Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?

Subject: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Kim C
Date: 27 Nov 00 - 12:09 PM

For some reason I can't get the Super Search to work. It didn't work last week either. Does anyone know how old this song is? Thanks!

KC

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Thyme2dream
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 10:01 AM

I think it's from the era of the Napoleanic wars, Kim. (early 1800's) The chorus gives that indication with the locations mentioned

And it's over the mountains and over the main,
Through Gibralta, tae France and tae Spain,
Get a feather for your bonnet,and a kilt abeen your knee,
Enlist bonnie laddie, an' come awa' wae me.

I'll give my darlin' in Scotland a call tho and get him to post a bit more background for you~he knows a lot about the background of most Scottish folk songs.
~Thyme

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Calach
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 10:48 AM

Twa Recruitin' Sargeants.... the recruiting sergeant was the army equivalent of the naval "press gang". They operated in rural areas, enticing the less secure members of the community into army service. Once the young man had accepted the "King's Shilling" (whether he was sober enough to remember or not), he was listed as being in the army and treated as such.
They operated from the early 1700's to mid 1800's, but were most active between 1770 and 1815 drafting cannon fodder for the wars firstly in America, then against Napoleon in the Low Countries, Spain and Portugal, then latterly Belgium and France.
Other songs of the same ilk are; The Collier Recruit, & Over the Hils and Far Away, both featured heavily in the ITV TV series (PBS USA) "Sharpe" Starring Sean Bean.
Calach/Ian.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Kim C
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 11:39 AM

I have also seen it listed as French & Indian war era, but I don't know.... the Black Watch was around at that time. Do you suppose we're safe enough to perform it at a 1790 historical site?

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 01:12 PM

Gavin Greig said it was made to fit Victorian times ('Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection',I, #77), but noted there were earlier versions.

The earliest version is "The Recruiting Officer",(Over the hills and far away) which (with ABC of its tune), is in the Scarce Songs 2 file on my website (in Mudcat's Links). The latter first appeared in 'Pills to Purge Melancholy', 1706.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Thyme2dream
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 04:18 PM

Well, I first heard it performed at a regional Renaissance Festival, so you have to be closer to the mark than that. Some of the Scots that fought in the revolutionary war were recruited the same way so I should think you could stretch it about 10 years and no one would notice. What sort of 1790 historical site?

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Kim C
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 05:13 PM

Mansker's Station in Goodlettsville, TN. It's a recreation of a fort built there by a longhunter named Kaspar Mansker. On the original fort site there is now a Kroger McMiniMall. (You want fries with that?)

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Stewie
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 07:30 PM

A.L. Lloyd pointed out that Farquhar's play, 'The Recruiting Sergeant' (1706) helped popularise 'Over the Hills and Far Away'. The song was often sung during the Napoleonic Wars. It 'survived for two and a half centuries among folk singers, dwindling all the time, till it seemed to be limited to the Scottish north-east'. Then a variant came back into 'vigorous circulation in English cities under the title "Two Recruiting Sergeants from the Black Watch"'. ['Folksong in England' Paladin 1975 pp 237-238].

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 28 Nov 00 - 09:30 PM

Farquhar's play was The Recruiting Officer, and only a version of the chorus appears printed editions of the play.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Thyme2dream
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 12:40 AM

At least the MaCMiniMall brings in the Scots element eh? Aye right, like the Glencoe massacre was all about the soup and restaurant business! (Campbell, MacDonald....??)

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Stewie
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 01:09 AM

Quite right, Bruce. I typed 'Sergeant' because it was on my mind from the thread title. Mea culpa.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Calach
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 04:01 AM

TWA RECRUITIN' SARGEANTS is definately about the Black Watch regiment.... Only highland regiments wore the kilt, lowland regiments wore trews, plus, even today the regiment wears no badge, just a red hackle comprising several red feathers... "get a feather in your bonnet, a kilt abin your knee" Black Watch regiment formed 1720ish???
calach

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 06:18 AM

This version of the song became popular among revival singers during the 1960s, as Stewie mentions above in his reference to A.L. Lloyd's comments.  The source for this version was Jeannie Robertson, though John Strachan recorded another traditional version (also, I think, from the Northeast) at around the same time, which was set in the Victorian period and did not mention the Black Watch.  The difficulty with dating a song like this one is that, while it can with reasonable certainty be traced back to a presumed ancestor -in this case The Recruiting Officer of the early 18th century, as Bruce says- it is however pretty well impossible to tell at what point it became identifiably (text or tune) the song we have here, and, for that matter, at what point the Black Watch became involved (presumably at around the time a "localised" variant became established?).  The fact that it refers to campaigns which are themselves dateable doesn't of itself indicate the song's age, since these may derive from earlier songs in the line of descent.  When looking for material for "authentic" performance, the only certain way is to stick to things which had appeared in print in the form you intend to use, by the required date; mind you, since truly "historically accurate" performance is essentially impossible, I assume that there's a certain amount of leeway allowed in such things!  In all, it seems very unlikely that the song had evolved into anything very close to the particular form we have here by 1790, but that doesn't prove that it hadn't...

Malcolm

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Kim C
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 10:29 AM

Thanks Malcolm. There are some situations where I will not play something that can't be documented, and others that are a bit more free where I can say "we don't really know anything about this song but we like singing it so here it is, if you know anything about it please tell us."

Since we don't have any recordings of period performances, we can only guess at some things, and do the best we can with what we've got.

Isn't research FUN?!?

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: GUEST,Rab B
Date: 07 Feb 11 - 04:35 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk1zlT6ti9U

Know I'm late with this post.   Saw this Band live a couple of years ago at the Black Watch Barracks in Dundee.   Their live version is brilliant, especially when there is 200+ troops singing along with them.
The bands name is a Parcel o Rogues.   The above link will get to them on Youtube

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 28 Aug 13 - 10:04 PM

A recent performance with a folk-processed tune that seems to be getting popular:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSdtjb2xOow

Though the name "Black Watch" was used informally in the 18th century, it seems that the name became official - as "The Black Watch (Royal Highlanders)" - only in 1881. Greig & Duncan collected their versions in 1906.

The direct, informal diction suggests to me that the song as we know it is most likely a late 19th century creation - though of course the refrain harks back to the Napoleonic Wars.

I don't know of any broadside printings.

"But a' that they 'listed wiz forty and twa" is obviously a joke on the pre-1881 designation, "42nd Highland Regiment." Compare "The Gallant Forty-Twa," a name suggesting that there were only 42 of 'em.

The song seems not to have been well known beyond Northeast Scotland until Jeannie Robertson popularized it during the Revival.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Gutcher
Date: 29 Aug 13 - 02:53 AM

Lighter--it was no joke. I will get back with the story behind the song when I return from the hospital in the late evening if someone does not give it before that time.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: GUEST,Teribus
Date: 29 Aug 13 - 03:17 AM

As far as the "Black Watch" goes and references to France, Spain and Gibraltar in the chorus ("Through Gibraltar tae France and tae Spain) the song would have to date from the French Revolutionary Wars and the early years of the Napoleonic War together covering a period from between 1796 and 1807 when the 42nd Regiment of Foot was stationed at Gibraltar (In 1808 the Spanish became our allies).

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 29 Aug 13 - 12:32 PM

Thanks for the historical info, Teribus.

Below is the well-known "ancestral" song in full, from Henry Playford's _Wit and Mirth: or Pills to Purge Melancholy_, Vol. IV, pp. 102-104. (Playford, not D'Urfey, was the sole editor of the first edition.) The indicated "foregoing Tune" - "Jockey's Lamentation" - is not notably like the "Twa Sergeants" tune.

The great Bruce Olson provided words from the second ed. of _Pills_ (1707)on an earlier thread. Except for trivial differences in punctuation, spelling, and italicizing (all reproduced below for pedants), the 1706 words are identical.

The refrain of "Twa Sergeants" has been modernized from this song. But aside from that and the general inspiration, the two songs are quite distinct:



       _The Recruiting_ Officer; _Or, the Merrie Voluntiers: Being an Excellent New_ Copy _of Verses upon Raising Recruits. To the   foregoing Tune.

Hark! now the Drums beat up agen,
For all true Soldiers Gentlmen;
Then let us list, and March I say,
Over the Hills and far away;
Over the Hills and o're the Main,
To _Flanders, Portugal_ and _Spain_,
Queen _Ann_ Commands and we'll obey,
_Over the Hills and far away_.

All Gentlemen that have a Mind,
To serve the Queen that's good and kind,
Come list and enter into Pay,
Then o're the Hills and far away;
Over the Hills and o're the Main,
To _Flanders, Portugal_ and _Spain_,
Queen _Ann_, &c.

Here's Forty Shillings on the Drum,
For those that Voluntiers do come,
With Shirts and Cloaths and present Pay,
When ore the Hill and far away;
Over the Hills, &c.

Hear that brave Boys and let us go,
Or else we shall be Prest you know;
Then List and enter into Pay,
And o're the Hills and far away;
O're the Hills, &c.

The Constables they search about,
To find such brisk young Fellows out;
Then let's be Voluntiers I say,
Over the Hills and far away;
Over the Hills, &c.

Since now the French so low are brought,
And wealth and honours to be got,
Who then behind wou'd sneaking stay,
When o're the Hills and far away;
Over, &c.

No more from sound of Drum retreat,
While _Marlborough_, and _Gallaway_ beat,*
The French and Spaniards every day,
When over the Hills and far away; &c.

He that is forc'd to go and Fight,
Will never get true honour by't,
While Voluntiers shall win the Day,
When o're the Hill and far away;
Over, &c.

What tho our Friends our Absence mourn,
We all with honour shall return,
And then we'll sing both Night and day,
Over the Hills and far away;
Over, &c.

The Prentice _Tom_ he may refuse,
To wipe his angry Master's Shoes:
For then he's free to Sing and play,
Over the Hills and far away. &c.

Over Rivers, Bogs and Springs,
We all shall live as great as Kings,
And Plunder get both Night and Day,
When o'er the Hills and far away.&c.

We then shall lead more happy Lives,
By getting rid of brats and Wives,
That scold on both Night and Day,
When o're the Hills and far away. &c.

Come on then Boys and You shall see.
We every one shall Captans be,
To Whore and Rant as well as they,
When o're the Hills and far away, &.

For if we go 'tis one to Ten,
But we return all Gentlemen,
All Gentlemen as well as they,
When o'er the Hills and far away; &c.


Olson adds the following in explanation of "Gallaway":

"Henry de Massue, French, created Earl of Galway by the English in 1697, reviving extinct title. In 1707 he lost the battle of Almanza. The tune, presumeably Irish, "Lord Gallaway's Lamentation", probably refers to him. (D. O'Sullivan's 'Carolan', II, p. 128-9)."

Lloyd and others note that "The Recruiting Officer" is sung in George Farquhar's play of the same name, also published in 1706. The play, however, includes only Playford's stanzas 10 (with a "soundrel" master); 12 (who "scold and Brawl"); the refrain (with "the "Queen" unspecified); and the first couplet of stanza 13.

Interestingly enough, the Dublin-born playwright Farquhar was himself a recruiting officer for the British army from 1703-1706. It suggests at least the possibility that during that period he himself wrote the full song, abridging it and improving a few words for the play. (Both appeared independently in 1706.)

The "Twa Recruiting Sergeants" looks like an inspired Scots rewrite and expansion of the stanzas sung in Farquhar's classic play. "The Voluntiers" could not have simply "evolved" into the "Sergeants."

Scott, undoubtedly reflecting wider usage, called the Black Watch "The Forty-Twa" so early as 1816.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 29 Aug 13 - 03:39 PM

Jon,
Absolutely! Just because 2 songs share a few words and one may have been inspired by the other certainly doesn't make them the same song by any stretch of the imagination.

The only thing I can see they have in common is the one line 'Over the hills etc' and this we demonstrated recently on another thread derives from earlier ballads of the 17thc so both songs could derive from the earlier independently, or their similarities could simply be mere coincidence.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Gutcher
Date: 29 Aug 13 - 04:55 PM

From memory, which is failing fast--had the question been posed 50/60 years back I could have supplied names and dates.
The Black Watch regiment was formed not many years after the union of 1707 as an elite regiment known colloqualy as "The Breakan Dhu" from the colour of their tartan, the personel being composed of the scions of the landed gentry, smaller lairds and tacksmen all picked men who applied in such numbers that two regiments could have been formed, Scotland being a poor country and to make a living these men had to fight as mercenaries in foreign wars, in this case they were recruited to fight on the continent.
After training they were marched to the South Coast for embarcation where they discovered that instead of the continental wars for which they had signed the government had hired them out to the West India Company to fight in that plague ridden area from whence very few white men ever returned.
They of course mutinied and refused to board the troop ships and a stand off took place during which three of the ringleaders were tried and hung, the only one of the three whose name comes to mind at this time is Farquar Shaw.
Finding that coertion was of no use the government cut their losses and marched the regiment to the Scottish/ English border and dismissed them there to find their own way home to the highlands.
Now when it turned out a few years later [1730s?.] troops were urgently required some bright spark in the government remembering how the highlanders had turned out to enlist sent the recruiting drum through the highlands with the result as mentioned that only forty two men enlisted.
Solely from memory full details are in print somewhere--seek and ye shall find.
1737 comes to mind for the date of the abortive recruiting drive.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 29 Aug 13 - 05:45 PM

Looking at the versions in Greig Duncan it appears at least the choruses have more than just a coincidental connection.

'Over the mountains and over the main
Through Gibraltar, France and Spain,
Queen Victoria commands us by land and sea
It's out over the hills and awa' with me (B version)

However the presumably earlier C version runs

Over the mountains and over the main
Thro Gibraltar, France and Spain,
King George commands, we maun obey,
Over the hills and far away.

which is pretty close to Recruiting Officer as Bruce says, but nothing else in common with the verses. Of course George could mean anything from 1714 to 1830.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 29 Aug 13 - 08:51 PM

Thanks for the tip, Gutcher! The facts are most interesting....

According to the sympathetic account in David Herbert's "Great Historical Mutinies" (1876), this one took place in May, 1743. The regiment had been marched from Perth to London for service in Flanders, though as usual the men were told nothing more than that they were going to London to turn out for inspection by King George, who had never seen a Highlander. When a general showed up for the review in place of the King, the Highlanders, who'd never expected to be ordered out of Scotland, became suspicious and restive, particularly since the English they'd encountered on their march mostly saw them as unpredictable, gibberish-speaking primitives. Within the regiment, a rumor quickly spread that it would be sent "to the American plantations...to be kept for life in those realms of the most degrading banishment to penal servitude."

Rather than risk it, most of the regiment decamped for the Border in the middle of the night. Soon surrounded by English troops and threatened with "no quarter," they negotiated a truce and were taken into custody.

Three enlisted men, including Pvt. Farquhar Shaw, were shot at Tower Hill after court-martial. A hundred and thirty-three other mutineers (most of whom, apparently, intended only to resume their previous duties in the Highlands) wound up convicted and transported, many indeed to Georgia and the West Indies. The remainder of the regiment was deployed to Flanders - which seems to have been the plan from the beginning.

Since the 42nd comprised six companies, I have to assume that far more than "forty-twa" remained for service on the Continent.

Herbert gives the Watch's original Gaelic name as "Freicudan Dhu."

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 30 Aug 13 - 04:45 AM

"The Black Watch regiment was formed not many years after the union of 1707 as an elite regiment known colloqualy as "The Breakan Dhu""

Highland Companies were raised by the Scottish gvt in the 17thC. So although they (ie the Watch) were made an official regiment of the British army shortly after the union of 1707 they were in existence prior to that. According to Peter Simpson (a former company commander in the regiment) in his book "The Highland Companies 1603-1760" the name Black Watch (Am Freiceadan Dubh) was probably first used in the 1670s.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Teribus
Date: 30 Aug 13 - 04:59 AM

Chorus from the song I know with the Title Twa Recruitin Sergeants goes:

"And it's over the Mountains and over the Main
Through Gibraltar tae France and tae Spain
With a feather in your bonnet and yer kilt abin yer knee
Enlist ma bonny laddie and come awa wi me"

The Black Watch were originally raised as a militia in 1725 by General George Wade to keep "watch" for crime and to assist and protect the men, equipment and supplies required to build the network of roads that he was commissioned to build in the highlands after the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion.

The six Independent Highland Companies were recruited from local clans, with one company coming from Clan Munro, one from Clan Fraser, one from Clan Grant and three from Clan Campbell. Four more companies were added in 1739 to make a total of ten Independent Highland Companies, the required number to make up a single battalion regiment of the line.

The Black Watch, as a regiment of the line, was formed officially in 1739 as the "43rd Highland Regiment of Foot". As such it was first mustered in 1740, at Aberfeldy, Scotland. The Colonel was John Lindsay, 20th Earl of Crawford and the Lieutenant-Colonel was Sir Robert Munro, 6th Baronet. They were renumbered after the '45 Rebellion to the 42nd in 1748 on the disbanding of the existing Oglethorpe's 42nd Regiment of Foot allowing the regiment to assume that number as its own.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 30 Aug 13 - 05:01 AM

Simpson's book basically agrees with Lighter's account. The regiments had been raised to specifically "keep the peace of the braes" so basically only to be deployed within Scotland itself. It was marched to London to be inspected by the king but was actually inspected by General Wade. They were in fact to be deployed to Flanders to fight on the continent but a rumour swept round the regiment that they were to be shipped to the fever ridden West Indies so there was a mutiny.

They were shipped to the continent but much of the time were in training rather than combat as the commanders tried to get them used to the Lowland Scottish and English methods - however they kept reverting to the Highland Charge type of method. When they were eventually used they were incredibly succesful and their ferocity was feared by the enemy.

During the 45 rebellion, although other Black Watch companies were raised and active in Scotland against the Jacobites, the bulk of the regiment were brought back from the continent and stationed at Blackheath to help guard against a possible French invasion.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 30 Aug 13 - 12:14 PM

Minor correction: apparently "much" of the regiment mutinied, not "most" of it.

Steve, thanks for comparing the choruses. Few of us have easy access to Greig & Duncan. Could you post their texts of the song, or at least the fullest one?

Are the melodies like Jeannie Robertson's?

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Reinhard
Date: 30 Aug 13 - 11:52 PM

Greig & Duncan have these four versions of The Recruiting Sergeant:

A - 'Twas in That Year, sung by Alexander Robb (June 1906)

'Twas in that year Eighteen hundred and two
When a oor man did lose his cee,
When he hadna anither ane to fill up her sta',
We'll over the hills and far awa'.

We'll over the mountains, over the main
Thro' Gibraltar, France and Spain,
King Geordie commands and we maun obey -
We'll over the hills and far away.

B - Old Recruiting Soldier Song, sung by John Wight (November 1908)

A recruiting soldier came frae the Black Watch to the markets,
And ever as some troops for it he did catch,
And aye as he listed some forty and twa,
Come out o'er the hills and far awa.
    I over the mountains and over the main,
    Through Gibraltar, France, and Spain,
    Queen Victoria commands us by land and by sea,
    It's out over the hills and awa wi' me.

Now, ploughman lad, great is the danger you're in,
Your horse may scare and your owsen may rin,
The farmer will judge for to buy your penny fee,
So list, bonnie laddie, and come wi' me.

It'a awa wi' your tawties, your meal and your kale,
Your ill-syed sowens and stinkin' ale,
Your stinkin' whey and bread fired raw,
So list, bonnie laddie, and come awa.

Now, my lad, if you chance to get a bairn,
We'll soon rid your hand of that.
And you need not pay a farthing of the law,
So list, bonnie laddie, and come awa.

A reeky fire and a rinnin'-oot pan,
Three little weans and a wife for to ban,
Three beats o' the drum will rid you o' that a',
So list, bonnie laddie, and come awa.

C - sung by Miss Bell Robertson (1908)

Over the mountains and over the main,
Thro' Gibraltar, France, and Spain,
King George commands, we maun obey,
Over the hills and far away.

Fan ye hae thrashen strae enough
Ye maun gae oot and yoke the pleugh,
Your back and sides like to fa' in twa,
Ootower the hills and far awa'.

A reeky reeky house and a rinin-oot flan,
A girnin' geet and a wife to ban',
And that is toil above all care
Ootower the hills and toil nae mair.

Over the mountains and over the main,
Thro' Gibraltar, France, and Spain,
King George commands, we maun a' obey,
Ootover the hills and far away.

D - sung by Miss Annie Shirer

And we'll over the mountains, we'll over the main,
We'll thro Gibraltar, France, and Spain;
Queen Victoria commands, and we must obey,
So it's busk, bonnie laddie, and gang far away.

I wonder if Bell Robertson of version C is related to Jeannie Robertson.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Gutcher
Date: 31 Aug 13 - 12:21 AM

Memory still niggles that the recruiters when they made a trawl of the highlands were only able to recruit 42 inferior men at a period before the 1743 mutiny mentioned by Lighter. My memory seems to have been mixing up two distinct events when I recalled the name of Farquar Shaw as beimg involved in the incident that lead to this boycott of the recruiters.
Could I have the story of the failure from Grants Deeside Tales?, a book I loaned to a sassenach some 50 years back and have not seen since, Des, if you are still to the fore and are reading this, please return my book.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 31 Aug 13 - 08:23 AM

The point of the song, in the familiar modern version, is nothing to do with foreign wars. It takes the recruitment situation as a pretext for an extended grumble about the conditions of life for a farmworker, and seems specifically to be about the way it was in north-east Scotland in the late 19th century. I've never seen "join the army and get better food" as a theme in any 18th century source.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 31 Aug 13 - 10:05 AM

Thanks for the texts, Reinhard.

Bell Robertson had one of the most extensive folksong repertoires in British history (400 songs), but she was apparently not musical and would only recite. (Recitation by non-singers must have been pretty common even if collectors had little to say about it.)

"A" is an unrelated ditty with the "over the hills" refrain attached.

"C" seems like some kind of inspirational midpoint: it combines the popular refrain (added perhaps, as in "A," simply because it was catchy and familiar) with complaints about farm life - but the army is otherwise absent. The complaints would fit in well with the "Sergeants," but it's hard to imagine that, in this version, all the familiar stanzas have been forgotten, leaving only two otherwise unattested(?) ones.

I wonder if the volume notes shed any light on these relationships.

"D," of course, is merely the refrain. Placing it with this song is presumably arbitrary.

Which leaves John Wight's "B" as the only other early text of Jeannie Robertson's song. Each contains a minor element absent from the other. Robertson's lyrics are more polished. ("Ill-syed" rhymes with "hillside" and means poorly strained.)

Wight's recruiter urges the plowman to ditch his whole family, but Robertson's sergeant frankly suggests a more traditional (and perhaps more appealing) inducement to enlist - to escape a careless paternity:

Laddie, gin ye hae a sweetheart wi bairn,
Ye'll easy be rid o' that ill-spun yarn:
Twa rattles o' the drum, and that'll pay it a'!
Sae list, bonnie laddie, and come awa'!

The appearance of Queen Victoria somewhat encourages the suggestion that the song is a mid to late 19th century creation in spite of   "France and Spain" in the leftover chorus.

Had the newer words been written in response to any specific war (Crimean War, Indian Mutiny, etc.), convention should have dictated some direct reference.

Jack, yes, it's more about bothy life than about recruiting. But both themes are present. The sergeants' timeless mendacity adds bite to the the truthful description of hard conditions on the farm. And that makes the call to head "over the mountain and over the main" even more attractive. (The promise of better room and board in the service is summed up in America by the phrase "three hots and a cot.")

Yet "catching" recruits and the sergeants' inability to snare more than 42 of them implies the singer's skepticism about the whole process.

There's a not-unusual shift in perspective from the third-person (the sergeants did such-and-such) to the first (Laddie, come awa'!). Thus the singer can unconsciously enjoy playing both the the calculating tempter and the wry skeptic. I certainly do.

In Jeanie Robertson's version it's one of the greatest folksongs. No wonder it's become "standardized."

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 31 Aug 13 - 03:58 PM

Jon,
I'm afraid I'm text bound and not all that familiar with Jeannie's version though I have heard it.

Subject: Lyr Add: TWA RECRUITIN' SERGEANTS
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 31 Aug 13 - 04:43 PM

Steve, if memory serves (and it still does sometimes), the DT version below, from the singing of Cilla Fisher & Artie Trezise is within two or three trivial words of the one I associate with Jeanie Robertson:

                   TWA RECRUITIN' SERGEANTS

1. Twa recruiting sergeants came frae the Black Watch
Tae markets and fairs, some recruits for tae catch
But a' that they 'listed was forty and twa:
Enlist my bonnie laddie an' come awa.

Chorus:
And it's over the mountain and over the main
Through Gibraltar, to France and Spain
Pit a feather tae your bonnet, and a kilt aboon your knee
Enlist my bonnie laddie and come awa with me.

2. Oh laddie ye dinna ken the danger that yer in
If yer horses was to fleg, and yer owsen was to rin
This greedy ole farmer, he wouldna pay yer fee
Sae list my bonnie laddie and come awa wi' me

3. With your tattie porin's and yer meal and kale,
Yer soor sowan' soorin's and yer ill-brewed ale,
Yer buttermilk, yer whey, and yer breid fired raw
Sae list my bonnie laddie and come awa

4. And its into the barn and out o' the byre
This ole farmer, he thinks ye never tire
It's slavery a' yer life, a life o' low degree
Sae list my bonnie laddie and come awa with me

5. O laddie if ye've got a sweetheart an' a bairn,
Ye'll easily get rid o' that ill-spun yarn
Twa rattles o' the drum aye and that'll pay it a'
Sae list my bonnie laddie and come awa.

I first heard the song from the Ian Campbell Folk Group, about 1968.

Without being identical to it, the tune is reminiscent of "Over the Hills and Far Away."

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Gutcher
Date: 01 Sep 13 - 02:13 AM

Lighter as you say the version above is what was generally sung with a slightly more Scottish version o a wheen words.
Verse four went:---
An it's intae the barn an oot o the byre
This greedy aul fermer thinks ye'll never tire
It's a slavery joab o low degree
Sae list ma bonny laddie an cum awa wi me.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 Sep 13 - 06:23 AM

Jon,
The tune in Greig Duncan looks to me to be closer to the older song but somewhere in between the 2. Would it be a help if I scan it and send you a copy?

FWIW Greig in FSNE article 176 gives GD versions B and C but declines to print the rude v4 in B.

Karl Dallas in 'The Cruel Wars' gives Jeannie's version with vv3&4 interchanged with tune as does Norman Buchan in 101 Scottish Songs p76
and Alasdair Clayre in 100 Folk Songs and New Songs all derived from Jeannie.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 01 Sep 13 - 11:10 AM

Thank you, Steve; a scan would be great.

Concerning B4, MTV fans will find it incomprehensible that anyone could have been offended by it a century ago. You'll recall Child's comment on "The Keach in the Creel," which, he says, contains lines that are "brutal and shameless almost beyond example." Today, no one is sure what he could have meant.

Even in big-city America in the '60s, the "sweetheart wi bairn" seemed, not "rude," but far spicier than anything one might hear in pop music. The bastardy was bad enough, but there was then the frank recommendation to get away uncaring and unscathed. Today the humorless will find the sexism objectionable rather than the fornication.

Teen folkies (if there are any) may find such musings enlightening.

Gutcher, when I write Scots I try to stick as close to ordinary English spelling as conscience will allow. (Even Burns wrote " *To* a Mouse." My students still had to grapple with the poem as though it were written in Dutch or something.)

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 01 Sep 13 - 02:40 PM

Scanned and despatched.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Jim McLean
Date: 01 Sep 13 - 02:46 PM

Lighter, it WAS written in Dutch or something, the something being Scottish (I hate the word Scots as an adjective).

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 01 Sep 13 - 07:10 PM

"Even Burns wrote " *To* a Mouse." Mind when you hear people introducing that poem they do tend to say the title in standard English as it is written then go on to pronouncing Scots in the text. I do find the history interesting though. When writing in Scots the writers in the time of Burns, including Burns himself, tended to drop the more traditional Scots spellings for, not a phonetic spelling but, how the words would have looked with the English spelling. This was following on from Allan Ramsay who had also introduced the now oft frowned upon apostrophes to denote missing vowels which would have been there had the word been written in standard English. A standard spelling never came about in Scots like it did in English and then with the drop in the status of Scots the more traditional Scottish spelling of the early Scots Makkars was kind of laid aside not to be revived until the 20th century Scots Rennaisance. Despite his cry of 'back to Dunbar not Burns' even MacDiarmid retained the apostrophes though others then dropped them.

People sometimes spell phonetically and others sometimes spell as it would sound in English. However, though there is no strict standard, there has been a move in the last century or so back to more traditional Scottish spelling amongst many writers – and there has been recommendations made by the Scots Language Society etc not to dictate how spelling should be but to let people know the more traditional spellings. So for instance generally 'ou' instead of the English 'oo' so you'd maybe have houss, mouss, doun and toun instead of hoose, moose, doon and toon. Although people do use the other spellings too. Doesn't seem to really matter.

David Purves in his "A Scots Grammar" gives a version of MacDiarmid's poem Crowdieknowe written in line with the SLS recommendations. It's kind of how I'd spell though I find 'waws' a bit strange for 'walls' and I'd normally use 'waas'. Just what you're used to I suppose and at least 'waws' is consistent with 'blaws'.

O ti be at Crowdieknowe
Whan the lest trumpet blaws,
An see the deid cum lowpin owre
The auld grey waws.

Mukkil men wi tousilt baerds
A grat at as a bairn
'l skrammil frae the croudit cley
Wi fek o sweirin

An glower at God an aw his gang
O angels I the lift
Thae trashie bleizin French lyke fowk
Wha gar'd thaim shift!

Fain the weimen-fowk'l seek
Ti mak thaim haud thair rowe
Fegs, God's no blate gin he steirs up
The men o Crowdieknowe.









"

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 01 Sep 13 - 08:06 PM

Jim and Allan, since I have no stake in it, I find the attempt to establish Lowlands Scots/Scottish English as a formal or literary language by *making it look as weird to other English-speakers as possible* to be unnecessarily complicated (and therefore self-indulgent). Particularly since pronunciations vary even within Scotland. Is it "abin" or is it "abeen"?

I suspect that even Scots must be momentarily taken aback to read words that may sound familiar when spoken aloud but look unfamiliar on the page.

Then there are old words that must be pretty unfamiliar outside of old songs or poems.

When we were in Scotland some years ago, everyone seemed to be speaking English that, after the first five or ten minutes at the airport, we had no difficulty at all in understanding. Of course, maybe they were going easy on the Yanks....

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 01 Sep 13 - 10:22 PM

The MacDiarmid poem above really doesn't have an archaic words in it. Certainly wouldn't have been any archaic in his day. Nowadays here you maybe wouldn't here 'fegs' which is just an exclamation but I'm pretty sure it'd be quite common in his day. I don't use 'blate' but my grand-parents did. The point there was not to make it less like English as much as to simply use the more traditional spelling prior to the said spelling being anglicised. If you are going to use a spelling convention to write your own language then why would you have to use the spelling convention of another language - even if it is closely related? Not only the spelling but the grammar differs quite a bit too. Burns famously wrote "Scots Wha Hae" but quite honestly nobody would ever have said that. Scots words with English grammar!

As to the what Scots speak. Well the Scots dialects are still around. I live in an area where many people speak Border Scots. Most people in Scotland speak SSE (that is Scottish Standard English) which is basically just a Scottish form of English rather like American English differs from Standard English. It is English with a few Scotticisms thrown in influenced by Scots. The estimate is that about 1 million speak Scots to some extent (so about 20%) though the problem is where does SSE stop and Scots start? There is no definite dividing line. But there are plenty of people who speak Scots dialect proper. I myself jump between Borders Scots and SSE depending on who I'm speaking to. Really without even thinking about it. Writing it is much harder because it was dropped from Scottish Education and only in recent decades has it been introduced again in a small way. Both Scots and Gaelic were ostracised by the Education Act of 1872 (approx)and English was for a while the only medium used. After a couple of decades gaelic was given a slight reprieve. I'm unlikely to speak in my native dialect to a foreign tourist though! I've seen the effect of it when you do though.....

Standing on the first tee at Minto Golf Club with a friend of mine from Hawick (the town is renowned for having a particularly heavy Border's brogue) when two American Ladies approached. One asked my friend "could you tell us if there's a pro-shop here" my friend looked up and said "Nah A deh ken" so the lady looked to her friend and said "oh it's ok they don't speak English" and walked off. :-)

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 01 Sep 13 - 10:46 PM

Another thing about MacDiarmid. Some if his poems in Scots like the one quoted in the last post are just his natural language whilst some others (eg Water Music)are quite high browed word plays and sometimes scientific in tone which involve trawling through dictionaries to understand them. Hence you get some people suggesting his Scots was all made up from dictionaries. Rubbish of course as he wrote in exactly the same way in some of his English language poems and he certainly didn't make up the English language :-)

Here is the first verse of his "On A Raised Beach"


"All is lithogenesis—or lochia,
Carpolite fruit of the forbidden tree,
Stones blacker than any in the Caaba,
Cream-coloured caen-stone, chatoyant pieces,   
Celadon and corbeau, bistre and beige,   
Glaucous, hoar, enfouldered, cyathiform,   
Making mere faculae of the sun and moon,   
I study you glout and gloss, but have
No cadrans to adjust you with, and turn again   
From optik to haptik and like a blind man run   
My fingers over you, arris by arris, burr by burr,   
Slickensides, truité, rugas, foveoles,
Bringing my aesthesis in vain to bear,
An angle-titch to all your corrugations and coigns,   
Hatched foraminous cavo-rilievo of the world,   
Deictic, fiducial stones. Chiliad by chiliad   
What bricole piled you here, stupendous cairn?   
What artist poses the Earth écorché thus,   
Pillar of creation engouled in me?
What eburnation augments you with men's bones,   
Every energumen an Endymion yet?
All the other stones are in this haecceity it seems,   
But where is the Christophanic rock that moved?   
What Cabirian song from this catasta comes"

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Teribus
Date: 02 Sep 13 - 04:05 AM

I thought the question asked in the thread title was How old was the song entitled "Twa Recruitin' Sergeants"? If so where does a song and variants of "A Recruiting Sergeant" come into it? Or indeed the "Over the Hills and Far Away" references.

As far as I am aware at no point in Queen Victoria's long reign were British troops ever raised to march through France or Spain.

Militia Regiments were raised specifically for Home Defence and joining one was a means of dodging dangerous service overseas with the regular army.

In 1739 however the Black Watch changed from being a "Militia" Regiment to being a regular infantry line regiment so they could be sent wherever they were required.

During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars some 40 "Militia" and Regular Line Regiments were raised in Scotland. All the lowland Scottish Regiments had to recruit - not the case with most of the Highland Regiments who were privately raised as basically single clan regiments, notable exceptions being the Black Watch and the 71st Glasgow Highland Regiment. For example the 79th Regiment of Foot (Cameron Highlanders) privately raised and paid for by Sir Allan Cameron of Erracht if the Regiment needed men then the Head of the Clan just sent his "Tacksmen" out with orders to gather the number required. A relatively small clan they did expand their base for recruits in the design of their tartan which was a combination of Cameron and Macdonald (Sir Allan Cameron's wife designed it and she was a Macdonald).

Specific mention of the Black Watch and the line "Through Gibraltar to France and tae Spain" means that it had to date from a period after the Regiment came into being and from a time when Britain was at war with both France and Spain and a time when it was not present in Portugal.

The line "And a' they've listed is forty and twa" is merely a device to weave the number of the Regiment into the text of the song.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 02 Sep 13 - 04:37 AM

Lighter said, "Few of us have easy access to Greig-Duncan"
There is free access to the following sites provided by the University of Edinburgh, the second only having been launched a matter of weeks ago.
Greig-Duncan tunes
Can't post second link as blickifier has just gone offline! Will do it later.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 02 Sep 13 - 05:55 AM

Specific mention of the Black Watch and the line "Through Gibraltar to France and tae Spain" means that it had to date from a period after the Regiment came into being and from a time when Britain was at war with both France and Spain and a time when it was not present in Portugal.

That dates a phrase in the chorus and no more. The text Jeannie Robertson sang is from decades later. Songs change with time, and in this case the most interesting and creative parts of it aren't the oldest, and neither is the ironic rhetorical structure.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Teribus
Date: 02 Sep 13 - 06:55 AM

"Specific mention of the Black Watch and the line "Through Gibraltar to France and tae Spain" " - So that dates a phrase in a chorus and no more??

"The text Jeannie Robertson sang is from decades LATER"

Really? (Shouldn't that be decades EARLIER if your point is to make any sense) So the version of the song referring to the Black Watch, to the countries mentioned, must bear no relation in identifying the age of the song - For some obscure reason the font of all Scottish Folk Songs must be those as sung by either Jeannie Roberston or Ewan MacColl - utter crap, how do you know where they got them from? How do you know that they remembered them correctly?

As far as I can see Jeannie Roberston sings the same version as we do, i.e. it mentions the Regiment by name so it cannot predate 1739 so all references linking Jeannie Roberston's rendition of Twa Recruitin Sergeants to Marlborough and Queen Anne can be be dismissed - as the Regiment did not exist for anybody to sing about.

For Gibraltar, France and Spain to be specifically mentioned (And NOTE: it is THROUGH Gibraltar to France and Spain) then that could only refer to a time when the French and the Spanish were allied against the British and before 1808 when British troops landed on the Iberian Peninsula in Portugal by which time the Spanish were on "our" side.

But we will go along with your decades LATER that must put it into the mid to late 1800s and unfortunately for yourself and Jeannie at no point at all subsequent to the ending of the Napoleonic War did Britain fight France or Spain - making the song a complete and utter piece of ill-thought up nonsense if what you contend is correct.

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: GUEST,Allan Conn
Date: 02 Sep 13 - 09:07 AM

Mind it is also possible that historically the lyrics are a nonsense! Not saying that they are just that it is at least possible. The Haughs of Cromdale is an example of a lyric making no sense historically

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 02 Sep 13 - 09:50 AM

Evidence in the lyrics can suggest only a 'not-made-before', as opposed to a 'not-made-after', date. For instance, we can assume a song mentioning Hitler was made no earlier than the 1930s, but we cannot assume it was not made later than 1945. (However, I suppose I've invalidated my argument by, according to internet logic, being the first one to make a Hitler comparison ... )

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: GUEST,Tattie Bogle
Date: 02 Sep 13 - 10:00 AM

Here's the other link - blickifier working again!
Greig-Duncan songs

Subject: RE: Help: Twa Recruiting Sergeants - How old?
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 02 Sep 13 - 10:10 AM

Or is it? Faulty link: tried re-doing it and testing before posting but no joy!
Anyway if you're interested, go to the Edinburgh Uni site at www.ed.ac.uk then just put Greig-Duncan Songs into their Search box.