Sad Wedding Day

Subject: Sad Wedding Day
From: BillyBoy
Date: 12 Nov 98 - 04:55 PM

I'm looking for words (English and/or Gaelic) and music to a tune on Ashley MacIsaac's first CD called "Sad Wedding Day". It's got a beautiful, haunting melody. The liner notes mention the traditional "Barbara Allen", but I've checked the tune out and it's not the same. Any afficianados out there who could give me a hand with this one? Thanks muchly. BB

Subject: RE: Sad Wedding Day
From: karen k
Date: 12 Dec 98 - 10:15 AM

BillyBoy

There's an Andy Stewart (Scotland) song called 'The Orphans' Wedding' about two orphan's who met, fell in love and wanted to marry but found out at the wedding that they were brother and sister. It's on his 'By the Hush' album.

If this sounds like the one you are looking for I can post the words. It's a beautiful, haunting song. Glad you made me think of it. Now I have to learn it myself.

karen

Subject: RE: Sad Wedding Day
From:
Date: 13 Dec 98 - 07:22 PM

Is this not a version of "She Moved Through The Fair."?

Subject: RE: Sad Wedding Day
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 13 Dec 98 - 11:13 PM

G'day BillyBoy,

There are a number a Scottish songs in the Fatal Wedding category - usual with haunting minor or modal tunes. One of the best-known starts at the wedding feast where they:

"... sat down to dine
I sat down beside her and poured out the wine
And drank to the one who should have been mine
But she's gone to be wed to another."

Later he wanders in the forest and is taunetd by the local lads:

"The boys of the forest, they askit of me;
How many strawberries grow in the salt sea?,br> I answered then, wi' a tear in my ee;
"How many tall ships sail the forest?"

I have seen a second set of words (under the name The Lambs in the Fields), that obviously fits in with these. In combination, one ends up with a song that shows the man leaving rural Scotland to make his fortune abroad, at sea. When he comes back to marry his childhood love, she has grown impatient and is marrying another and the song is about the way that their worlds are now so far apart that they might as well live on separate planets.

Regards,

Bob Bolton