Lyr REQ: Ben Ledi by The Celts

Subject: RE: Lyr REQ: Ben Ledi by The Celts
From: GUEST,David
Date: 08 Jun 22 - 11:17 AM

This is what I think the first verse and chorus is:

One evening in winter as snowflakes were falling
Out of the valley a tinker was born
He lay in the gutter he heard someone mutter
It’s better that you had left the whiskey alone

And it’s hey ho love or lie easy this young maiden will never be known
And by the Lord Jesus this winter will freeze us

Subject: RE: Lyr REQ: Ben Ledi by The Celts
From: cnd
Date: 08 Jun 22 - 08:50 AM

Several copies of the album are available on vinyl for about 7-10 dollars (I can link one if you'd like) -- if you have a system or know someone who does you could buy one and record it for someone else to transcribe.

Subject: RE: Lyr REQ: Ben Ledi by The Celts
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jun 22 - 11:26 PM

The poem that was posted does not sound like the song David describes. anybody familiar with it?

David, do you remember phrases or anything else from the song?

Here's a Wikipedia article (click) on the mountain, which is near Stirling. -Joe-

Subject: RE: Lyr ADD: Ben Ledi by The Celts
From: GUEST,email from David C
Date: 07 Jun 22 - 11:24 PM

I have been looking for lyrics to a song - From the album - Capturing The Celtic Spirit (1968) by The Celts from Canada. The song is called Ben Ledi and the lyrics refer to a tinker and winter.   A friend suggested this website.

Thank you,

David C

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ben Ledi by The Celts
From: DonMeixner
Date: 28 Jul 21 - 12:32 PM

Thank you! This is a great help.

Subject: ADD: Ben Ledi (John Stuart Blackie)
From: RunrigFan
Date: 27 Jul 21 - 05:33 PM

A SONG OF BEN LEDI
(Perthshire)
John Stuart Blackie
(1809-1895)
Professor of Greek at the University of Edinburgh

Come, sit on Ledi’s old grey peak,
And sing a song with me,
Where the wild bird whirrs o'er the mosses bleak,
And the wild wind whistles free!
’Tis sweet to lie on the tufted down,
Low, low in the gowany glen ;
But proud is the foot that stands on the crown
Of the glorious Ledi Ben.

Come hither, ye townsmen, soot-besoiled,
Who cower in dingy nooks,
On whom no ray of the sun hath smiled,
To shame your sombre looks.
Come, closely mewed in steaming lanes,
Whom musty chambers pen,
And look abroad on the world of God
From the top of this glorious Ben!

Come ye who sit with moody pains,
And curious-peering looks,
Clogging the veins of your laden brains
With the dust of your maundering books.
Not in your own dim groping souls,
Nor in words of babbling men,
But here His wonders God unrolls—
On the peak of the Ledi Ben.

Look forth on these far-stretching rows
Of huge-ridged mountains high ;
There God His living Epos shows
Of powers that never die.
Far north, far west, each glowing crest
Thy sateless view may ken,
Where proudly they stand to rampart the land,
With this glorious Ledi Ben.

And lo! where eastward, far beneath,
The broad and leafy plain
Spreads on the banks of silvery Teith
Stout labour’s fair domain ;
The smoke from the long white-glancing town,
The loch that gleams in the glen,
All rush to thine eye when castled high
On this glorious Ledi Ben.

Come, sit with me, ye sons of the free,
Join hearty hand to hand,
And claim your part in the iron heart
Of the Grampian-girded land ;
Soft lands of the South on rosy beds
May cradle smoother men,
But the Northern knows his strength when he treads
The heath of the old grey Ben.

Come, sit with me and praise with glee,
On the peak of this granite Ben,
The brave old land, where the stream leaps free
Down the rifts of the sounding glen.
Land of strong hands and glowing hearts,
And mother of stalwart men,
Who nurse free thoughts where the wild breeze floats
On the peak of the Ledi Ben.

https://electricscotland.com/poetry/doggerel301.htm

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ben Ledi by The Celts
From: DonMeixner
Date: 27 Jul 21 - 02:36 PM

Thanks, I shall.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ben Ledi by The Celts
From: GUEST,#
Date: 27 Jul 21 - 11:55 AM

Don, I don't know that these are the lyrics, never having heard the song. But they look like they could be put to a melody.

Go to p.67 at the following link:

https://www.google.ca/books/edition/The_Selected_Poems_of_John_Stuart_Blacki/7U83AAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22Ben+Ledi%22,+song+l

Subject: Lyr Req: Ben Ledi by The Celts
From: DonMeixner
Date: 27 Jul 21 - 11:23 AM

I have a friend who heard Ben Ledi by The Celts on a short wave radio feed and hasn't been able to locate the lyrics. So here I am asking the best lyric resource on the planet.

Don