Wiki.   The problem is nobody else has put it all this down, apart from on this site - so it's time a revision was made.   Some on-line sources say it's not as ancient a tune as it sounds (implying late 19th/early 20th century).   WE NOW KNOW it's at least mid-19th century - but can't find an original contemporary music manuscript with it from that period. You'd think when it was being theatrically performed and also for military bands, that somebody must have written it down.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 14 Sep 15 - 02:25 PM

Thanks, Guest. By punching the wrong button I inadvertently deleted a long list of quotations from that site, which I don't have the patience to retype.

But in summary, they prove that a tune called "Scotland the Brave" was mentioned not infrequently in Scottish newspapers from 1868 or '69 right into the '90s, after which no further examples seem necessary.

Guest's earliest NLS example, in 4/2 time, is from 1891. And it explicitly accompanies the words of Hyslop's poem.

"Miss E. Hunter, the Famous Scottish Prima Donna" is noted as having sung a stage song by that name on various occasions in 1878-79. Surely this was the tune and text that the NLS 1891 source had in mind.


As for the "O'Donnell" connection,

http://digital.nls.uk/broadsides/broadside.cfm/id/15846 :

"The tune for O'Donnell Abu was composed in the early part of the 19th century by Joseph Haliday, a man from Carrick-on-Suir, Co. Tipperary. He was bandmaster of the Cavan militia. Michael McCann, a young Galway man, added words to the music."

"The early part" could mean any time before 1850. Hyslop's poem appeared in 1821, in exactly the right measure to fit either "STB" or "O'Donnell." The above statement, however, contradicts the one I've already posted which claims that Haliday wrote the tune to fit McCann's 1843 words and to replace an earlier one!

Either way, one tune may well have influenced the other. "Scotland the Brave" may have come first, simply owing to the 1821 date of the poem, which Hyslop intended to be sung to "Roderick Vich Alpine Dhu." On the other hand, our limited evidence suggests that "StB" became known only in the 1860s, at least ten years after Haliday's composition.

If only we had the one or two other "Roderick" tunes (other than "Hail to the Chief") composed in 1811, we'd know more!

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Sep 15 - 01:40 PM

http://www.nls.uk/collections/music/songindex/fullrecord.cfm?searcher=%AC&idnum=327

The National Library have a new song/tune database (on-line), with very short MP3 instrumental stabs and notation. They also give a little potted history of the tunes. Jack you and others have taken the tune back further than the 'official' sources, if they are all referring to the same one.

The National Library collect diverse cultural material, not just books and prints.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Sep 15 - 10:12 AM

the Scottish National Library are also wrong in their dating of the first mentions of it.

You mean the National Library of Scotland?

What are you referring to, and why would dating a tune be part of their remit?

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Sep 15 - 09:13 AM

I found a couple of references to Scotland the Brave in the 1870's and 80's - both as a theater song (obviously not Hanley's 1940's version), and as a military instrumental.   But is it a totally unrelated song or tune of the same name? If you go to the website British Newspaper Library Archive, there is an on-line (incomplete) index of UK newspapers. Type the phrase in (put in exact match). And you get tantalizing mentions and a line extract, but you have to join and pay a hefty fee to see the full entry.

This is one of Scotland's most important tunes, almost our anthem -yet the Wiki entry is wrong, the Scottish National Library are also wrong in their dating of the first mentions of it.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 14 Sep 15 - 08:05 AM

> in that case, you would expect a paper trail.

Possibly not. If the piece was composed by a regimental piper or pipe-major, it may well have circulated aurally or in manuscript for years without publication.

It's an easy tune to memorize. I did so in no time when I was about eleven, after hearing it two or three times in a commercial for Campbell's "tender-hearted beans."

The tune was undoubtedly better known to the general public than the title. (This is true of many pieces today.) Hence "The Irishman's Toast," "Scotland for Ever," "Brave Scotland," "Bonnie Lassie," and, perhaps, the confusion with "O'Donnell Abu." If the Victorian journalists did not know the title of one of the tunes played, they could simply ask.

What we know for certain is that a tune called "Scotland for Ever" (the title given to "Scotland the Brave" by Macdonald in 1893) was played in 1869) and "Scotland the Brave" from at least 1883.

If no other tune is known to have gone by these titles, the simplest interpretation is that today's "Scotland the Brave" was played - in easily recognizable form - by Highland regiments as early the latter 1860s, but was not published (and then anonymously) till the 1890s. By 1897, even some uillean pipers like Corrigan were playing it.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Sep 15 - 07:36 PM

Likely that Macdonald meant it was in his head, and it originated a generation becore he published it.

Very few tune books for the Highland pipes were published in that period. Pekaar's index should cover them all. It wouldn't be surprising if the tune circulated in oral tradition and manuscript for that long. The odd thing is the allusions that suggest it was well known to the general public in the 1860s - in that case, you would expect a paper trail.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 13 Sep 15 - 03:42 PM

I've now been able to consult the "Gesto" version.

It is almost identical to "Scotland the Brave" as currently played.

The editor, Keith Norman Macdonald, writes in his preface that he has carried *most* of the tunes "about" with him for "upwards of thirty years."

Whether he means in manuscript or just in memory, he doesn't say.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 12 Sep 15 - 03:33 PM

Charles R. Martin, "Adventures of a Highland Soldier on Active Service

at Home and Abroad" (Ottawa, 1892), p.5:


"We arrived in Cork at about six a.m. of a Sunday morning [in January, 1868]., and as we marched through the streets with the band playing 'Scotland the Brave,' you could plainly hear them say, 'What a foine body o' men,' etc."


Martin enlisted in the 92nd Gordon Highlanders in 1867. After nearly twenty-five years, his memory may have been incorrect, but at least he firmly places "Scotland the Brave" in the latter 1860s as a favorite march; this is in line with the contemporary mention of it in the Morning Post as being played in London in 1869.

The plausible appearance of "Scotland the Brave" in Ireland in the late '60s supports the idea that Corrigan's "Irishman's Toast" became known to uillean pipers not long after, though perhaps they did not know (or appreciate) the Scottish military title. Hence its replacement by "The Irishman's Toast" and possibly others - including, apparently, "O'Donnell Abu."

A number of Scottish tune books for war pipes were published in the nineteenth century. Few of these are online. It now seems likely that "Scotland the Brave," under one title or another, appeared in one or more of them even before the Gesto Collection in 1893.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 05 Sep 15 - 11:45 AM

> Henderson didn't seem to have a name for it...in 1948.

Hard to imagine....

But with so few early mentions, maybe it only became a "standard" at the end of WW2? Or, as a result of Hanley's song, even later?

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 Sep 15 - 11:19 AM

Cliff Hanley used a tune which was already known as "Scotland the Brave" when he wrote his song (1949, I think). Henderson didn't seem to have a name for it when he wrote The John Maclean March in 1948.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 05 Sep 15 - 10:19 AM

John McDermott sings the words posted by Malcolm (and slightly adapted from Hyslop, 1821) to the familiar "Scotland the Brave" tune - under the title "Scotland Forever":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaQOHoG-RrA

And Ewan, always when I say tunes are "close variants" or "about the same," I mean that the average quasi-musical person like myself recognizes them as very much the same. When I say they're "different," I mean that it takes quite a perceptive listener to discover a real resemblance.

Joe asked on another thread whether "Do Me Ama" and "Yarmouth Town" are "the same song." I think that question comes from overexposure to the early ballad scholars' desire to find traditional "links" and then lump songs together as being the "same," even if the textual and melodic differences are obvious.

I think the tunes of "Scotland the Brave" and Corrigan's "Irishman's Toast" are "about the same." The usual tune of "O'Donnell Abu" bears only a slight *melodic* resemblance, and melodies are what I'm talking about. "Hail to the Chief" bears none. "The Bloody Fields of Flanders" bears none except perhaps somewhat in the opening bars. To my way of thinking, that means that like "Hail to the Chief," it's a different tune by any ordinary standards.

The latter tunes differ even more than do the words of "Yarmouth Town" and "Do Me Ama." They're unmistakable.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 09:21 PM

From "The 42d Highlanders," Morning Post (London), Nov. 11, 1869, p.3:

"During the march to Inverleith toll the band played 'Scotland for Ever,' 'The Red, White, and Blue,' 'Home, Sweet Home,' and 'Loudon's Bonnie Woods and Braes.'"

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 09:07 PM

Thanks, Jack and Ewan.

The British Library dates the Gesto Collection to 1893.

According to Nigel Gatherer at The Session, the tune there "goes under the title 'Scotland For Ever' or 'Brave Scotland', and is described as a 'Trumpet March'."

The tune seems not to be anywhere online.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 06:19 PM

Well, I carefully said that Hamish Henderson stated this tune relationship before me. I then thought about it, and considered that I could recognise a good family sequence of these song tunes. I know that others disagree. I do not have the musicologist skill to explain what I am identifying in the shape, the distinctive lift in the second half of the tunes, and the key notes in the tunes, sorry. We hear what we hear, and make sense of it as we can.
Hamish Henderson wrote to me that in 1943 he heard 'The Bloody Fields of Flanders', a pipe march that was made during the First World War, played on the beachhead at Anzio in Italy, and remembered it when he came to write the 'The Freedom Come-All-Ye', and before that for 'The John Maclean March'.
Cliff Hanley wrote his lyric 'to an old pipe tune' for a show in the Glasgow Empire music hall in around 1950, to first be sung in public by Robert Wilson, who needed a song to close the act of his performance at a Christmas Scottish review musical show. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable can identify a different pipe tune as Cliff's source?

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: Jack Campin
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 05:28 PM

The Gesto Collection is from the 1880s. I think that's the earliest in print. I don't have a copy handy but I seem to remember it's set in the style of a typical "fiddle march".

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 04:48 PM

To clarify, I'm not saying that "Scotland the Brave" comes from "The Irishman's Toast." The opposite is far more likely.

References to the Scottish march suggest that it became popular around 1880 and was circulating anonymously among Highland regimental bands.

Surprisingly, "The Irishman's Toast" looks to be the earliest printing of (a clearly recognizable variant of) "Scotland the Brave." It seems impossible to know for certain when the modern version became current, because printings are so surprisingly late!

It is just possible that Hyslop's poem either inspired the tune, or (less likely) was inspired by it. It's surely significant that the poem's unusual scansion almost perfectly matches the tune, and that it ends with the words "Scotland the brave!"

The 1934-36 confusion of "Scotland the Brave" and "O'Donnell Aboo" is to me also surprising. Maybe it was simply someone's misrecollection or misunderstanding that became enshrined in print.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 04:29 PM

Ewan, I don't hear much of a resemblance at all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNJ5Sl-x5t8

Could you explain precisely how "Flanders" resembles "Scotland"?

To my ear, "Bonny Glenshee" may be a smidgen closer to "Scotland the Brave," but I can't imagine anyone ever confusing them!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNJ5Sl-x5t8

Corrigan's "Irishman's Toast" of ca1910, however, hardly differs from "Scotland the Brave."

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST,Ewan McVicar
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 04:16 PM

Surprised that it has not been said that the tune is The Bloody Fields Of Flanders. This is in turn a piper version of the song tune Bonny Glenshee. Hamish Henderson pointed this out.

Subject: RE: Origin: Scotland the Brave
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 04 Sep 15 - 08:19 AM

Thanks, LJ. Will see if it works on a Bb whistle. We could use some rain here.

I wonder if the alleged title "Bonnie Lassie" comes from a poor recollection of Harry Lauder's "I Love a Lassie." A few bars (but no more) somewhat resemble "Scotland the Brave" :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcCyHc89m7A