Subject: RE: Child 68 Field Recording with bugle horn
From:
Jim Carroll
Date: 07 Jun 18 - 10:30 AM
No bugle I'm afraid, but in my opinion this is the finest 'field' version of this ballads I have ever come across, it rates pretty highly as one of the best ballad singing ever.
It can be found on the fairly recently reissued (from cassette) 'Songs of the Irish Travellers'- a fine collection from the field work of Tom Munnelly
The singer made his living chopping and selling logs, hence the background accompaniment by his son
I can't find it on Utube, but anybody wishing to hear it contact me
Jim Carroll
Martin McDonagh (74), Lanabawn, Roscommon, Co Roscommon, 22 May 1974 IFC TM 293
3. Lady Margaret
Will you bow down, Lord Thomas, he said,
Will you bow down all night?
It's you'll have cheer and company
And candles burning bright, bright,
And candles burning bight.
Oh then, I'll not bow down, Lady Margaret, he said,
Or I'll not bow down at all
Because I have a far better bride than you
Is beyond Lord Bernet's wall.
So she took him by the saddle skirts
For to kiss his lips so sweet
But she held a penknife in her hand
Is that wounded him full deep
Oh, you wounded me, Lady Margaret, he said,
And you wounded me full sore;
Was there ever a lady in this wide world
That I loved ne'er so more?
She called upon her waiting maids
By one, by two, by three,
Will you take this honourable gentleman
And this time it is in by me?
One of them took him by the saddle skirts
And the other by the feet
And they throw him into that yon spring well
That was fifty fathoms deep.
Oh then up comes this little robin bird
And he lay all on this tree,
You go home, go home, lady Margaret, he said
And pay your maids their fee, (their fee)
Oh will you come to me is my little robin bird
And light all on my knee?
I will make a cage of the best of gold
In the stead of that briar tree.
Oh then, I'll not go to you, Lady Margaret, he said,
Nor I'll not go to you at all,
When you proved so false to your own true love
Is you will prove false to me, (me, when you would )
Oh if I had my bow arrow here
And it set all on my knee
Wouldn't I fire and shoot that bold bold bird
Is that spoke so bold to me, (to me....?)
Oh if you had your bow arrow here
And it set all on your knee
Oh wouldn't I take wings and fly away
To some foreign countery, y,
To some foreign counter (spoken) y?
TM: Martin, where did you get that?
Well, I suppose I was only a very wee boy when I heard that now.
Who did you hear it from ? Can you remember?
-I do, I heard it from my mother,
the Lord have mercy on her
What was her name Martin, what was her full name?
Kate McDonagh was her name.
The late Martin Mcdonagh was a tall moustachioed man with a very dignified bearing. This impassive dignity is very much a part of his exquisite ballad singing. At the time of the recording he was settled with his genial son - also named Martin -who has learnt a number of his father's songs.
Log - chopping can be heard in the background of the recording.
This ballad - Child no 68, Young Hunting - has rarely been published from Irish sources, yet it is quite common among Irish Travellers, from whom I have recorded it a number of times. See also A. Gardner-Medwyn 'Miss Reburn's Ballads' in Ballad studies ed. E.B. Lyle, London 1976, pp. 93-116; Patrick Kennedy Evenings in the Duffrey pp. 101-2.
Text: 1.1 for she said 1.2 tape: all light? 3.4. etc Is emphatic link 4.4 tape: there so more? 8.2. tape: write? 8.3 or make ye a 11.3 sung: take fl-wings
|
sj
