Lyr Req: Are You Sleeping Maggie

Subject: Need lyrics help-Oh, Are You Sleeping Maggie
From: GUEST,emily b
Date: 23 Aug 00 - 05:44 PM

I need some help with the lyrics for the song "Oh, Are You Sleeping Maggie." Many of the words in the database are in a Scots dialect that I can't understand.

The words I need help with are: carry, boortree, cruist and aboon.

Some of the verses are just confusing. I understand the individual words but not the meaning of the verse. Especially the one about the boortree bank.

Sorry, I'm blue clicky challenged and I'm not sure if I can just cut and paste the lyrics from a text file. I'd be happy to do that if I can and if it would help.

Can anyone shed light on this?

Thanks a bunch for the help.

emily blunck

Subject: RE: Need lyrics help-Are You Sleeping Maggie
From: BigDaddy
Date: 23 Aug 00 - 06:00 PM

The Tannahill Weavers perform this on their "Mermaid's Song" LP. They also included in the liner notes a translation of all the Scots dialect used in songs on the LP. Carry=firmament, boortree=elder tree, cuist=cast (as in throw), abune=above. Let me know if you need more help. Cheers!

Jay

Subject: RE: Need lyrics help-Are You Sleeping Maggie
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 23 Aug 00 - 06:11 PM

Search simultaneously on 'sleeping' and 'Maggie' on the Bodley Ballads website for two copies.

Subject: RE: Need lyrics help-Are You Sleeping Maggie
From: BigDaddy
Date: 23 Aug 00 - 06:11 PM

Further help: The song's about a young man paying his true love a visit on a stormy night. He's afraid, not of the storm, but of waking her father. So, "Fearful sighs the elder tree bank, the rifted wood roars wild and dreary. Loud the iron gate does clank, the cry of owls makes me eerie.

Jay

Subject: RE: Need lyrics help-Are You Sleeping Maggie
From: radriano
Date: 23 Aug 00 - 06:15 PM

Big Daddy, you beat me to the punch. I would have offered the same definitions.

Radriano

Subject: RE: Need lyrics help-Are You Sleeping Maggie
From: BigDaddy
Date: 23 Aug 00 - 07:17 PM

Radriano, I love this place!

J

Subject: RE: Need lyrics help-Are You Sleeping Maggie
From: Wolfgang
Date: 24 Aug 00 - 03:48 AM

On the Tannahill Weavers Webpage they have nearly all their lyrics including 'Are you sleeping Maggie' and they have a glossary of all the scottish terms they use.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Need lyrics help-Are You Sleeping Maggie
From: GUEST,emily b
Date: 24 Aug 00 - 09:23 AM

Yea! Thank you all for the clarifications. I never would have come up with gate for "yett." I wanted to make it Loud the iron, yet does clank, but still couldn't figure out the iron part. And "cuist" makes much more sense as cast than "cruist" that's in the database.

Does anyone know the derivation of "carry" as "firmament?"

I'll go to the Bodley Ballads site later. Sounds like a great resource.

Thanks again for the help. Now we have to memorize it.

emily b

Subject: RE: Need lyrics help-Are You Sleeping Maggie
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 25 Aug 00 - 12:47 AM

Re: "yett" for "gate" here's some really useless information. Throughout the centuries there has been a tendency in the English language to substitute g for y or vice versa. for example, "forgive" was sometimes "foryive" . The next time you are baffled by a word with g or y, try making the switch and see if it makes sense.

One theory as to why people used to spell "the" as "ye" is that they were using "g" to represent both the "g" and "y" sounds - they being so fluid and interchangeable. that left y available as a perfectly good letter with no real use, so why not have it represent that pesky th sound?

(This is the kind of stuff you need to know to really impress folkies.)

Subject: RE: Need lyrics help-Are You Sleeping Maggie
From: GUEST,Scabby Doug
Date: 25 Aug 00 - 06:14 AM

I believe that there used to be a letter in Middle English called "thorn". "Thorn" was used to represent the "th" combination. Thorn looked pretty much like a letter "y". So when you see "Ye Olde Tea Room", it's a misunderstanding of the letter "th" for a "Y"

Also in Scots, the "wh" sound is often represented as "quh", and sometimes what looks like a "z" is pronounced as "y"...

Confused? I am...

Subject: RE: Need lyrics help-Are You Sleeping Maggie
From: GUEST,Fibula Mattock
Date: 25 Aug 00 - 06:47 AM

The letter 'thorn' is written as þ (hope this works in HTML - it's a p with the round bit slipping lower down the stem) with a 'th' sound. Handwriting development in the 12th and 13th centuries led to the 'thorn' and 'y' being written as the same letter and therefore interchanged, so often þe was written as ye.