Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High

Subject: RE: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
From: GUEST,Kiera
Date: 20 Jun 13 - 06:53 PM

Thank you so much! I thought so, but I wanted to be sure. :)

Subject: RE: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
From: treewind
Date: 19 Jun 13 - 03:27 AM

what is meant by "Growing &c"

Repeat of chorus, as shown in full after the first verse.

"&c" is another way of writing "etc."

Subject: RE: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
From: GUEST,Kiera
Date: 18 Jun 13 - 11:38 PM

Hi all!

I'm doing a research paper on this song. Can anybody tell me what is meant by "Growing &c" in the "A North Countrie Garland" version of "The Young Laird of Craigstoun"?

Thanks for any help!!
-Kiera

Subject: RE: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 19 Apr 06 - 02:20 AM

Ah, you haven't got yourself a copy of Classic English Folk Songs yet, then, Abby. The verse in question didn't come from the lady at Stoke Fleming at all, but was interpolated from a set published in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society, I (4) 1904, 214-5, which Lucy Broadwood got from a Mr Ede of Dunsfold, Surrey, in 1896. Bert Lloyd like his love-songs racy, of course. He altered it a little, too; Mr Ede sang

And 'twas on one summer's morning by the dawning of the day,
And they went into some cornfields to have some sport and play,
And what they did there she never will declare,
But she never more complained of his growing.

That verse isn't common. Baring-Gould noted it (but didn't publish it) and David Buchan printed one from Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe's MSS, but those are the only examples I can think of.

Subject: RE: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 18 Apr 06 - 11:18 AM

There are lumpers and splitters in geology, too.

Take a unit of sedimentary rock that's many feet thick. Splitters will describe and name every thin layer, distinguishing limestones, shales, mudstones and conglomerates and giving each its own formation name.

Lumpers will say, "It's just Crust rust! Just call it the Whatsit Formation!" (In most cases, lumpers hear the siren song of hard rocks - igneous and metamorphics.)

No doubt lumpers studying ballads take the same simple/simplistic approach.
---------
Margaret Nelson sings this song beautifully. Not the song of hard rocks, the song "He's Growing."

Subject: RE: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
From: Abby Sale
Date: 18 Apr 06 - 10:23 AM

First time I ever heard "the sex verse" was from the Dransfields way back when. I feel it's pretty rare but it makes sense that it be there, of course, since the "father of a son" line is common enough. Likely they got it from Penguin...

They sing it very close to the DT verse:

And so early in the morning at the dawning of the day *
They went out into the hayfield to have some sport and play;
And what they did there, she never would declare
But she never more complained of his growing.

*additional verse from Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, Williams and Lloyd

Any notion how common/old/widespread the verse actually is?

Subject: RE: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Apr 06 - 10:38 PM

One version collected by Sharp is given with sheet music in his "One Hundred English Folksongs," 1916, reprinted by Dover, pp. 58-59.
In the notes, Sharp says: "The singer [not named!] varied his tune, which is in the Dorian mode, in a very remarkable way, a good example of the skill with which folksingers will alter their tune to fit various metrical irregularities in the words..." "For particulars of the custom of wearing ribands to denote betrothal or marriage, see 'ribands" in Hazlitt's Dictionary of Faiths and Folk-Lore."
Malcolm has provided the background and linked the variants of this peculiar song. The lyrics below are those given by Sharp.

Lyr. Add: THE TREES THEY DO GROW HIGH
"Collected and arranged by Cecil J. Sharp"

1. The trees they do grow high, and the leaves they do grow green;
But the time is gone and past, my Love, that you and I have seen.
It's a cold winter's night, my Love, when you and I must bide alone.
The bonny lad was young, but a-growing.-

2. O father, dear father,, I fear you've done me harm,
You've married me to a bonny boy, but I fear he is too young.
O daughter, dearest daughter, but if you stay at home with me
A Lady you shall be, while he's growing.-

3. We'll send him to the college for one year or two,
And then perhaps in time, my Love, a man he may grow,
I will buy you white ribbons to tie about his bonny waist,
To let the ladies know that he's married.

4. At the age of sixteen O he was a married man,
At the age of seventeen He was the father of a son,
At the age of eighteen, my Love, his grave it was a-growing green,
And so she saw the end of his growing.-

5. I made my love a shroud of the holland, O so fine,
And ev'ry stitch I put in it the tears came trinkling down;
And I will sit and mourn his fate until the day that I shall die,
And watch all o'er his child while it's growing.

6. O now my Love is dead and in his grave doth lie,
The green grass that's over him it groweth up so high.
O once I had a sweetheart, but now I have got never a one,
So fare you well, my own true Love, for growing.-
So fare you well, my own true Love, for growing.-
So fare you well, my own true Love, forever.

Subject: RE: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 17 Apr 06 - 10:22 PM

See the late Bruce Olson's comments on Guthrie earlier in this thread. A tune of that name is listed, but is in obscure tablature and, so far as he knew, had never been translated into conventional staff notation; so its identity is not established.

Subject: RE: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
From: masato sakurai
Date: 17 Apr 06 - 10:00 PM

James Dick didn't verify the source. The note from James C. Dick, The Songs of Robert Burns (1903; rpt. Folklore Associates, 1962, p. 488; s.v. No. 334. O, Lady Mary Ann looks o'er the castle wa') is: "The tune was printed for the first time in the [Scots Musical] Museum. A tune entitled Long a growing is said to be in Guthrie's MS. of the seventeenth century" [underline added].

Subject: RE: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Apr 06 - 09:34 PM

Hi, Gerry-
Here's a quote from MacColl-Seeger, Travellers' Songs from England and Scotland:

The earliest reported text of the ballad is a two-stanza fragment in the Herd MSS, entitled "My Love Is Lang a-Growing." This was used by Burns as the basis of "Lady Mary Ann," a song written for the Scots Musical Museum (1787). In a note to the Burns song, James Dick reports that a "tune entitled 'Long A-Growing' is said to be in Guthrie's MSS (c. 1670)."

I gather that by the term "lumper," Bob Waltz of the Traditional Ballad Index means that MacColl & Seeger, Kennedy, Roud, and others tend to lump unrelated songs together if they share only a few elements. Search the Ballad Index for "lumper" and "lumped," and you'll find some interesting comments.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 17 Apr 06 - 09:05 PM

I was struck by the last line in Joe Offer's citation from the Traditional Ballad Index, above:

"MacColl and Seeger report this song from 1670 in the Guthrie manuscript. We have been unable to verify this, and they are lumpers."

What does that mean? The part about being lumpers - what does that mean?

Subject: RE: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Apr 06 - 07:08 PM

Here's the Traditional Ballad Index entry on this song:

A-Growing (He's Young But He's Daily A-Growing) [Laws O35]

DESCRIPTION: The girl rebukes her father for marrying her to a much younger boy. He tells her the lad is growing. She sends him to school in a shirt that shows he's married, for he is a handsome lad. She soon bears his son. He dies young; she sadly buries him
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1792 (as "Lady Mary Anne"), based on a text in the Herd manuscript (c. 1776)
KEYWORDS: marriage youth death mourning clothes
FOUND IN: US(Ap,NE) Canada(Mar,Newf) Britain(Scotland,England(North,South,West)) Ireland Australia
REFERENCES (20 citations):
Laws O35, "A-Growing (He's Young But He's Daily A-Growing)"
Flanders/Olney, pp. 196-197, "Young But Daily Growing" (1 text, 1 tune)
OBB 156, The Trees So High" (1 text)
Warner 60, "Young but Daily Growing" (1 text, 1 tune)
Meredith/Anderson, p. 177, "My Bonny Love is Young" (1 text, 1 tune)
Peacock, pp. 677-678, "He's Young but He's Daily Growing" (1 text, 2 tunes)
Karpeles-Newfoundland 29, "Still Growing" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton/Senior, pp. 107-109, "He's Young but He's Daily A-Growing" (2 texts plus 1 fragment, 1 tune)
Creighton-Maritime, pp. 100-101, "He's Young But He's Daily A-Growing" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Sharp-100E 25, "The Trees They Do Grow High" (1 text, 1 tune)
Vaughan Williams/Lloyd, p. 99, "The Trees They Grow So High" (1 text, 1 tune)
Scott-BoA, pp. 16-18, "The Trees They Grow So High (The Bonny Boy)" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Hodgart, p. 147, "Still Growing" (1 text)
Kennedy 216, "Young and Growing" (1 text, 1 tune)
DBuchan 40, "The Young Laird of Craigstoun" (1 text)
Ord, p. 112, "My Bonnie Laddie's Lang, Lang o' Growing" (1 text)
MacSeegTrav 23, "Long A-Growing" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Darling-NAS, pp. 132-133, "The Trees They Grow So High" (1 text)
Silber-FSWB, p. 217, "Daily Growing" (1 text)
DT 307, DAILYGRO* LANGGRO*
Roud #31
RECORDINGS:
Sean 'Ac Donnca, "The Bonny Boy" (on TradIre01)
Nathan Hatt, "He's Young But He's Daily A-Growing" (on MRHCreighton)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 16(156d), "My Bonny Lad is Young, But He's Growing", H. Such (London), 1849-1862; also Firth c.21(19), Harding B 11(4066), "My Bonny Lad is Young, But He's Growing"; Harding B 11(2216), "My Bonny Lads Growing"; Harding B 11(1685), Harding B 15(210b), "My Bonny Lad is Young and Growing"
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Days Are Awa That I Hae Seen" (lyrics)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Daily Growing
Lady Mary Ann (a rewrite by Robert Burns)
My Bonnie Laddie's Young (But He's Growing Yet)
Young Craigston
Notes: [A. L. Lloyd writes,] "It is sometimes said that the ballad is based on the actual marriage of the juvenile laird of Craigton to a girl several years his senior, the laird dying three years later in 1634. But in fact the ballad may be older; indeed, there is no clear evidence that it is of Scottish origin. Child marriages for the consolidation of family fortunes [or other political reasons - RBW] were not unusual in the Middle Ages and in some parts the custom persisted far into the seventeenth century. The presenting and wearing of coloured ribbons, once common in Britain, still plays a prominent part in betrothal and marriage in Central and Eastern Europe." - PJS
MacColl and Seeger report this song from 1670 in the Guthrie manuscript. We have been unable to verify this, and they are lumpers. - PJS, RBW
File: LO35

---

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Subject: RE: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 11 Aug 00 - 07:14 PM

Thanks, and another note.

Note from the file of Scots tunes in manuscripts on my website that there is a tune "Long a-growing" in the Guthrie MS, c 1675- 80. To the best of my knowledge the tune has not been translated from the Italian viola de braccia tablature. From the few tunes that I know of that have been translated from the MS (these noted in my file, search for GTMS) I don't hold out much hope of getting a good tune for our song (or any other song) from that manuscript. The translated tunes are either extremely variant or totally unrecognizable compared to later tunes of the same title.

The tune "John Robinson's Park" is also in the manuscript. The delightful song is in the Scarce Songs 1 file on my website, without music.

Subject: RE: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 10:03 PM

It goes without saying, but I'll say it...THANKS BRUCE!

I feel that my only way to contribute here is to organize the information that's already posted, but it will be 25 years before I can catch up with Malcolm.

Mary

Subject: RE: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 09:53 PM

And special thanks to Bruce.  I'm really just cross-referencing; it'll be 25 years before I can hope to catch up with him, and I doubt if I'll manage it even then.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 09:30 PM

Malcolm, your post gets my vote for a permathread. Thanks for all your hard work. I'm bookmarking this one.

Mary

Subject: RE: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 05:51 PM

Sorry, I left out that there are no names given in the copy of the ballad in 'Andrew Crawfurd's Collection'.

Subject: RE: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 05:37 PM

Sorry, I should have noted this yesterday in the "Lang A-Growing" thread. The text that Malcolm gives above from David Buchan's 'A Book of Scottish Ballads' is nearly the same as that which C. K. Sharpe gave (untitled) in 'Additional Illustrations to the Scots Musical Museum', #377. There are some small differences: 'wrang' for 'wrong' in the 1st and 2nd verses, repeat of 2nd line as the 3rd in the 4th verse, colligeneers vs collegineers, gat for got, and some capitalization. In 'Additional Illustrations' Sharpe deleted the line in the 7th verse -'Then he lifted up her fine holland sark'.

There is a good traditional text of 6 verses collected about 1825 in Emily Lyle's 'Andrew Crawfurd's Collection of Ballads and Songs', II, #122, 1996, but no tune was recorded for it. In her notes she says the earliest tune known for the ballad is one in Christie's 'Traditional Ballad Airs', which I don't have.

Subject: RE: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 09 Aug 00 - 04:17 PM

Well spotted, Noreen; I had missed that entirely!  There is now some discussion of the Craigstoun background at  Lang A-Growing

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
From: Noreen
Date: 09 Aug 00 - 02:12 PM

To the Keeper of the Words (Joe?):
In the version in the DT called 'Daily Growing'(link in Malcolm's first post above), there is an extra line slipped in to the penultimate verse which seems to have escaped from 'Dancing at Whitsun'. I haven't checked to see if they're missing from D at W in the DT- maybe the're just visiting? :0)

Noreen

Subject: Lyr Add: THE YOUNG LAIRD OF CRAIGSTOUN
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 09 Aug 00 - 01:58 PM

THE YOUNG LAIRD OF CRAIGSTOUN

Father, she said, you have done me wrong
For ye have married me on a child young man
For ye have married me on a child young man,
And my bonny love is long a growing.

Daughter, said he, I have done you no wrong
For I have married you on a heritor of land
He's likewise possess'd of many bill and band
And He'll be daily growing,
Growing, deary, growing, growing
Growing, said the bonny maid,
Slowly's my bonny love growing.

Daughter said he, if ye do weel
Ye will put your husband away to the scheel,
That he of learning may gather great skill,
And he'll be daily growing.
Growing, &c.

Now young Craigston to the College is gane
And left his Lady making great mane
That he's so long a growing
Growing, &c.

She dress'd herself in robes of green
They were right comely to be seen
She was the the picture of Venus the Queen
And she's to the College to see him.
Growing, &c.

Then all the colleginers was playing at the ba'
But young Craigstone was the flower of them a'
He said - play on, my school fellows a'
For I see my sister coming.

Now down into the College park
They walked about till it was dark,
Then he lifted up her fine holland sark-
And she had no reason to complain of his growing.
Growing, &c.

In his twelfth year he was a married man,
In his thirteenth year there he got a son,
And in his fourteenth year his grave grew green,
And that was an end of his growing -
Growing, &c.
^^

"The text is from the Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe transcript at Broughton House, Kirkudbright, of the MS. entitled in the Scott transcript North Country Ballads.  A printed version of the Nicol text also appears in James Maidment, A North Countrie Garland (Edinburgh, 1824)...  As Sharpe's text is untitled, this title comes from Maidment."  David Buchan, A Book of Scottish Ballads, 1973.

Regrettably, but unsurprisingly, no tune was recorded for this version.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 09 Aug 00 - 01:56 PM

From the notes to the Penguin Book (1959):

"This is one of the most curious, most beautiful, and most widespread of British ballads.  Some fifty years ago, Kidson reported it as "common all over the country", and it is not infrequently met with nowadays, especially in Scotland and Ireland.  Sharp alone collected a dozen sets of it.  Perhaps the fullest printed texts are Scottish, though English and Irish sets include verses not found in Scottish versions.  It is sometimes said that the ballad is based on the actual marriage of the juvenile  laird of Craigton  to a girl several years his senior, the laird dying three years later in 1634.  But in fact the ballad may be older; indeed, there is no clear evidence that it is Scottish in origin.  Child marriages for the consolidation of family fortunes were not unusual in the Middle Ages and in some parts the custom persisted far into the 17th. century.  The presenting and wearing of coloured ribbons, once common in Britain, still plays a prominent part in betrothal and marriage in Central and Eastern Europe.  For some reason this ballad, so common in Britain, is very rare in the U.S.A.  The melody given is in the Phrygian mode, seldom met with in English folk song (a different tune to these words, in Songs of the West, ed. Baring Gould and others, 1896, pp.8-9, is also Phrygian).  Only one stanza of Miss Bidder's version has survived.  The greater part of the text we print comes from the versions sung to Sharp by Harry Richards of Cerry Rivell, Somerset, in 1904 ¹ (FSJ vol.II [issue 6] pp.44-6), and to Lucy Broadwood by Mrs. Joiner, of Chiswell Green, Hertfordshire, in 1914 (FSJ vol.V [issue 19] p.190). In FSJ, further versions will be found from Surrey (vol.I [issue 4] pp.214-15), Somerset (vol.II [issue 6] pp.46-7), Sussex (vol.II [issue 8] p.206), Yorkshire (vol.II [issue 9] p.274) and Dorset (vol.II [issue 9] p.275)."  -R.V.W./A.L.L.

This version was collected by Bertha Bidder from an unnamed woman singer of Stoke Fleming, Devon (date unknown), and was first published in the Folk Song Journal, vol.II [issue 9] p.95.

Other versions on the DT:

Daily Growing     (Bonny Boy Is Young or Trees Grow High, etc.) Original source unknown; presumably transcribed from record(s), with a verse from the Penguin version added.  3 unidentified tunes are given; the second (DAILYGR3) is actually the Penguin version.

My Bonny Boy     Original source unknown; transcribed from a record by Mary O' Hara, no tune given.

Lady Mary Anne  The Robert Burns rewrite, with tune.

In the Forum:

The Bonny Boy  Transcribed from a record by Mary O' Hara, no tune or original source given.

Name that tune   Version possibly from Jeannie Robertson?  No tune given.

DT #307
Laws O35
@love @death @marriage @school

There is an entry at  The Traditional Ballad Index:

A-Growing  (He's Young But He's Daily A-Growing) [Laws O35]

There are three versions at Lesley Nelson's  Folk Music  site:

The Trees They Do Grow High  (Daily Growing) Version 1.  This is the DT text.  With tune; source not specified.

The Trees They Do Grow High, Version 2  Lyrics and Music, described as "a mix from Benjamin Britten's Folksong Arrangements and The International Book of Folk Songs"  ¹ The tune is the version collected by Cecil Sharp from Harry Richards in 1904, transposed to a higher key.

Still Growing  (The Trees They Do Grow High) "Lyrics From Ron Clarke".   Appears to be a collated text.  With tune; source not specified. (Same as "version 1").

Other titles:

The Trees So High
Young but Daily Growing
The Trees They Grow So High (The Bonny Boy)
Young and Growing
My Bonnie Laddie's Young (But He's Growing Yet)
Young Craigston
The College Boy

There are some broadside texts at  Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads,  These are the most legible:

My bonny boy is young but he's growing  Printer and date unknown.

My bonny boy is young but he's growing  Printed between 1840 and 1866 by J. Harkness, of Preston.

My bonny lad is young and growing         Printed between 1858 and 1885 at the "Catnach Press," by W.S. Fortey, 2 & 3, Monmouth Court, Bloomsbury, London.

My bonny lad is young, but he's growing  Printed between 1863 and 1885 by H. Such, Machine Printer & Publisher, 177, Union Street, Boro'., S.E., London.

My bonny lad is young, but he's growing  Printed between 1849 and 1862 at Such's Song Mart, 123, Union Street, Borough, London.

These are large images.

Malcolm

Subject: Penguin: The Trees They Grow So High
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 02 Jul 00 - 09:24 AM

G'day,
From the Penguin Book Of English Folk Songs, Ed Pellow's rendition of the tune of The Trees They Grow So High can be found here.

THE TREES THEY GROW SO HIGH

The trees they grow so high and the leaves they grow so green.
The day is past and gone, my love, that you and I have seen.
It's a cold winter's night, my love, when I must bide alone,
For my bonny lad is young but a-growing.

As I was a-walking by yonder church wall,
I saw four and twenty young men a-playing at the ball.
I asked for my own true love but they would not let him come,
For they said the boy was young, but a-growing.

'O father, dearest father, you've done to me much wrong.
You've tied me to a boy when you know he is too young.'
'O daughter, dearest daughter, if you'll wait a little while,
A lady you shall be, while he's growing.

'We'll send your love to college, all for a year or two,
And then perhaps in time the boy will do for you.
I'll buy you white ribbons to tie about his waist,
To let the ladies know that he's married.'

And so early in the morning at the dawning of the day,
They went out into the hayfield to have some sport and play,
And what they did there, she never would declare,
But she never more complained of his growing.

And at the age of sixteen he was a married man,
And at the age of seventeen she brought to him a son,
And at the age of eighteen the grass grew over him,
And that soon put an end to his growing.
^^^

Sung by unnamed woman singer, Stoke Fleming, Devon (B.B. n.d.)

Click here for another version.

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Next song: The Whale-Catchers.

Penguin Index provided by Joe Offer

Cheers,
Alan