Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads

Subject: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 09 Apr 00 - 09:59 PM

I am just starting to learn how to play some of the old Scottish ballads on my banjo.
I have been able to easily find the lyrics through the Mudcat Lyric Search for House Carpenter and Shady Grove, but is there a place I can find more information about the stories that go behind these old ballads?

Little Neo

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Kelida
Date: 09 Apr 00 - 10:02 PM

Try here. If I remember right, along with the songs in their database, they also have brief histories.

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 12:59 AM

"The House Carpenter' isn't Scottish. In the Laurence Price file on my website (www.erols.com/olsonw) you'll find out who wrote it and when.

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: GUEST,aldus
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 01:06 PM

Hi Bruce, I tried to get into your web site but was unable to do so. I have been singing this song for years and always thought it was scottish (child 243) , I am very curious about the info you have, could you pass it on to those of us who are having difficulty accessing your site Thanks a lot.

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 01:22 PM

I had the same problem to Bruce O.
Thank you Keleda for offering that wonderful site Contemplations by Marianas Trench. I didn't know about it and I plan to spend time looking around there for what I need.
John in Brisbane offered a wonderful Glossary of Scottish Words on another current thread. That is a big help.
Half the time I have no clue what the lyrics I am singing mean.

Slowly but surely getting where I want to go.

Little Neo

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 02:51 PM

Don't know why you can't get to my website. www.erols.com/olsonw

Laurence Price wrote "The House Carpenter/James Harris/ Demon Lover" (Child #243) under the title "A Warning for Married Women" about the end of the third week of February, 1657. (He also wrote 2 other Child ballads, earlier).

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: GUEST,aldus
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 02:59 PM

Tanks Bruce........who is Lawrence Price and what else did he write ?

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 03:01 PM

See the file on him on my website.

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Irish Rover
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 03:14 PM

Hi I'm an old guy Irish/Scot folksinger, I have found a lot of "British" music has drifted around for ever in different forms. the music was generaly not written by the composer/lyricist. When the songs reached appalachia they again changed as did the accent. She Moved through the Fair is a prime example, I have it in 2/2,3/4,&6/8 the song was written down and published by Padric Colum but it existed a hundred years before(also have it in Irish galic. since the celts memorized everything and wrote almost nothing the folks claiming these song are naughty.

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 04:48 PM

I don't know where Padraic Colum's "She moved through the fair" was first published. The copy attributed to him in Herbert Hughes 'Irish Country Songs', I, 1909, says 'Adapted from an old ballad". What old ballad? Hughes said his tune came from County Donegal. Where did the old ballad come from? Hughes was sometimes a liar. See his "The Stuttering Lovers", ('words traditional') along with the 17th century original in Scarce Songs 1 on my website. There are too many imaginary 'old ballads' which have been postulated for me to believe such existed without direct evidence that such really once existed.

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Irish Rover
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 04:57 PM

BruceO Please recall that many old celtic songs were written on the run,as it were, by shannachie's spreding the word. addapted to old pipe tunes,or something running through their head at the time. then you have R.Burns who used what ever tune amused him. folk-process is an on going thing from way back to tomorrow. Also W.B Yeats poem "O'Driscoll came from some ancent song(which I can not find)and he returned it to a poem.

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 05:08 PM

Bruce O, I will try again to get onto your website.

I was wondering, is there a book that I could buy which explains the history of these old ballads.
Sometimes it is nice to curl up in a big comfortable chair and read a good history book. Kind of a refreshing change from always being in front of the computer.

Little Neo

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Irish Rover
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 05:17 PM

Little Neo, There are a thousand books available. Being a serious Celtic history buff(born in Ireland of Scot and Irish Parents)I have found little or no real truth exists of the old tunes/songs. some have been losely translated from the galic,or have drifted to england,aust,and america so the ori. of these celtic songs are left to guess. the Wren Song went to England as Three Ships A-Sailing etc.

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 05:26 PM

I don't buy that notion that most old songs were Irish ones that were never written down until they reached England or Scotland. The process of creating Gaelic songs and tune by translation into Gaelic is still going on (but "Shule Agra" was translated into Gaelic about 1890). There are some good Irish song and music scholars now like Nicolas Carolan, Tom Munnally, and now sadly departed Breandan Breathnach and Donal O'Sullivan, but their worst enemies are the overzealous patriots who translate whatever they like into Gaelic with the implication that it's something from old Gaelic and never written down before. "Moll Roe" was around for about 1 1/2 centuries before someone decided that wasn't Gaelic enough and changed it to "Mall Rua". "Da mihi manum" had this Latin title until the late 18th century when one work translated it into both English and Gaelic, but now all you ever see is the title in Gaelic. "Star of the County Down" is from a Irish ballad of the late 19th century, but one rarely sees the tune noted as the Scots "Gilderoy" of which there a good version of c 1726 on my website. [That's the one the recent 'Sources of Irish Traditional Music', 1988, gives when you look up "Star of the County Down" in the index.]

I'm not anti-Irish; I'm anti sham-scholarship, and baseless claims no matter where they come from. See "Bragandary" and "Derry's Fair" on my website for which I argue that they were Irish songs known in England in the 16th century.

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: GUEST,oggie
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 05:35 PM

Shady Grove - started life as Matty Groves, see Fairport Convention recording on Liege and Lief.

One of long collection of border ballards which includes Little Musgrave (recorded by Christy Moore).

Oak used to do a copy of the Child Ballads which is the best source for most of these.

All the best

oggie (aka Stve Ogden, [e-mail])

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 05:51 PM

Bruce: is there definite evidence that Lawrence Price actually wrote the ballads, rather than that he was simply the first to have written them down for publication? Not arguing with you; just curious.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: GUEST,Bruce O
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 06:09 PM

First at to above post how did I forget to add John Moulden to the list of good Irish Scholars. I knew someone was missing, but couldn't remember who at the time. An I might add Lani Herrmann also, and Michael O'Sullivan (That's not the way he gives it, but I can't spell it in Gaelic).

His intitials are at the bottom of the ballad sheet as author, and no prior versions seem to be know for the Child ballads. Two others which have become folksongs seem to be expansions of popular songs ("Now the tyrant has stole my dearest away" and the one the Copper family calls "The Haymakers", originally "The Countrey People's Felicity").

Thomas Robbins' 4 Child ballads (3 are about Robin Hood) are all revisions of earlier songs.

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 06:42 PM

Sandy, you probably weren't on the ballad-l group when I discussed Child #243. "The Famous Flower of Serving Men" and "Robin Hood's Golden Prize" are fictional, but I think "The House Carpenter" is probably based on exaggerated reports from Plymouth. I suspect if the parish records are still extant one my find a record of the marriage of Jane X to Y Renalds (Reynolds) and the baptismal records of their children somewhere in the range of 1645-1655.

The reason that I've trided to note all copies of broadside ballads in the index on my website is that the authors initials usually got dropped after the first couple of printings. "The Bold Soldier", Laws M27, was known in many broadside copies, but it wasn't until 1987 that a loose copy of Pepys that was not bound in his collection got published, and we found the author to be Abraham Miles.

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 08:39 PM

Bruce O, what am I doing wrong?
I go to Yahoo (my search engine) and I type in www.erols.com/olsonw
It comes up with no match.
I must be doing something wrong.
Little Neo

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 08:44 PM

Irish Rover, I am thrilled to hear there are thousands of books on this subject and even happier to hear that you are a serious Celtic history buff. That means I bet you could suggest at least 3 books you would recommend I seek out and read.

Little Neo

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 08:59 PM

Little Neophyte, you don't use a search engine when you have the URL. On most browsers click on 'file' at the top left and then again where it says 'open location' or 'open page'.

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Amos
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 09:25 PM

Bonnie:

Try clicking here. A search engine is the long way around to get to a page that has a known Universal Resource Locator, or URL such as "http://users.erols.com/olsonw/". Instead you can type the URL directly into the location bar at the top of your browser where it says "Go to:" or something similar depedning on which browser you are using. In Netscape you can also use "File"==>Open Location" and type in the URL. in IE there are a couple of similar options for directing your browser to go to a specific page.

Just so you know, the first part of the URL, in this case 'http', defines the kind of connection you are asking your browser to make, in this case one which uses the HyperText Transfer Protocol for exchnaging information. If you were directing the browser to, say, a text file on your home machine you could use 'file://' instead and navigate your file system.

The blue clicky thing above is shorthand which tells your own browser to go the page identified by "http://users.erols.com/olsonw" where the host machine is called "users", the domain is "erols", the top level class of the domain is "com"(for commercial), and the target directory on the destination machine is " /olsonw", which is Bruce's directory. The browser automatically picks out the right page inside the directory because it is named standardly (either 'index.html' or another standard name known to the browser).

Amos

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 09:39 PM

the essential thing here is:Yahoo is not 'really' a search engine..it is an edited, selected list of sites...chosen in some arcane process by Yahoos..*grin*...no wonder they didn't have it. REAL search engines, such as AltaVista, Googol, Northern Light, Lycos...etc., try to list as much as they can.(though NO ONE has more than maybe 35% of the WWW anymore) The trick when there is no 'blue clicky thing' is simply to highlight the address given and 'copy' it...then 'paste' it into the location box in your browser..'ctrl c' for copy, 'ctrl v' for paste

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 10:14 PM

My experience is that you need the http:// when you make a blue clicky thing, but you can leave it off when you want to go directly to an address.

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 10:14 PM

Thanks Amos & Bill D
I start out trying to learn something about old ballads and the whole world opened up for me beyond Yahoo.
The Mudcat never ceases to impress me.

Little Neo

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 10:59 PM

*smile*...yep...I remember well MY first forays into it all 4+ years ago...what a bewildering bunch of micro tricks to learn!....I still NEVER assume that I have it all figured out-someone shows me a new trick or two every week...have fun!

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 10:59 PM

*smile*...yep...I remember well MY first forays into it all 4+ years ago...what a bewildering bunch of micro tricks to learn!....I still NEVER assume that I have it all figured out-someone shows me a new trick or two every week...have fun!

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Apr 00 - 11:02 PM

see?....I clicked 'send', and when it didnt go quickly, I thought I had missed the box, so I clicked it again!...tsk!....I thought I was too experienced to make THAT mistake!

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 11 Apr 00 - 11:26 AM

Bill D, I kind of like seeing double posting, it reminds me of finding a 4 leaf clover or a double yolker in an egg.
Rare findings if you really think about it.

Little Neo

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Irish Rover
Date: 11 Apr 00 - 03:23 PM

Little Neo, You set me a challange that will not go unanswered,however, it may take me a day to assembel the list with isbn#. Until that time, listen to old Corries Music etc. I can hear the rant now oh no commerical folk singers aarrrrrrggggggghhhhhh! well they too were puriests until they became famous. The old Clancy bros. songbook has some history, the Richard Dyer-Bennett book has some history, a good Child Ballad book will hopefully have something. The books i am talking about come from Scotland and Ireland and I will get them for you. also try to remember there are to races of people in Scotland. Highlanders(celt/picts) and Lowlanders (saxon/normans) highland music was mostly in galic lowland music was english (Walter Scott/Bobby Burns) try not to confuse the two.

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 11 Apr 00 - 10:05 PM

Thanks Irish Rover
I figure, I have to start somewhere and I would very much appreciate having guidance from you.
Just seems like a wise approach to the subject.

Little Neo

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Irish Rover
Date: 12 Apr 00 - 04:04 PM

Little Neo, do not dispare, it will take me a bit to do some reserch. I'm old now so I don't move so fast. just come over to the house I'll show you (just kidding) I was at the old town school when Art T. was to give you an idea of old.

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Apr 00 - 08:46 PM

Start in Francis James Child's 'The English and Scottish Popular Ballads'. Child usually gave as much of the old history as could possibly be construed as real.

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: John Nolan
Date: 12 Apr 00 - 11:40 PM

A number of Child ballads are drawn from the Scottish Borders, and George McDonald Fraser's book The Steel Bonnets, gives a well-researched, anecdotal history of the Border reivers of the 14th-16th century, whose exploits are the basis of these treasures.

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 13 Apr 00 - 04:23 PM

Okay, so this is my homework.........
Learn my way around Bruce O's website
Read the following:
McDonald Fraser, The Steel Bonnets
Francis James Child's 'The English and Scottish Popular Ballads'
Corries Music (before they became famous and were still puriests
old Clancy Bros. songbook
Richard Dyer-Bennett book
Irish Rover's suggested book list from Scotland and Ireland (still being researched)

Essentials to remember:
There are two races of people in Scotland
Highlanders(celt/picts) music was mostly galic
Lowlanders (saxon/normans) music was english.
Most important, don't mix up Walter Scott with Bobby Burns. Please don't shoot me, but which one of these men was a Highlander and which one was a Lowlander?

I very much appreciate everyone's help I am receiving on this thread.
Once I have taken sometime to study from this recommended list, I hope you guys do not mind if I come back with some more questions.

Little Neo

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 13 Apr 00 - 04:49 PM

Though I certainly don't want to get into another argument about the nature of "celticness", I must just say that it's several hundred years too late to characterise Highlanders and Lowlanders as separate races!  The main difference is cultural, and there has been considerable cross-fertilisation (cultural and genetic) between the Gaelic-speaking and Anglophone populations for as long as they have both been there.  And we mustn't forget the Norse input on both sides...

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: John Nolan
Date: 13 Apr 00 - 11:19 PM

Little Neophyte: I hate to complicate your simple view of Scotland's racial composition among other matters, but since you address that issue in the present tense, it is fair to point out that today there are substantial numbers of people in Scotland whose ancestors hail from many parts of Europe, the Indian subcontinent, China, Africa and the Caribbean - many speaking in the vernacular with pretty broad accents, which makes them, in most folk's eyes, infinitely more Scottish than Americans called McDonald. Even 700 or 800 years ago the country was much more racially diverse than you might think. Take the Borders, where I was raised. Professor Vietch's history details vividly the effect of Danish settlement in the Tweed valley, and does not ignore the influx of Flemish weavers into Berwickshire. Incidentally, Lallans was spoken in this area, and was regarded as a language parallel to, equal to and distinct from English, up until the Union of the Crowns, when everything - old ballads, independence (if you can call feudalism such a glorious name) and the price of a pint, all began to go to hell in a handbasket. And L.N., please don't take offense, but when refering to Robert Burns in familiar terms, it is more comfortable on the ears if you say Rabbie, rather than Bobby.

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 13 Apr 00 - 11:37 PM

John is of course quite right, but Neo is not to blame for most of those assumptions; Irish Rover is, I think, the culprit.  Och, dear; expatriates, eh?

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 14 Apr 00 - 01:36 AM

Hey there, Little Neo! I'm laughing so hard right now, I can barely type! Didn't know what a can 'o worms you'd open up did you?

Just the very fact that you're asking questions about this aspect of folk music elevates you onto another plateau, from the one most "folkies" inhabit. Listen to all the suggestions, advice, follow the arguements with glee (five years from now, you may be passionately participating in them) and you'll find that being an informed player is simply more fun. Perhaps you'll understand why I posted about twenty times in a "Riley Puckett thread". My knowledge of traditional British ballads, although huge, by the standards of the current ridiculous definitions of "folk" are absolutely miniscule in a thread like this, and I'm enjoying it immensely.

Keep on pickin'

Rick

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 15 Apr 00 - 05:30 PM

Little Neo, here are a few more titles you might like to find. For some of these you'll probably have to dig deep into every library near you - and please don't start imagining I've got them all! Just three or four of them. And I haven't read them all either. Irish Rover will probably come up with a few more, to keep you busy till retirement. - Susanne

Bold, Alan: The Ballad (Methuen, 1979)

Brander, Michael: Scottish and Border Battles and Ballads (Barnes & Noble, 1993)

Bronson, Bertrand H.: The Ballad as Song (University of California Press, 1969 - mostly about the melodies, but interesting)

Buchan, David: The Ballad and the Folk (Tuckwell Press, 2 ed 1997)

Collinson, Francis: The Traditional and National Music of Scotland (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969 - haven't read it yet, so don't know if it's what you want)

Douglas, Sheila (Ed.): The Sang's the Thing. Voices from Lowland Scotland (Polygon, 1992 - mostly about traditional singers, but also some bits and pieces on the songs they sing, which includes the ballads)

Ford, Robert: Song Histories (William Hodge & Co, 1900)

Gatherer, Nigel: Songs and Ballads of Dundee (John Donald Publications, 1986 - great book, includes some of the Child ballads)

The Greig-Duncan Folksong Collection, 7 vols (new ed, Aberdeen University Press, 1981-1997 - I'm not sure whether there are notes of any length on the songs, having only leafed through it as yet, but have a look if you can find it)

Gunnyon, William: Illustrations of Scottish History, Life and Superstition from Song and Ballad (Robert Forrester, 1879 - don't know what it's worth; I bought it second-hand for a few pounds last year and haven't got round to reading it)

Henderson, Hamish: anything by

Hodgart, Matthew: The Ballads (Hutchinson University Library, 1950)

Ives, Edward D.: The Bonny Earl of Murray. The Man, the Murder, the Ballad (Tuckwell Press, 1997 - but an American edition as well, I'm sure)

Kennedy, Peter: Folksongs of Britain and Ireland (Cassell, don't have the year, but there have been at least two editions, I think)

MacColl, Ewan: Till Doomsday in the Afternoon. The folklore of a family of Scots travellers, the Stewarts of Blairgowrie (Manchester UP, 1986) and anything else by MacColl

Munro, Ailie: The Democratic Muse - Folk Music revival in Scotland (Scottish Cultural Press, 2nd ed. 1984)

Paterson, Wilma (ed.): The Songs of Scotland (Mainstream, 1996 - not sure if it's what you want as she covers more recent songs as well)

Palmer, Roy (ed.): Everyman's Book of British Ballads (Dent, 1980 - most of his other books are on English songs, but well worth reading)

Pinto, Vivian de Sola / Rodway, Allan Edwin: The Common Muse. Popular British ballad poetry from the 15th to the 20th century (Penguin, 2nd ed 1965)

Porter, James / Gower, Herschel: Jeannie Robertson. Emergent Singer, Transformative Voice (Tuckwell Press, 1995 - about the most influential traditional ballad singer Scotland has had)

Reed, James: The Border Ballads (The River and the Rocks ???) (Athlone Press, 1973)

Wimberly, Lowry C.: Folklore in the English and Scottish Ballads (Frederick Ungar, 2nd ed. 1959)

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 15 Apr 00 - 08:34 PM

Susanne, thank you so much for taking the time to make that list. This is wonderful!

Irish Rover, just wondering if you got the personal messages I left you?

Little Neo

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Irish Rover
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 03:57 PM

All right, I'm back, and you guys were picking on me while I was gone. yes i am the culprit but if you will go back to the original question, little neo asked about the "old songs" that is what I was answering,not political ramblings about how your people ran my people out of Scotland. being a Cameron I still have a raw spot, when it comes to the "british view" of anything. she wanted to know about old music and origins not some stramash about how the brits ruled the world(note small b) In Ireland we refer to him as Bobby. Little Neo, both Sir Walter Scott and BOBBY Burns were LowLanders. This arguement is why there so few Highlanders left in Scotland

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: GUEST,Shankmac
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 04:58 PM

We have a traditional music festival in a little village called Newcastleton which is in the heart of the Scottish Border Ballad country and every year the judges of the Border Ballad competition have arguements over what is a Border Ballad.

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 06:06 PM

Shankmac, have you got a website, or could you maybe email me more info to [e-mail]? I've never been to Newcastleton, but this year I might succeed. - Thanks, Susanne

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 17 Apr 00 - 07:20 PM

Political ramblings?  Where?

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Stories behind the Old Scottish Ballads
From: Irish Rover
Date: 18 Apr 00 - 04:15 PM

Malcom, when you know.......let me know we'll go together maybe some fun to be had. sorry about yesterday, I was in a bit of a temper(being scot/irish I can't figure it) so up the long ladder and down the short rope to hell wi' king billy and god bless the pope if that doesn't do we'll tear 'em in two and sent 'em ta hell wi' there red, white, and blue! fill 'em up again lads