Lyr Req: Killieburne brae? / Kellyburnbraes

Subject: Killieburne brae?
From: Mike Ireland
Date: 28 Feb 99 - 10:59 AM

Hi

Would anyone know the words, ABC's, etc. for Killieburne Brae. It's not in mudcat - now someones bound to prove me wrong and find it. :-)

part of it goes like -

Well the devil he hoisted her up on his back rifle rifle titty fal lay ( something like this) and away of to hell with her he did pack

Ta

Mike

Subject: RE: Killieburne brae?
From: Bruce O.
Date: 28 Feb 99 - 11:17 AM

That's Robert Burns' recasting of Child #277, "The Wife wrapt in Wether's Skin" and first given in 'Scots Musical Museum', #379, 1792. It can be found in almost any Burns collection.

Subject: RE: Killieburne brae?
From: bill\sables
Date: 28 Feb 99 - 11:39 AM

Another two versions of Killeburne Brae was Marra Bones and the Old Woman of Wexford

Subject: RE: Killieburne brae?
From: Bruce O.
Date: 28 Feb 99 - 11:45 AM

Whhops, I cited the wrong Child ballad; it's a version of Child #278, "The Farmer's Curst Wife".

Subject: RE: Killieburne brae?
From: Bruce O.
Date: 28 Feb 99 - 12:15 PM

[Quoting F. J. Child, 'The English and Scottish Popular Ballads' V, p. 107:]

The ballad of 'Kellyburnbraes,' Johnson's Museum, No 379, p. 392, was composed by Burns, as he has himself informed us, "from the old traditional version." "The original ballad, still preserved by tradition," says David Laing, "was much improved in passing through Burns's hands:" Museum, IV, *389, 1853. Cromek, Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song, p. 83, 1810, gives us what he calls the "Original of Burns's Carle of Kelly-Burn Braes," remarking, with some effrontery, that there is reason to belive that Burns had not seen the whole of the verses which constitute this copy. Allan Cunningham, Songs of Scotland, II, 199, undertook "to make a more complete version than has hitherto appeared" out of Burns, Cromek, and some "fugitative copies." So we get the original from none of them, but are, rather, further from it at each step.

--------------------- Child's earliest text is that from Dixon's 'Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs', 1846. Click on 'Farmer's Curst Wife' in the titles list of Scarce Songs 1 on my website for a version that's over two centuries earlier.

Subject: RE: Killieburne brae?
From: skarpi Iceland
Date: 28 Feb 99 - 12:35 PM

Hello Mike. You can get the lyrics In Music Book, In Kennys Bookstore In Ireland, the Book Is called More Dubliners Song. It Is a very good book. Good luck sl n go foil skarpi Iceland.

Subject: RE: Killieburne brae?
From: Philippa
Date: 28 Feb 99 - 01:43 PM

It's in the DigitalTradition database under the title KELLYBURNBRAES. There are a few other versions in the DT, including "The devil and the farmer's wife" (similar to the version I recall Jean Ritchie singing); you can search for the rest @devil.

Bill\sables: No, "Eggs and Marrowbones" or "The Old Woman of Wexford" or "Tipping it up to Nancy" (all three titles available on the DT) isn't the same song. In Killyburn Brae, the devil comes to take the wife, but sends her back because she's too hot for hell. In the marrowbone song, the wife feeds her husband marrowbones to make him blind so that she can push him in the river (but he outwits her; except in Joe Mulheron's new version.

Subject: RE: Killieburne brae?
From: Susan of DT
Date: 28 Feb 99 - 03:29 PM

search on #278

Subject: RE: Killieburne brae?
From: Mike Ireland
Date: 01 Mar 99 - 03:15 AM

Hi Thanks for all for your 'quick' help. The version I'm after is different again. I'll try the Dubliners song book as suggested by skarpi.

regards

Mike

Subject: RE: Killieburne brae?
From: Roddy
Date: 02 Mar 99 - 08:04 PM

Where's Killyburn Brae ? I heard it called "The Wee Woman Lived on the Cave Hill".
Roddy

Subject: RE: Killieburne brae?
From: GUEST,tomo
Date: 12 Sep 05 - 01:54 PM

if you type in google "the dubliners" the top search should be the one you want. or go to www.geocities.com/toeye/dubliners this site takes you to the page you require then select lyrics from the top right, find the song and you can print it out

note: there is a band called killieburne brae

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Killieburne brae? / Kellyburnbraes
From: GUEST,Metra vox
Date: 25 Nov 23 - 07:38 PM

so I'm confused, The "The Irish Rovers" version of Killiburn Brae has different lyrics according to Spotify.

for example, at the start of the song the line sang "there was an old farmer named Killiburn brae" is written as "There was an ould man down by Killiburn Brae"

another line says "the devil had come up to the farmer one day" when in the lyric section it's written out as "One day as this man he walked out in the glen".

it honestly pissed me tf off because like three o four times I was confused when listening, so I went to the lyrics, just to find out that their written differently.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Killieburne brae? / Kellyburnbraes
From: Thompson
Date: 26 Nov 23 - 05:05 AM

A brae is the slope of a long narrow valley. It's a word used in Scotland and the north of Ireland.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Killieburne brae? / Kellyburnbraes
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 26 Nov 23 - 10:30 AM

There's a completely different song with a somewhat similar title:
Ye Boys o Callieburn.
Collected from a Mr Reid, a farmer from near Campbelltown on the Kintyre peninsula - Roud no 6932. Callieburn is a small farming community in that area. A song of emigration during the hard times of the 1830s-40s.
Sung by Shepheard, Spiers and Watson on their Album - They Smiled as We Cam In.
Sorry if it's thread drift, but it's such a fantastic song!