Lyr Req: Lang A-Growing (from Liam Clancy)

Subject: Lyr. Req.:Lang A Growing
From: The Lighthouse
Date: 24 Mar 00 - 09:30 PM

I have this song on a Liam Clancy CD and was wondering if anyone knows what the title means. I can't figure it out from the rest of the song!! Help????!!!!

Subject: RE: Lyr. Req.:Lang A Growing
From: Margaret V
Date: 24 Mar 00 - 10:07 PM

Don't know the Clancy version, but assume it's the ballad a.k.a. "Long a-growing" or "The Trees They Do Grow High," with "lang" being a variant of "long." The title refers to a young man (teenager) who will be growing up for several years before reaching manhood. His youth is lamented by his fiancee who is older than he is by a decade or so in most versions, and who does not relish waiting around for him to grow up. The betrothal has been arranged for its socioeconomic benefit. . .

Subject: RE: Lyr. Req.:Lang A Growing
From: The Lighthouse
Date: 24 Mar 00 - 11:43 PM

Thanks Margaret That has to be the right answer because the song you mentioned is the song I was looking for!!! Thanks!

Subject: RE: Lyr. Req.:Lang A Growing
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 25 Mar 00 - 12:22 AM

I's about Elizabeth Innes and her ill-fated marriage to the young Laird of Craigstoun.

Subject: RE: Lyr. Req.:Lang A Growing
From: GUEST,Elianna Ruppin
Date: 08 Aug 00 - 09:35 AM

How do you know that it's about Elizabeth Innes? Who is she, anyway? I've tried searching for information about her or "the young Laird of Craigstoun" and can't find any information about either of them. Where could I find more (any) information? I'm just extremely curious, as I really like this song.

Subject: RE: Lyr. Req.:Lang A Growing
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 08 Aug 00 - 10:31 AM

The song with a short history is "The Young Laird of Caigstoun" is in James Maidment's 'A North Countrie Garland', pp, 21-4, 1824.

Subject: RE: Lyr. Req.:Lang A Growing
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 09 Aug 00 - 02:11 PM

I've added The Young Laird of Craigstoun to the  The Trees They Go Grow High  thread.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Lyr. Req.:Lang A Growing
From: Abby Sale
Date: 09 Aug 00 - 03:04 PM

Elianna Ruppin & Bruce: This is extremely controversial but most likely untrue. The story had been attached to the song for centuries, though. The first I ever saw to counter it's cannonicality was Lloyd in The Penguin Book of English Songs (p124) He notes it's generally reported through the generally unreliable Kidson with the 1634 marriage story. He suggests the song may actually be older. Since thin is a favorite song of mine and, as you know, one of the classic non-Child examples, I spent some time on it. Most all of the cites are lifted verbatum from previous cites, including a general failure to identify just which Spaulding first gave the civil register data and which book & volume. (Even, surprisingly, Sharp fails here.) I did dig, I tell you. Turns out to be the Trubbles of Scotland or something like that. Spaulding was not a scholar and the recording is good for the era but confused. The connection of the events cited at various places in the journal and this Craigston and this song are tenuous at best. I could dig out the exact wording if you get violent at me - I xeroxed it & put it somewhere.

Subject: RE: Lyr. Req.:Lang A Growing
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Aug 00 - 03:11 PM

No violence, but if you find it, it'd be interesting...

Subject: RE: Lyr. Req.:Lang A Growing
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 09 Aug 00 - 04:00 PM

Abby, you sent me an extract from Spalding, but I misplaced it. I remember that it was very difficult to interpret, and I did't get very far with it.

For what it is worth here is the headnote from 1884 reprint of the 1824 edition of Maidment's A North Countrie Garland. There is nothing there to indicate that ballad and its history came from C. K. Sharpe. Sharpe was a respected historian of witchcraft in Scotland.]

The Young Laird of Craigstoun

The estate of Craigstoun was acquired by John Urquhart, better known by the name of Tutor of Cromarty. It would appear that the ballad refers to his grandson, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Robert Innes of that ilk, and by her had one son. This John Urquhart died November 30, 1634. Spalding (vol. i. p. 36), after mentioning the great mortality in the Craigstoun family, says: "Thus in three years' space the good-sire, son, and boy died." He adds that "the Laird of Innes (whose sister was married to this Urquhart of Leathers, the father), and not without her consent, as was thought, gets the guiding of this young boy, and without advice of friends, shortly and quietly marries him, upon his own eldest daughter, Elizabeth Innes." He mentions that young Craigstoun's death was generally attributed to melancholy, in consequence of Sir Robert Innes refusing to pay old Craigstoun's debts: the three creditors bestowing "many maledictions, which touched the young man's conscience, albeit he could not mend it." The father died in December, 1631, and the son in 1634. The marriage consequently must have been of short duration.

......................................................
I don't see that the doubters have come up with evidence for anything else.

Sharpe's ballad tunes are a bit of a mystery, to me at any rate. He seems to have published none. A very few are known. Lady John Scott purchased his MSS (all?) after his death, and according to one source added to them. What remains is cataloged under her name at NLS. I know little more about them. Jack Campin has been through them or one at any rate, and has put a tune or two on the internet, but hasn't said much publicly about them that I know of. [Click on his website from my homepage. For tunes composed by Sharpe's father and sister see the books of Gow's 'Strathspey Reels' (Charles and Miss Sharpe of Hoddom).]

Subject: RE: Lyr. Req.:Lang A Growing
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 09 Aug 00 - 06:58 PM

Malcolm noted (on the other thread) "Lady Mary Ann" by Robert Burns in DT. It's from 'The Scots Musical Museum', #377 (with 'straught' mispelled).

C. K. Sharpe gave a 'Lang a-growing' text only slightly differently from that in 'A North Countrie Garland' in 'Additional Illustrations to The Scots Musical Museum,', #377, but with a bit more Scots vernacular, and chorus given in full on several verses, and said his text was from a manuscript.

He repeats a little of the earlier note on Craigston (not Craigstoun) and Elizabeth Innes, including the reference to Spalding's History, vol. I, p. 36. He said that the ballad first appeared in Maidment's 'A North Countrie Garland', 1824, but made no mention of his connection with that text. He said Burns noted the song and tune (in SMM) from a lady in 1787, during his tour in the North of Scotland.

Earlier, Stenhouse in 'Illustrations to the Scots Musical Museum', #377, said Burns modeled his song on a fragment of an ancient ballad entitled "Graigston's Growing" still preserved in a manuscript collection of Ancient Scottish Ballads, in the possession of the Rev. Robert Scott, minister of the parish of Glenbuchet. [The forthcoming Glenbuchat MS]. I suspect the text in 'Additional Illustrations' is that from the Glenbuckat MS. This would mean that C. K. Sharpe didn't collect it, and I understand that there are no tunes for ballads in the Glenbucket collection.

Undoubtably Stenhouse was correct and Sharpe was wrong on the source of Burns' song. Burns' source was probably the fragment in David Herd's MSS (which, it has been noted elsewhere, Burns had seen) c 1776 [p. 145 of Hans Hecht's 'Songs from David Herd's Manuscripts', 1904] where the fragment is the following:

My love is long a-growing

She looked o'er the castle-wa',
She saw three lords play at the ba':
"O the youngest is the flower of a',
But my love is lang o' growing.

"O father, gin ye think it fit,
We'll set him to the college yet,
And tye a ribbon round his hat,
And, father, I'll gang wi' him!"

The first 2 verses of Burns' song seems to be based on the 2 above, and the last 3 of Burns' song really have nothing to do with the old ballad.

Subject: RE: Lyr. Req.:Lang A Growing
From: Abby Sale
Date: 09 Aug 00 - 09:17 PM

John Spalding, Memorialls of the Trubles in Scotland and England, A.D. 1624 - A.D. 1645. Most of the meat is as Bruce quotes. But there is a second section in Spalding that equivocates the whole thing. As he says " it was very difficult to interpret, and I did't get very far with it" and that would go for me (and everybody else) too. Spalding, remember, is not a historian or researcher - he's some sort of registrar, recording (as well as he can) events of his own time as reported to him. The history of Craigston may be valid - there is only this one source and the account varies - but the connection to the song is unproven.

Mrrzy: I'll be happy to sent an OCR of the Spalding as well as the considerable back and forth & citations we (Bruce & I & several others not at Mudcat) did in 1995. It would need to be either a Word doc (specify which) or an rtf. The Spalding comes in several type faces so it pretty much needs to be formatted. All the other cites could be ascii. Actually, the Maidmont quote Bruce gives is the meat of it nearly verbatum from Spalding. Well, the one section, anyway.

She's usually 13 and he 12. I think that's the most common and oldst but it varies lots.

Another detail: Very few versions, Scottish or English include the verse re them going out early to the hayfield "to have some sport and play," etc. It's a good verse to have in so as to show her pregnancy & thus marriage were legitimate. The Dransfields sang that one but I don't recall anyone else recording it.