Lyr Req: Rue and Thyme

Subject: Lyr Req: Rue and Thyme
From: GUEST,andymac
Date: 06 Jul 03 - 09:30 PM

Can anyone help? I'm looking for the words to a song I have heard sung in sessions at home a few times entitled Rue and Thyme. The chorus is along the lines of
"Oh Rue, Oh rue,
Oh rue is in prime.
Ye will pu' the red rose
And I will pu' the thyme.

Please don't suggest askinghte singers for it, as it was a while ago. I also had a recording of it by Maureen Jelks but have lost/lent that somehow.
I have also hunted around for it and can find references to the song on playlists but no lyrics or further info on it.

Andy

PS please don't tell me to join as I am a member but haven't received my password on this PC, despite asking...

Subject: DTADD Version: Rue and Thyme
From: Drumshanty
Date: 07 Jul 03 - 08:24 AM

RUE AND THYME
^^
There's a rose in yon gairden that's newly sprung in bloom
Wi' spreadin' and growin' it blooms a' aroond
I reached richt intae it, the reid rose tae find
But a thorn pricked my finger and I left it behind

O rue! O rue! The rue is in prime
And it's ye'll pu' the reid rose and I'll pu' the thyme

For I aince loved him dearly but noo him disdain
For the langer I loved him the falser he became
For the langer I loved him the saucier he grew
And it's noo I must tell him that it's time for tae rue

And it's ye'll pu' the reid rose, I'll pu' the rue and thyme
For since ye've been unfaithfu', sae will I be unkind
And it's ye'll drink tae yer auld love and I'll drink tae mine
So here's a health tae the laddie that's maist on my mind

For I can love little and I can love long
And I can love an auld love till a new yin comes along
I only said I loved him his mind for tae ease
And it's when his back is tae me, I can love who I please

This is the Maureen Jelks version transcribed from her Tradition Bearers album "Eence Upon a Time".

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Rue and Thyme
From: GUEST,andymac
Date: 07 Jul 03 - 10:32 AM

Thanks for that, marital harmony (no pun intended) can resume once my wife's learnt it.

Andy

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Rue and Thyme
From: Noreen
Date: 07 Jul 03 - 11:28 AM

re password, andymac, have you asked in the Help & Trouble forum? (See top right of banner-Help.) You won't be ignored there.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Rue and Thyme
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jul 03 - 12:47 PM

There's certainly a connection between this song and Kellyburnbrae but I guess they're not the same song.
Andymac, I sent your password to you by e-mail. If you didn't get it, contact me.
--Joe Offer (click to e-mail)-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Rue and Thyme
From: GUEST,Mary Humphreys
Date: 07 Jul 03 - 01:01 PM

Has anyone got the tune for this - preferably in ABC. I think this is the song that Doreen Leighter sang at the Court Sessions last week. She said that Ellen Mitchell also sings it, but I don't know if she has ever recorded it.Doreen's version was absolute magic, and the best thing I heard from the floor all night!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Rue and Thyme
From: Sorcha
Date: 07 Jul 03 - 01:38 PM

Rue and Thyme at JC's.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Rue and Thyme
From: Joe Offer
Date: 07 Jul 03 - 02:38 PM

We've been having server problems, and the tune for Rue and Thyme in the Digital Tradition isn't working. My usual workaround for getting to our tunes is to go to Yet Another Digital Tradition, but that's not working today, either. You can download the entire Digital Tradition at our download page, and you'll be able to get the tune there.

The tunes that Sorcha linked to are a roundabout way of getting to the Digital Tradition tune. One of the two tunes is our tune, and it isn't working. The other is approximately the same tune. I suppose the tune for the Jelks lyrics is related, but the chorus is quite different. Both tunes are quite haunting. I wish I had an ear for transcribing tunes, so I could reproduce the Jelks tune. The Jelks CD is delightful, by the way. I got mine from Dick Greenhaus at Camsco (unsolicited testimonial).

Anybody know more about this song?

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Rue and Thyme
From: andymac
Date: 08 Jul 03 - 05:20 AM

Joe,
I got the password, thanks for that.
I was at a small gathering a few months ago and heard Sylvia Barnes singing a "hairs standing up on the back of your neck" version of the song, she said that she'd heard it from Maureen. Alison McMorland, who was also there said that she had learned a small fragment from Lucy Stewart, the traditional singer who had lived in Fetterangus and she had then written/built the song up around that fragment I assume the air came from Lucy Stewart, but don't know. It's certainly haunting.
There is also a song called "Rue and Thyme" in the Greig-Duncan collection, but the words are different and Elaine Petrie sings the Greig-Duncan Rue and Thyme to a different (to my ears anyway) air on a CD entitled "Songs of the North-East" (released on Greentrax).

Of course we could have asked either Alison or Sylvia for the words but didn't since we had the Maureen Jelks CD, but it had gone astray somewhere.
I thought I'd track down the words for my wife, who is keen to sing the song. Easier said than done, till (yet again) Mudcat came to the rescue.
As for the connection to Kellyburn Braes, I didnt even know of it till I started hunting for this song.

Hope all this helps

Andy

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Rue and Thyme
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 08 Jul 03 - 11:47 AM

I wouldn't be thinking in terms of any real connection with Kellyburnbrae or the rest of that family; refrains involving thyme, rue and so on are quite common and turn up all over the place.

The song we have here would seem to be a member of the large Sprig (Bunch) of Thyme/ Willow Tree / Garners Gay group (Roud 3); though I wasn't able to find anything particularly close to it. If it's a re-make from fragments, then that explains it. I wouldn't necessarily expect the DT tune, which is a Northumbrian version, to be much like the tune got (presumably) from Lucy Stewart, but you never know.

However, now I know that Lucy Stewart was the original source, I see that Roud lists what I take to be the original set as appearing in Tocher vol.6 1972 pp. 180-1, as He's Providin For Me, but material from that number isn't available online yet. I can probably check it in the next few days, though, and if it does turn out to be the right song I'll post details.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Rue and Thyme
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 08 Jul 03 - 02:52 PM

I'm sure Malcolm is on the right track here, but hasn't gotten any further than I have. The earliest text I know of in "The Sprig of
Thyme/ Seeds of Love/ Garners Gay" complex (probably the most
common in English folk song), is "The Seed of Love", down in the
list of ballads at at Ancient Ballads, Poems and Songs, 1857. We find that the text there is
attributed to a Mrs. Fleetwood Habergham who died in 1703.

I'm a bit suspicious here that Mrs. Habergham's song may have
been from a broadside ballad that's not now known, but that's not
certain by any means. On my website in the Scarce Songs 1 file is
"An Excellent new Song, Called, The Young-Mans Answer to the
Maids Garden of Tyme", 1696. This is an obvious answer to the
"Sprig of Thyme/ Seeds of Love" song whatever it's exact text was
originally. Moreover, "The Young Man's Answer" is the original
(and unexpurgated) version of "The Gardner Lad (Child #219). One can
nearly pull a reasonable version of "The Seeds of Love" out of
"The Young-Man's Answer", but what song then would the latter
answer?

That 'answer' bit is still a somewhat puzzling, because whe don't have a really good fit for it.

Subject: Lyr/Tune Add: He's Providin for Me
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 21 Aug 03 - 02:38 PM

It seems that Maureen Jelks just used the first few lines of Lucy Stewart's song, and grafted unrelated material onto them to make something rather different, which would be why getting background is not easy. It isn't a traditional version of Rue and Thyme at all, though it is collated from mainly traditional components. Here is the song as it was published in Tocher:


HE'S PROVIDIN FOR ME

(From Lucy Stewart of Fetterangus, 1960. Recorded by Kenneth Goldstein.)

There's a rose in yon garden,
It is now in full bloom;
Atween spreadin an growin
It'll soon be a tree.
There's a hoose an a bonnie lad:
He's providin for me.

Refrain:
He's providin, he's providin,
He's providin for me:
There's a hoose an a bonnie lad:
He's providin for me.

O the roads I've been wandren,
They are now grown green:
And the arms I've often lain in,
They are now lyin teen:
And the lips I've often kissen,
They are now lyin low:
There's a hoose an a bonnie lad:
He's providin for me.

There's a ship in yon ocean,
It is far fae dry land.
If I keep my mind aisy
He'll be cons'ent and true.
There's a hoose an a bonnie lad:
He's providin for me.


Tocher, School of Scottish Studies, vol.6 1972 pp. 180-1. Roud currently lists this under no.7005.

Kenneth Goldstein remarked that the music transcription was much simplified: the tune was sung with a very free rhythm and long breathing pauses. In the second stanza, the tune of lines 1 and 2 is repeated for lines 3 and 4.


X:1
T:He's Providin For Me
S:Lucy Stewart, Fetterangus, Aberdeenshire.
B:Tocher (School of Scottish Studies) vol.6 1972 pp. 180-1.
Z:Kenneth Goldstein
N:Tempo is approximate. A number of other expression marks are indicated which abc for which abc codes are not available.
L:1/8
Q:1/4=84
M:3/4
K:Bb
B,3/2C/|(DG) HG2 (FG/B/)|B2 {B}HD2 F3/2D/|C2 B,2 B,2|B,4
w:There's a rose_ in yon__ gar-den, It is now in full bloom;
{G}B3/2B/|(BA) (GB) (AB)|(GF) HD2 BB|{B}GF B,2 C2|D4
w:A-tween spread-*in_ an_ grow-*in It'-ll soon_ be a tree.
B,3/2C/|(D2 HG2) (FG/A/)|BB {B}D2 F3/2D/|C2 B,2 B,2|B,4||
w:There's a hoose an a__ bon-nie lad: He's pro-vi-din for me.
{G}B3/2B/|(BA) G2 B3/2B/|(GF) HD2 HB3/2B/|(GF) B,2 C2|D4
w:He's pro-vi-*din, he's pro-vi-*din, He's pro-vi-*din for me:
B,3/2C/|D2 HG2 (FG/B/)|BB {B}D2 F3/2D/|C2 B,2 B,2|B,4|]
w:There's a hoose an a__ bon-nie lad: He's pro-vi-din for me.


A longer text which seems to be related appears in Emily Lyle, Andrew Crawfurd's Collection of Ballads and Songs (Scottish Text Society, Edinburgh 1974, pp 184-5). It was noted in c.1827 from John Smith, a tailor living at Lochwinnoch, Renfrewshire, as The Mailin. Roud lists it under no.3869.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Rue and Thyme
From:
Date: 18 Nov 05 - 01:09 AM

I am trying to trace a ballad containing the line "rue and thyme grow baith in ae garden"
can anyone help?
Many thanks

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Rue and Thyme
From: GUEST,Bee-Jay
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 10:19 AM

WOW been trying to access these lyrics for weeks, asked here on Mudcat to no success!
Googled Maureen Jelks rue and thyme and page goes straight here.
Don't understand why couldn't have got here direct when I first requested on Mudcat, but never mind here now and got lyrics,
happy bunny
(just have to learn song now )

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Rue and Thyme
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 09:46 AM

From a list of Scottish proverbs, in A Select Collection of Scots Poems by David Ferguson (Edinburgh: 1777), page 28:

"Rue and thyme grow baith in ae garden."

[I have found this proverb quoted in novels, but not in songs.]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Rue and Thyme
From: GUEST,Lesley Mcluckie
Date: 19 Aug 19 - 12:06 AM

Rue and Thyme was a particularly sentimental song to Maureen Jelks....my pal!
The story she told me was that she had been to a festival down south and had learned it on the way back home to Scotland...she loved it so much.
Maureen gave me the words and I'd jotted down that Carol Prior had heard Sylvia Barnes sing this ,but Ellen Mitchell had given it to Maureen. This may or may not make sense... but it's as I got it from Maureen herself. So sad that Maureen is no longer here to tell us.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Rue and Thyme
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 19 Aug 19 - 10:11 AM

Pages 83-7

https://books.google.ca/books?id=FdxiAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=rue+and+thyme,+song+history&source=bl&ots=63kiN4gx-s&sig=ACfU3U314ySoJCXjh2_NSJQtQaGcvQSYdA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiGuNf4i4_kAhXiT98KHWbbAJgQ6AEwB3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=rue%20and%20thyme%2C%20song%20history&f=false