Pilgrims Of The Corn Kist
Monday, 30th May 1960
The old songs that came to life with the rhythmical dirding of tackety boots against the corn kists of the North-east are, thanks to TV, known now to millions. Folk song is booming – but the full richness of our folk heritage is known only to the experts who, following in the footsteps of Gavin Greig, are combing the countryside for hidden treasure ... In the series which starts today we lift the curtain on that quest.
Bennachie Rock Is Born In A Prefab
It seemed completely incongruous to start off a search for classics of the cornkist and for barely surviving remnants of folklore in the living-room of a prefab. How wrong can one be? There, in that prefab, we found a treasure-house of lore, legend and song dating back to the seventeenth century. This visit, made with Kenneth S. Goldstein, an American Fulbright scholar and folklorist from Pennsylvania, was one of the highlights of a fascinating week-long safari I made with him last month during his quest for folk material in Buchan.
Goldstein is visiting Buchan to get material for his doctorate thesis at Pennsylvania University, and already he has collected masses although he arrived here only seven months ago. What sort of man is this Goldstein who, in his short spell here, has already become well known throughout the area and beyond? As with all folklorists, his main qualification is an over-riding interest in his subject. Strangely, although his sights are focused principally on folk music, he never sang until he arrived in Buchan. Now, his slight shyness in that direction has been broken down.
Shy giant
In no other direction is he shy, although he has none of the brashness of what is popularly imagined to be the typical American. Instead, he speaks with an authority and confidence born of sound knowledge of his subject. Perpetual motion is the phrase which springs to mind when referring to him. He rises early, goes to bed late, and in between works unceasingly to add still further to his knowledge of his subject – which takes some doing when you are Kenneth Goldstein, already one of America’s leading folklore theorists.
Physically, he is around average height and build. In his own intellectual field, however, he is a giant. Listen to him on Buchan: ‘Within ten miles of one of the most modern scientific installations in all Scotland (at Tyrie) can be heard the bearers of some of the most ancient traditions in the country. ‘You can hear stories of the Devil and of witchcraft while supersonic aircraft scream overhead…
‘For centuries, Buchan has been one of the most folkloristically rich communities in the entire English-speaking world….
‘It is a relatively bleak land, mostly devoid of trees and picturesque scenery…. but its inhabitants are as rich in spirit and the ‘guid’ way of life as any people can be ….’
Remarks like these stimulated my interest when I first met him, but the one which persuaded me to devote my holiday to this
folk-song safari was: ‘More than fifty years ago, the greatest of all Scottish folk-song collectors, Gavin Greig, found a wealth of traditional material in Buchan….’
GAVIN GREIG WAS MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER. The idea of playing even a small part in a re-survey of the same field fifty years after his major work had been accomplished in Buchan, was more than I could resist. Greig, therefore, was our common interest – our jumping-off point. We met at Rosebank, Strichen, Goldstein’s temporary home. Our first stop was Gaval Street, Fetterangus, and the prefab home of the Stewart family. Inside, I was introduced to Goldstein’s greatest ‘discovery’ in Buchan – fifty-eight-year-old Lucy Stewart. Actually, Lucy was ‘discovered’ by Hamish Henderson, of the School of Scottish Studies at Edinburgh University. But Henderson, making a comparatively rapid survey of the area, had neither the time nor the facilities to plumb the full depths of Lucy’s talents. Intuitively, however, he realized that she had great folk traditions behind her and had great potential as a source of material. It was he who guided Goldstein to the Stewarts.
The wisdom of Henderson’s advice has been conclusively proved. From all the branches of this one family, the American has recorded close on 200 songs, hundreds of traditional stories, legends, riddles, rhymes and miscellaneous folklore material by the score, which will be immensely valuable to him in his research and to the School of Scottish Studies.
Goldstein has, in fact, chosen the Stewart family as the subject of one of his projects, and from a complete study of their traditions, customs, habits, songs, stories and superstitions he will draw sociological, psychological and anthropological conclusions. Sitting in the prefab, it seemed impossible that any blend between the old and the new, the long-gone past and the present could ever be satisfactorily achieved in the face of such obvious modernity. But within a few minutes of entering the home, I heard Lucy sing, in magnificent traditional style, a beautiful seventeenth-century ballad; join lustily in a chorus of ‘The Barnyards o’ Delgaty,’ and then join with her young nieces in a rock ‘n roll version of ‘The Hill o’ Bennachie,’ a song they learned traditionally from their aunt before translating it to the modern idiom. In its new guise, they call it ‘Bennachie Rock.’ Set to a heavy driving beat, brought out by Elizabeth’s pianistic wizardry and her mother’s virtuosity on the accordion, Jane sang out Lucy’s traditional words in her quaint high-pitched style:
It was up among the heather on the hill o’ Bennachie, It was there I sat, a bonnie lassie sittin’ on my knee,
When a bumbee stung me richt below the knee, An’ we baith gaed hame a-murnin’ fae the hill o’ Bennachie.
Their song may soon have a wider public for the Stewarts have sent a tape-recording of it to a record company which plans to issue it. What did Lucy think of this ‘jazzing-up’ of the classics of tradition? Did she agree with the purists in condemnation of this style? Her answer was to join in the chorus with the girls!
I HAVE TIDIED UP THE SPACING OF THE ABOVE FIRST ARTICLE, BUT BELOW THE SPACING IS I KNOW RATHER SILLY!
TO-MORROW
What Joe Gordon says about the popularising of Buchan’s ancient heritage of folk song….
Photo captions
1] ‘The Hill o’ Bennachie’from Donside. Now there’s a jazz version called ‘Bennachie Rock’.
2] Gavin Greig, the greatest of all Scottish folk-song collectors, who, more than fifty years ago, opened up the wonderful vein of traditional material in Buchan and recorded it for the first time. The expert folklorists of the present day are still following humbly in his footsteps. This series is by his great-grandson.
3] Kenneth S. Goldstein, American Fulbright scholar and folklorist from Pennsylvania, plays back some of the songs he has recorded in Buchan. In the North-east he has found people who still sing and recite folk material up to 400 years old.
Tuesday 31st May 1960
Folk song is in the vogue with the ‘pop’ singers and some of Scotland’s grand old ballads are getting an airing on TV and on the popular concert platforms. Is this a good thing? Yes, because it brings them before a wider public than ever before - but there's just one snag...
Pops Choice Should Be Widened!
With Scotland's top ‘pop,’ ‘The Barnyards o' Delgaty’, away out in front, our country's heritage of song - its folk music - is today making a greater impact on the general public than ever before.
No longer is it unfashionable in the teenage world to prefer the White Heather Club to Dig This, Robin Hall to Elvis Presley, or ‘Coulter's Candy’ to ‘King Creole’. ‘Folk’ is in vogue.
By popularising artists such as Joe Gordon, Jimmie Macgregor and the McEwen brothers, television has made a substantial contribution to this resurgence of interest. Skiffle, too, has played a part in recalling traditional material, even although often disguising it in a new garb.
But sometimes the purists frown. Over-commercialisation, they claim, is heresy, sacrilege. Folk music would have been better served had it been treated more sympathetically and in traditional fashion. The traditionalists or the modernists - which faction is right?
All to good
With this intriguing set-up for a background and basis, the subject made an interesting discussion with thirty-three-year-old American folklorist Kenneth B. Goldstein from Pennsylvania when I went with him last month on a week-long song hunt through Buchan. It was a topic that took up quite a deal of our time and produced some surprising points.
Although basically a purist and traditionalist, Goldstein, strangely enough, does not condemn the modern approach out of hand. In fact, in many ways, he is quite sympathetic towards it.
Commercialisation and pandering to Tin Pan Alley is deplorable only when it leads to deliberate distortion, he holds. To counterbalance this, it has many virtues.
Joe Gordon
The modern approach means, for instance, that the folk field is reaching a wider public and is thus ever-increasing its chances of survival by gaining fresh converts who may graduate from the ‘pop’ lists. It could, too, have the effect of jogging the memories of the older singers. And, if this leads to their songs being brought out for a dusting for the first time in decades, that fact alone exonerates the modernists.
Joe Gordon holds similar views. In a conversation with him last week, he agreed with me that his style of presentation was commercial (in public performances) but that is, he claimed, because show business demands that he put the accent on entertainment rather than on folk purism. Even at that, he said, commercialised performances of folk material are better than no performances at all.
There is, however, one disturbing aspect. Despite the current enthusiasm for folk fare, the popularity is limited to a certain few songs and little attempt is being made to widen the scope.
Over and over again the same selections are recorded and broadcast, leaving a vast reservoir of untapped material.
The modernists can hardly excuse themselves by claiming that this repertoire they present to the public is fully representative of the folk material still in general usage. This is just not so.
Jealous girl
Take Buchan as an example. Even although the position has deteriorated considerably since the beginning of this century when the area's greatest folklorist, Gavin Greig, made his major survey, there remain many precious remnants - gems of tradition.
One song which has maintained its popularity with folk singers over a long spread of years is Binorie, variants of which have been found in several European countries as well as in many parts of the British Isles.
The story of the jealous girl who murders her fairer sister by pushing her into the ‘bonnie mill dam o' Binorie’ has been called, among other names, ‘The Berkshire Tragedy’ (in England), ‘The Cruel Sister’, and ‘The Twa Sisters’.
Almost every traditional singer we met during our week-long trip had the song in one form or another, and it was fascinating to compare the difference in tunes and texts.
One variant
One of the variants, which gives the basic story quite adequately, is:
There were twa sisters lived in yonder glen,
Binorie, O Binorie!
And there wis a miller laddie cam' a coortin' them
Binorie, O Binorie!
“O sister, sister, come an’ hae a walk,
Binorie, O Binorie!
An' ye'll hear the blackbird whistle ower his note
At the deep mill dam o' Binorie.”
They walk-ed up an' they walk-ed doon,
Binorie, O Binorie!
Till the elder stepped aside an dang the younger in
Tae the deep mill dam o' Binorie.
“O sister, sister, stretch furth yer han',
Binorie, O Binorie!
An' I'll gae ye ma siller an' the third pairt o' my lan'
And the bonnie miller laddie o' Binorie.”
“It wisna for yer siller that I dang ye in,
Binorie, O Binorie!
It's ye're sae verra fair an' I'm sae verra grim,
An' ye've taen the miller laddie o' Binorie.”
Doon cam' the miller laddie, doon tae yonder dam,
Binorie, O Binorie!
Tae get some water tae wash the miller's han'
Fae the deep mill dam o' Binorie.
“O miller, O miller, come untae yer dam,
Binorie, O Binorie!
For there's a drooned lady, or ans a deed swan
Floatin' up an' doon the mill dam o' Binorie.”
There were mony at the takin' o' her oot,
Binorie, O Binorie!
But there were few at the howkin' o' her grave,
Save the bonnie miller laddie o' Binorie.
This variant was given to me by my father, John Argo.
The fiddler
Other versions have further stanzas which tell how a harper (or sometimes a fiddler) came by at that time. From her hair he stranded strings for his instrument, and from her bones he fashioned pegs for it.
Although the texts differed widely in detail and occasionally in sequence, the basic story remained generally the same. But this cannot be said of the tune.
Not once did we hear a melody repeated, although many were of the same family. Obviously the song had wide currency throughout the area and in the passage from singer to singer had undergone many changes.
Further variants would be of great interest and I should be glad to hear from any reader who can supply them.
Photo caption
Jimmie MacGregor strums his guitar and plays ‘Coulter’s Candy.’ He and Robin Hall have played a major part in putting Scottish folk material before the widest possible public through TV.
Wednesday 1st June 1960
What has happened to the lullabies of the North-east? Although he has been recording folk song of every kind over a wide area, an almost total absence of this class of folk material has been experienced by Mr Kenneth S. Goldstein in his Buchan researches. This and other aspects of his quest are discussed in today's instalment of our series.
On The Track Of The Disappearing Buchan Cradle Songs
With clear recollections of two younger sisters noising their way through childhood a few years behind me, I refused to believe that the babies of Buchan were in any way more well-behaved than their counterparts from other areas of the world.
Kenneth S. Goldstein, eminent American folklorist, here on a visit from Pennsylvania, was equally sceptical; and coming from a father of three, the scepticism had an authoritative ring.
But it was, nevertheless, a real mystery which faced us during our search for the fast-dying songs of tradition in Buchan: where were the cradle songs which had been crooned to the crying children of bygone generations?
It certainly was a poser. Although hundreds of songs had gone through the tape-recorder in days of tremendous activity, not one lullaby - nothing even resembling one - was among them.
Floor-walking
We did not subscribe to the good behaviour theory. Aberdeenshire mothers and fathers have to do their share of floor-walking! Even although the people of Buchan are notoriously unemotional, neither would we believe that they were matter-of-fact to such a degree. But where were the vocal comforters?
Fyvie, once the home of Aberdeenshire's most famous ‘bonnie lass’ saved the day. From Mrs Margaret Adams, whose husband is farmer at Darnabo, we recorded the quaint ‘Hush-a-ba-looie’.
An unusual, sad little song this, which is obviously designed for a male voice. Presumably because there is no one else to tell them to, the principal character sings of his matrimonial difficulties to the child. His obvious love for the baby, although it is not his own, transcends his bitterness and he seems to have become resigned to the situation.
Sum total?
Mrs Adams' clear soprano voice gave it just the right atmosphere:
Hush-a-ba-looie,
Lie doon an' sleep soon ye,
Hush-a-ba-looie,
Lie doon an' sleep soon.
Though I'm nae yer daddie,
The wee wife's yer mammie,
She's awa’ on the ran-dan
Wi' some ither man.
She leaves me a-sittin',
A-rockin the cradle,
Amusin' the weans
That's nae a' ma ain,
So hush-a-ba-looie,
Lie doon an' sleep soon ye,
Hush-a-ba-looie,
Lie doon an' sleep soon.
Can that be the sum total of Buchan’s cradle songs? Surely not. I would be grateful to any reader who can add to the list.
The obvious explanation for the absence of such songs is that the once-traditional lullabies have passed out of the oral transmission stage and are now part of ‘book’ tradition. Among these can be numbered ‘Hush-a-ba-birdie’, ‘O can ye sew cushions’, and ‘Bye Baby Bunting’.
Apart from the invaluable lullaby, Mrs Adams proved to have an excellent repertoire of fine songs to add to the tape she had already started for us. She had variants of favourites, such as ‘The Orange and the Blue’, ‘Green Grows the Laurel’, ‘Scarborough's Banks’, and the ‘Dowie Dens o' Yarrow’.
The majority of them she learned by ‘vertical transmission’ - the folkloristical way of saying they came to her from previous generations and not from her own age group (horizontal transmission). In actual fact, she learned most of her songs from her mother, Mrs Elizabeth Stephen, of Boyndie, who is 86.
Her favourite
Ask Mrs Adams for her own particular favourite and she will probably give you ‘Burns and his Highland Mary’. Her text for this beautiful old song bears a close resemblance to the one collected by the area's most famed folk-songist, Gavin Greig, when he made an intensive study of the subject fifty years ago.
Greig's theory on Burns and the poet's place in the folk field is an interesting one. In his view, given in a paper to the Buchan Field Club in 1906-07:
“The rustic knows his Burns and likes, on occasions, to hear his songs rendered by those who can sing them. But they are hardly for him. Like Sunday clothes or best crockery, they are too good for ordinary use. He will sing about Burns, but it must be in lays that have got the folk-song hall-mark - in ditties that have little literary kinship with the poet's own songs.
All his heart
“Though he does not offer to sing
Ye banks and braes and streams around
The castle o' Montgomery;
he will throw all his heart into,
In green Caledonia there ne'er were twa lovers
Sae enraptured and happy in each ither's arms,
As Burns the sweet Bard and his dear Highland Mary,
And fondly and sweetly he sang o' her charms.
(This is the first verse of the song sung by Mrs Adams.)
“And, although ‘There was a lad was born in Kyle’ is not exactly in his line, he will declaim with infinite zest, ‘The cottage where Robbie was born’.”
His point, that folk singers prefer ‘non-literary’ material, was well taken. In his months in Buchan, Goldstein has uncovered many songs which have come down in their traditional style from the pre-Burns days, although the poet re-wrote and issued more ‘literary’ versions. The obvious deduction is that the folk preferred the ‘folk’ variants.
Not folk-song
Greig, naturally, was not anti-Burns. He states: ‘If Scottish folk-song could have been raised, Burns was the man to do it; but not even he succeeded. He has not given the people a new and higher type of folk-song; he has only reinforced and enriched in measureless degree a kind of song that, however it may all along have hung on the horizon, has never quite been folk-song.’
Going on to say that the folk-singer knew his own mind, he adds: ‘If he wants the daisy, the broom, or the heather, you cannot get him to take to the rose or the lily.
“Absolute, instinctive, unreasoning confidence may be decried, but it is usually the final note of relative truth. And the folk-singer is right. His daisy, broom, and heather, are the best for him; and if he cared to think of it, he could set his superior critics a fairly hard task to show that his wildings were not per se as perfect as the rose and the lily.”
How does Goldstein view this theory? He believes that Greig’s statements, as they apply to the general agricultural population of Buchan, are true.
Subtle Change
Among ‘the travelling folk’, however, a limited number of Burns’ songs are still in oral tradition. And this does not apply to Buchan only, according to Hamish Henderson of Edinburgh University’s School of Scottish Studies.
Obviously, ‘the travelling folk’ first got them from books, perhaps even in the time of Burns himself, but the subtle and sometimes not so subtle changes which have taken place in the tunes and texts are rather conclusive proof that the songs have been passed on from that point in an oral tradition. The ‘folk’ tag therefore seems appropriate to them in view of this.
Whatever the theorists say about the ‘book’ songs, there is no doubt that ‘Burns and his Highland Mary’ has always been popular with the folk, and even today a number of variants are obtainable. Only last week, I recorded a particularly fine one from Mrs Elsie Morrison of Spey Bay. Mrs Morrison is seventy-five. Naturally, as with all folk songs, more variants are always welcome.
Photo captions
1] Mrs Margaret Adams, Darnabo, Fyvie, proved to have a fine repertoire of folk songs to record in her clear soprano. She it was who produced the words and music for the little-known cradle-song, ‘Hush-a-ba-looie.’
2] The ruins of a landmark in the annals of North-east tradition, the famous Mill o’ Tifty immortalised in the sad drama of the bonnie lass of Fyvie, ‘Mill o’ Tifty’s Annie.’
Thursday 2nd June 1960
Buchan chiels are often modest – which is one of the things which makes a recording trip with a collector of folk song in the area so exciting. There is often the thrill of unexpected discovery, and that is the theme of this instalment of our series on the hidden riches of popular tradition in the North-east.
Great Singer Who Kept It Dark
Coincidence can, at times, be a truly staggering and amazing thing; and in few fields is coincidence more prevalent than in that of folk-music.
Over and over again this has been brought home to me, but never with greater force than during the week I spent on a hunt through Buchan with Kenneth S. Goldstein, visiting American folklorist, for the area’s songs of tradition.
At times, coincidence brought the thrill of discovery – when I suddenly found by sheer chance that someone I had known all my life was a fine folk singer. Just such a person is Rob Watt, a shepherd in his late fifties at Gaval, Mintlaw Station, who comes from the nearby village of Fetterangus.
Shy expert
Rob, like most of Buchan’s singers, is rather shy of revealing his undoubted talents. This is a pity for he has a fat repertoire and a fine voice with which to put it over.
In fact, after Goldstein heard his tapes for the first time, he described him as “one of the best male singers I have heard in Buchan.”
Get Rob in the mood, and you will hear Buchan’s folk-music as it should be sung. That is why I made considerable effort to persuade him into a singing frame of mind. Eventually, my effort was rewarded and with the reward came another coincidence.
Among the songs he taped – and I hope there will be many more – was one called the ‘Lumbering Boys’, a ballad set in the forest areas of Canada. Presumably, it was brought back to Scotland by a homecoming exile.
When I first heard Rob’s song about an incident in the lives of men in the lumbering industry, fascination gripped me. Only a few weeks previously I had bought a record on which Pete Seeger, an outstanding American folk-singer, put over one variant of this song which is still in currency across the Atlantic.
Lumberjacks
A quick comparison showed how the American and Scottish variants had been developed through different branches of oral tradition, from the same root.
In virile tones, his foot gently tapping out the steady tempo, Rob sang out in the big farm kitchen at Gaval:
Come all ye true-born lumbering boys,
Wherever that you be;
I’d like you to pay attention,
And listen unto me.
I’ll tell you of some lumbering boys,
That manfully and brave,
While breaking the jams on the Gerry rocks,
They met with a watery grave.
‘Twas on one Sabbath morning
In the Springtime of the year,
The logs were rising mountains high,
We could not keep them clear,
When six of us Canadian boys
Did volunteer and go
To break the jams on the Gerry rocks
Wi’ our foreman young Munro.
We had not rolled off many logs
When our foreman was heard to say –
‘You’ll have to be on guard, my boys,
The jams might break away.’
The words were scarcely spoken,
When the jams did break and go;
They carried away the six brave lads
And their foreman, young Munro.
The rest of us brave shanty boys,
It’s this sad tidings did hear,
In search of their dead bodies,
To the river we did steer.
We searched the river up and down
An’ to our sad grief and woe
On the beach, all cut and mangled,
Lay the form of young Munro.
We dragged him from his watery grave,
Shade by his raven hair;
There was one poor soul amongst us,
A girl from Eagletown,
Whose cries and sobs would have rent the sky,
For her lover he was gone.
Young Clara was a nice young girl,
She was the raftman’s friend;
Her mother, being a widow woman,
Lived by the river brim;
An’ many’s the raftman’s wages
Our boss to her did pay,
And a small subscription she received
From the lumbering boys that day.
Come all ye true-born lumbering boys,
Who’d like to go and see;
On a little bend by the river’s side
There grows a hemlock tree.
The lumbering boys cut names all round
And leave them there to show
That the one is Clara Dinnacre,
And the other is young Munro.
In true folk style, Rob deals with the occasional extended line – a hall-mark of folk-music that baffles so many trained singers. And in verse five, where two lines have disappeared in the song’s progress from mouth to mouth, he overcomes the change from an eight-line stanza to a verse of six lines with the utmost ease, giving no indication that anything is amiss.
Irish Brogue
Another feature of this singer’s magnificent style is his convincing characterisation. Straight-spined, shoulders thrown back, he jaunts his way through ‘The Forfar Sodger’:
In Forfar I was born an’ bred,
Bit, faith, I div think shame, sir,
Tae tell the weary life I led,
Afore I left ma home, sir,
Chorus
Hurrah, hurrah,
My twittie fal-airil-di-do.
Consider, too, his treatment of ‘Pat O’Donnell’, an Irish song which had wide currency in the North-east about fifty years ago. He sings it in a brogue as broad and thick as his powerful shoulders.
Me name is Pat O’Donnell and I come from Donegal,
Me name it is a deadly foe to traitors one and all;
For the murderin’ o’ Pat Carey I was tried in London town,
And upon this fatal scaffold now me life I must lay down.
Despite the strength of his characterisation, this feature is never allowed to obtrude. In songs where such treatment is appropriate, he sings in a straightforward and unpretentious manner, thus underscoring the simplicity of his musical tale.
Coincidence too, presented us with a mystery, one which remains unsolved.
Coincidence
When I first played over a tape made by Mrs Margaret Adams from Darnabo, Fyvie, to Kenneth Goldstein, he thought I was playing a trick on him. To find out, he went to his recorder and played back a tape made by Mrs Jean Matthew, Auchtydore, Longside. There was the same repertoire, sung in a similar sequence, the textual and melodic resemblance was strong, and, when allowances were made for the differing ages of the singers, the styles of presentation were almost identical.
But nowhere could we find a link between the two. At no time, apparently, had their paths crossed, nor did they get their songs from the same source. They did not even come from the same area.
Hamish Henderson of Edinburgh University’s School of Scottish Studies, has been confronted with similar situations in the past. He suggests that singers with the same types of voices and with like temperaments may be attracted to the same songs.
This possible explanation, the only satisfactory one so far put forward, explains most of the points, but does not cover the great textual and melodic similarity.
Then, take the coincidence presented to me by my father, John Argo, and Allan Mowat, Newmachar. They were brought up in the same closely-knit little community, they went to school together and, in fact, were in the same class. But one night when they were both together, I recorded their two widely differing variants of ‘The Boston Smuggler’.
The field is riddled with such curiosities and coincidences and for that most collectors are grateful. It all adds to the fascination that is folk-song.
Photo captions
1] Rob Watt, the Mintlaw shepherd, has a fine folk repertoire.
2] Kenneth S. Goldstein beams his pleasure on discovering a new source of folk material.
3] Yes, it’s ‘Mormond Braes’ that this scene calls to mind. The famous Buchan landmark inevitably has a key place in the folk-song of the North-east. Even today it is still the centre of one of the richest areas in Britain for the collection of folk material. This is the side of the hill where the Deer of Mormond stands out against its dark background. Every now and again the stones which form the deer are cleaned up by volunteer labour for no one wants to see the familiar outline disappear and be lost to posterity.
Friday 3rd June 1960
Why did the folk-songs of the North survive down the centuries and why are they now dying out? Is it true as Sir Alexander Gray has suggested that once they get into print in a big way they no longer ‘live’ in the oral tradition? What can we do to preserve them?
Is Snobbery Killing Fine Old Songs?
For decades now, folk-song in the North-East of Scotland and, for that matter, in the rest of Britain, has been suffering from a wasting disease which can only end in ultimate death.
Symptoms of this fatal ailment have been showing more and more clearly in recent years, but they were there to be seen even half a century ago when Gavin Greig, Scotland's greatest folk-field worker, set himself the task of collecting the texts and tunes of as many songs as he could possibly glean. At that time he warned... “the old songs are dying out”...in the introduction to his twin Folk-Song of the North-east books.
Diagnosis
His diagnosis, given in a paper he presented to the Buchan Field Club in 1906-07, was: “In our rural districts long ago, almost everybody sang or tried to sing. The standard of vocal attainment was low, and no accompaniments were needed. The occasions were always social, and criticism was mild and mutual. Around the ingle, or in a barn where all were neighbours and cronies, nobody who could sing at all would hesitate to contribute his or her favourite ballad or ditty.
“Nowadays, we cultivate singing as an art, till, as a rule, in a company, nobody will sing at all unless he can do it fairly well.
“And singers are taking up a different class of song – songs of more pretention and usually with pianoforte accompaniment.
“These changes have largely silenced our vocal vales. The older people have pretty much ceased to sing the folk-songs of their youth, having long been taught to regard them as semi-barbarous compared with modern songs; while the younger generations hardly know the old-time minstrelsy at all.
Your Aid
“While this is the case generally over our rural areas, some exception must be made as regards the farm-servant class. They have been least affected by the changes in taste and practice which modern days have brought; and the ploughman songs can still be heard sung by lusty lungs in the field or by the fireside. If it cannot quite be said to flourish, it at least lives, and with vitality strong enough to keep the record open for the occasional addition of a new ditty in the old manner.”
True of yesterday and, to a great extent, true to-day. The ‘semi-barbarous ‘ approach described by Greig is still fairly prevalent among those who would have you believe that there is absolutely no merit in folk-music.
Strangely, this musical snobbery so detrimental to the old songs is quite commonly found among the folk themselves as well as among musicians who have yet to come round to a full appreciation of the folk field.
Yes, it is to some extent the approach of the folk themselves to their own music that is sounding the death knell.
* * *
What can be done about it? Obviously, folk-music can never be returned to its former position. To do so, one would have to wipe out the years of musical education which started the trend in the first instance.
But one thing can be done – something which is of great sociological and anthropological value to folklore students: the songs can be preserved.
Preservation can only be accomplished with the assistance of the general public. That is why it is so important that co-operation should exist to a tremendous degree between the student and his informants and that is why I should be very grateful to hear from any reader who has folk material that he or she can pass on.
For example, can anyone provide variants of ‘The Fire at Frendraught’, ‘The Baron o' Gartley’, ‘The Battle of Harlaw’, ‘Captain Car’ or ‘Edom o' Gordon’, ‘Sir James the Rose’, or ‘Lord Lovel’? All would be of great interest. But no piece, no tiny fragment, is too small. It should not be overlooked. It may be the vital part that will complete some collector's jigsaw.
Survivors
Mention of ‘Sir James the Rose’ brings back to mind another coincidence which could be added to the ones I detailed in my last article.
Last month Kenneth Goldstein and I were given a fragmentary version of that song from Mrs Jean Stewart, of Banchory. When we had taped ‘Sir James the Rose’ and were satisfied that she knew no more of it, she mentioned out of the blue, that she had a book which contained more of the words.
This she produced and it turned out to be the first volume of ‘Greig's Folk-Song of the North-East’, a book I have eagerly sought for years. Incidentally, I still do not have a copy. Would another appeal for assistance do any good?
During that trip with Goldstein, we discussed the folk songs which are still in common currency in the North-east and a surprising fact emerged.
Popularity
From his experiences, he has found that the songs with ‘a thread of blue’ as they are known colloquially are always the most generally popular.
Apart from ribald material and the ‘cornkisters’ of George Bruce Thomson, one of the songs that Goldstein has found most frequently is ‘The Bleacher Lassie o’ Kelvinhaugh’.
As I went out on a summer’s evening,
To view the fields in sweet Kelvinhaugh,
‘Twas there I met wi’ a fair young maiden,
She had cheeks like roses and skin like snaw.
Says I, “Fair maid, where are you going?
What do you do by the Broomielaw?”
“Indeed, kind sir, I will plainly tell you,
I’m a bleacher lassie on Kelvinhaugh.”
Verses giving a series of questions and answers follow, before our brave hero asks her to go with him. But she refuses, claiming that she will stay true to the love she last saw seven years ago. ‘And other seven I will wait upon him,’ she vows. The scene is set for the climax – the point when the hero reveals himself as the true love she is waiting for.
Same tune
And then the happy ending:-
Now this couple they have got married,
And they keep an ale house atween them twa,
And the sailor laddies, they go a-drinking,
To the bleacher lassie’s o’ Kelvinhaugh.
Confusion sometimes arises between this song and ‘The Single Sailor’, for both have a similar theme and sung to the same melody. At one point, in the ‘seven long years’ verse, the two are on common textual territory.
Only a fortnight ago I collected from Mrs Elsie Morrison of Spey Bay a version in which both songs are completely intermingled. Yet the whole thing sounded completely natural and logical. This continual change in material – folk song is never static – is one of the features which make the subject such an intriguing study.
Photo captions
1] John McDonald, Pitgaveny, Elgin, is one of the band of North-east entertainers who over a long period of years has been keeping the old-time cornkisters before the public. Once they were accompanied by the fiddle. Now it is usually the accordion which provides the accompaniment.
2] What popular variants of the ancient Battle of Harlaw ballad are still being sung or recited in the North-east? Here is the site of the famous clash between the Highland ‘invaders’ and the Lowland defenders which spilt so much valuable blood - including that of Provost Davidson. The Harlaw Monument still broods over the scene - with the silhouette of the Mither Tap in the background.
3] Willie Kemp – the ‘cornkisters’ which he sung are still among the most popular and frequently heard traditional songs in the North-east.
Monday 6th June 1960
If Only He’d Had A Tape Recorder
Arthur Argo ends his series on the folk song of the North with some stories about the greatest collector of them all.
Just under half a century – a relatively short space of time in the field of folk music – stood between Scotland’s greatest song collector and the advent of the tape recorder.
By that same span of years, therefore, the North-east of Scotland in all probability lost what would have been a unique and priceless contribution to this country’s store of national records.
It can safely be assumed that had Gavin Greig and the tape recorder been contemporaneous they would have been inseparable. Working on the same hypothesis, it is reasonable to suggest that a large cabinet of tapes might well have been ranged alongside the Greig manuscripts which are today housed in Aberdeen University’s library at King’s College.
Rarely a day went past in which neither Goldstein nor myself said regretfully, after some particularly fascinating experience: ‘If only Gavin Greig could have had a tape recorder…’
2500 songs
Working from the early 1890’s until just before his death in 1914, Greig gathered the amazing total of 2500 folk-song texts and 2300 tunes.
What sort of a person was this man whose name today is becoming more and more widely known in folklore circles throughout the world. In ironic contrast, each succeeding generation of ‘the folk’, in whose interests he worked so hard, find his name less and less familiar.
The impression usually conveyed to me, a great-grandson, is one of a tall, rather sparingly built but authoritative figure with one outstanding facial characteristic – a drooping moustache. He always wore a smoking cap because he was almost completely bald.
But it was nothing physical that singled him out from the average run of his contemporaries. If any one facet to his character should be pointed out as significant, patriotism would probably head the list.
This, a desire to do something for his homeland, was the spur which urged him to write dialectal plays, locally-sited novels, a Scottish operetta and a fair amount of verse.
Alternatively, heredity may have been at the root of it all, for he was doubly fortunate in this respect. On his maternal side, there was a link with the national bard, Robert Burns, and a branch of his father’s family produced the famous Norwegian composer, Edvard Grieg.
Against time
Whatever the underlying reason or reasons, there is no doubting his brilliance and it was to Buchan’s immeasurable gain that he found his real vocation within its borders.
His first position, as headmaster at the little rural school of Whitehill, near New Deer, was ideal for it gave him the leisure time to devote to his labours of love. In consequence, he never sought to improve his professional status and thus to run the risk of hindering his ‘urgent’ work in folk-music circles.
Urgent it most definitely was. In his introduction to folk-song of the North-east he states... “The old songs are dying out, and, unless captured and recorded, will ere long pass into the limbo of forgotten things and be absolutely irrecoverable.”
The wisdom and foresight he showed in taking action against the eroding effects of time have been endorsed by subsequent field workers. Where he found whole songs, they have often discovered only fragments. His fragments are now sometimes gone completely from the scene, remembered only in the heartbreaking reply: “I’ve heard my mother at that song …but I dinna ken it.”
Anecdotes about his enthusiasm for song-collecting are legion in the family, but one, perhaps, above all, provides the perfect illustration.
His eldest daughter, Mrs Edith Barron, never tires of telling me how one stormy winter’s night, some miles from Whitehill, Greig was being ‘convoyed’ homewards by his host when his companion suddenly recalled yet another song. Without standing on ceremony, the two crouched in the lee of a whin bush and Greig noted the song in the flickering light of his friend’s storm-lamp.
One question often used to intrigue me. So I asked my grandmother: “Of all the songs that Gavin Greig dealt with, had he himself a favourite?”
Favourite
According to Mrs Barron, ‘Allan MacLean’, which was very popular in his day, never failed to please him. Her recollections are borne out by his notes in ‘Folk-Song of the North-East’, where he says of the melody in this song: “I incline to place it first among our folk tunes.”
This song tells of “the lucks and misfortunes of Allan MacLean”, a minister’s son studying at university. A rather wild dancing and drinking session with some girls, including ‘bonnie Sally Allen,’ led to his downfall and his ‘banishment’ on the eve of graduation.
His predicament was a terrible one:
My father’s a minister,
He preaches at Tain;
My mother died in the Highlands,
And I daurna gae hame.
He solved this problem by going to sea as a ship’s doctor, but vowed:
And if ever I return again,
As I hope I shall,
I will marry Sally Allen
In spite of them all.
Photo caption
Gavin Greig’s daughter, Mrs Edith Barron, never tires of telling how her father was so keen on his great hobby of folk-song collecting that he would even note down a new discovery in the lee of a whin bush on a winter’s night by the light of a storm lantern.
Friday June 17th 1960
A spate of letters from readers who followed our recent series on the ballads of the North-east proves beyond question that their preservation is a widespread concern.
Arthur Argo in the first of three articles, comments on the new light which readers of ‘The Press and Journal’ have shed on our folk heritage.
They All Want To Save Our Folk Song
If ‘get well’ messages and curative suggestions had the healing effect desired, folk-song would be well on the way towards a complete recovery from the ‘wasting disease’ afflicting it.
When I wrote, less than a fortnight ago, about this ailment which was attacking our heritage of song, I was genuinely convinced that public interest and love for the traditional music of our land had depreciated to a near negligible quantity.
The people of the North and North-east have proved me wrong.
From all parts of the area they have rallied round to doctor the ‘patient’ and, while they have not effected the cure which is probably impossible under modern conditions, they have emphasised beyond doubt that preservation is desired by the folk themselves as well as by the students and research workers.
The response to the appeal for help in this preservation work has been quite staggering. From farms, hamlets, villages and towns, the information has come pouring in, from people in all walks of life.
‘Roy’s Wife’
Cuttings, reference notes, recollections, even books, have been sent on to give invaluable assistance in documentation.
Take the contribution of Mr John M. Reid, as an outstanding example. From his home at Aikenshill, Foveran, Newburgh, Mr Reid sent me fourteen closely written pages of foolscap, detailing reference works on the subject, sources of material, extended fragments of songs and a ‘swatch’ of his own Doric poetry. A really wonderful letter.
Among several songs he quotes is ‘Roy’s Wife Of Aldivalloch’:
Her face sae fair, her e’en sae clear,
Her wee bit mou’ sae sweet and bonnie;
Tae me she ever will be dear,
Though she’s forever left her Johnnie.
CHORUS - Roy’s Wife Of Aldivalloch,
Roy’s Wife Of Aldivalloch,
Wat ye how she cheated me,
As I cam’ o’er the braes o’ Balloch.
Another specialist in original material, written in the folk-song idiom, is Mrs Nan Chalmers, Viewmount, Braemar. Although she has not come across traditional material since going to that area, she is very interested in the subject and will give what assistance she can.
Comments about ‘The Bleacher Lassie o’ Kelvinhaugh’ and its striking resemblance to ‘The Single Sailor’ obviously stirred a few memories.
On the spree
It certainly did so for Mrs Mollie B Ogston from Campfield, Glassel, who recalls her late mother singing:
‘A lady walking down in her garden,
A brisk young sailor was passing by…’
Mrs Ogston will, I hope, give me the full text of this song and two others she heard from her mother – a version of ‘The Dumb Wife’ and a parody of ‘Huntingtower’ which began:
‘When ye gang awa’ Johnnie,
Oot upon the spree, laddie…’
‘The Single Sailor’ is also recalled by Mrs Fred Kindness, 64 Main Street, New Deer, who has proved an invaluable informant. She has recorded well-nigh complete versions of this song, ‘The Dowie Dens o’ Yarrow’, and ‘Lang, Lang Syne’ (not ‘Auld Lang Syne’) as well as fragments of ‘Lord Lovat’, ‘London Lights’, ‘McPherson’s Lament’, ‘Lord Ronald’ and several others.
‘Dowie Dens’
She tells me her sister, Mrs Lily Slessor, knows just as many so I am looking forward to meeting her.
Mrs Kindness has a rich contralto voice and she makes a particularly fine job of the ‘Dowie Dens’.
Her variant is:
There lived a lady in the North,
You could scarcely find her marrow;
She was courted by nine noble men
And a ploughman boy on Yarrow.
As he came doon through yonder glen,
An’ doon yon path so narra’,
Oh, there he spied nine noble men
To fight against him on Yarrow.
There were three he slew, and three withdrew,
And three lay deadly wounded,
Till her brither John stepped in behind him
An’ pierced his body through.
“Go home, go home, ye false young man,
An’ tell yer sister sorrow;
That her true love John lies dead and gone –
A bloody corpse on Yarrow.”
As she cam ower yon high, high hill
An’ doon yon path so narra’,
Oh, there she met her brither John,
Returning home from Yarrow.
“Oh, brither dear, I have dreamed a dream,
And I’m sure it will prove sorrow;
For I dreamed that you was spilling blood
On the heather hills o’ Yarrow.”
“Oh, sister dear, I can read your dream,
And I’m sure it will prove sorrow;
For your true love John lies dead and gone,
A bloody corpse on Yarrow.”
Now this maiden’s hair being three-quarters long,
And the colour o’t being yellow,
She tied it roon his middle sma’,
An’ carried him home from Yarrow.
“Oh, daughter dear, dry up your tears,
An’ dwell no more in sorrow,
For I’ll wed you to far higher degree ,
Than a ploughman boy on Yarrow.”
“Oh, father dear, you have seven sons,
You can wed them all tomorrow;
But a fairer flower than my true love John
Will never bloom on Yarrow.”
Now this maiden being wild with grief,
For one she loved so dearly;
She flung herself in her father’s arms
And died through grief and sorrow.
As lullaby
Incidentally, Mrs Kindness tells how her late mother, from whom she learned most of her songs, used ‘The Single Sailor’ as a lullaby. Although it is not really a cradle song, it was, apparently, completely effective in putting the youngsters to sleep.
Mrs Kindness could not recall offhand hearing any real lullabies. But others could. I shall tell you about these in a future article.
Let’s have your variations!
Because folk-song has, generally speaking, survived by word of mouth rather than by the printed or written word, variations in tunes and texts are common.
But, because a collector gets one version, it does not mean that the variants are unimportant.
Every version and fragment of any old song will be welcomed.
Photo caption
Straight from the heart of the Cabrach country comes the infectious lilt of such grand old traditional songs as ‘Roy’s Wife of Aldivalloch’ with its suggestion of the pastoral life in the great sloping hills of upper Banffshire. Here to provide the atmosphere is a typical Cabrach prospect looking through the young larches and over the slopes leading to the Buck.
Tuesday 21st June 1960
Readers of ‘The Press and Journal’ have not been slow in letting us know that despite our misgivings the cradle songs of the north have not by any means died out. In this instalment of our folk-song round-up some of these are quoted.
North-east Has Its Own Lullabies
So the children of the North and North-east are not, after all, any better behaved or more easily persuaded into dreamland than youngsters from other parts of the country.
Letters from readers have shattered this light-hearted ‘theory’ advanced jocularly by American folklorist Kenneth S. Goldstein and myself as an explanation for the area's poverty in lullabies.
Our joke, now exploded, arose when we found only one cradle song in a ballad collection, running into hundreds, made during a tour of Buchan.
Shortly after I had written about this odd feature, a letter arrived from Nan Milton, 631 Holburn Street, Aberdeen, in which she recalled a cradle song used by her mother to lull the rest of the family to sleep.
Caul' nichts
It went:
What will bonny Jimmy dae, Jimmy dae, Jimmy dae,
What will bonny Jimmy dae,
In the caul', caul' nichts in the winter, O.
He'll lie in his mammy's bozie, bozie, bozie,
He'll lie in his mammy's bozie
In the caul', caul' nichts in the winter, O.
He'll get poshie (porridge) in a bowlie, bowlie, bowlie,
He'll get poshie in a bowl
In the caul', caul' nichts in the winter, O.
He'll get herrin' in a platie, platie, platie,
He'll get herrin' in a platie,
In the caul', caul' nichts in the winter, O.
In parts, this is vaguely reminiscent of ‘Dance Tae Yer Daddy, My Bonnie Laddie’, popularised by Joe Gordon.
I hope shortly to have further information on the melody used.
Judging from several other letters, many mothers used songs which were not, strictly speaking, lullabies. As long as they were slow, quiet and soothing, they were brought in to fill the bill.
One woman reader recalls how her mother adopted even ‘The Lord's My Shepherd’ for this purpose! And what is wrong with that?
Braw Meggie
A Kincardine O'Neil contributor (“please do not mention my name”, she requests) has sent on some jingles her mother sang to other children in the family, “while rocking the old-fashioned cradle.”
These probably overlap the series of articles on children's folklore written for ‘The Press and Journal’ by Cuthbert Graham, but they have their place in any folk-song collection, nevertheless. It would be interesting to know the melodies used. They are:
Hush-a-ba-buntin',
Daddy's gaen a-huntin'
Tae get a bonnie lammie's skin,
Tae row yer buntin' banies in.
Bonnie Meggie, braw Meggie,
Bonnie Meggie Bridie, O;
When she pits on her new goon
She's like a lady, O.
And when she tak's it aff again,
She's jist Meggie Bridie again.
From the infant stages, let us move up through the years to the teenager.
Today, this age group is getting quite a deal of publicity, but apparently they had their delinquency problems in the old days too, judging by the conduct of a certain ‘Butcher Boy.’
Gallows-bird
A variant of this song was sung to me by Mr Rob Watt, shepherd at Gaval, Mintlaw Station. It tells how a young man, after good learning, went to be a butcher's boy.
As most young men do eventually, he fell in love with ‘a nice young girl’ and promised to marry her. But, after beguiling her, he apparently regretted his promise and murdered her while they were out walking. The song goes on:
She fell upon her bended knees,
And for mercy she did cry –
‘Willie dear, just spare me a while,
For I'm not ready yet to die.’
He's ta'en her by the lily white hand
And dragged her all along,
Until he came to yon running stream
And plunged her body in.
Then he went home to face his anxious mother.
The question she did put to him –
Why blood did stain his clothes?
But the only answer he gave to her –
T'was a bleeding at the nose.
He asked her for a handkerchief,
To roll around his head;
He asked her for a candle,
To let him see the bed.
No rest or peace could this young man get,
No rest or peace could he find;
For he saw the burning flames of Hell
Approaching in his mind
The young man's crime it being found out,
The gallows was his doom,
For the murdering of sweet Mary Anne,
The flower that was in bloom.
Across the Atlantic, they sing about the ‘Knoxville Girl’ or the ‘Knoxville Tragedy’, and the text of the two songs show a startling similarity.
Variation
Compare the following verses with the ones previously quoted:
She fell down on her bended knees,
For mercy she did cry;
‘O Willie, dear, don't kill me here,
I'm unprepared to die.’
I took her by her golden curls
And I dragged her round and around,
Throwing her into the river
That flows through Knoxville town.
Later, it describes his interview with his mother:
‘Saying, ‘Dear son, what have you done
To bloody your clothes so’
I told my anxious mother
I was bleeding at my nose.
I called for me a candle
To light myself to bed;
I called for me a handkerchief
To bind my aching head.
Rolled and tumbled the whole night through,
As trouble was for me
Like flames of Hell around my bed
And in my eyes could see.
In the American version, he has to spend the rest of his life in prison.
The resemblance is in text only. The melodies differ widely.
Another song which aroused quite a deal of interest among readers was ‘Binorie’. I shall tell you about some of the variants of it to-morrow.
Photo caption
Which was the lullaby? Apparently North-east mothers still sing their babies to sleep - but not necessarily with conventional cradle songs. Almost anything soft and soothing will do the trick, they say. However, as the article by Arthur Argo on this page shows, there are still many traditional folk lullabies of the North-east in use.
Wednesday 22nd June 1960
Top Favourite Ballads Of North-East
Judging from our readers’ letters, the ballad ‘Binorie’ in all its varied guises is still a top favourite. For sheer verve and gaiety the ditties of George Bruce Thomson still rank in the top flight.
Of all the folk-songs still in currency in North and North-east Scotland, few have clung more tenaciously to the public’s memory or retained a greater share of such interest than the ballad, ‘Binorie.’
When we made our folk-song search through Buchan earlier this year, both American folklorist, Kenneth S. Goldstein, and I gained this impression. Its accuracy has been confirmed through the number of letters sent in by readers since I wrote about this song just over a fortnight ago.
A very interesting version came from Bessie W. Coutts, the Brathens, Glassel – complete with the melody.
In parts, it is almost exactly like the variant given by Dean W. Christie in his two-volume collection published in the latter half of the last century. In others, however, it differs widely.
Coincidence
The melody is not the one given by the Dean, nor does it compare with those published by Gavin Greig.
But although I could not find a printed version on the same lines, I received the same melody and a similar text, as far as it goes, from the Rev. J.P. Hill, Woodhead Rectory, Fyvie. Mr Hill heard it at a concert in London more than forty years ago.
It was a happy coincidence that the two letters should arrive almost together. Perhaps I shall now be able to find out the common source of this variant.
Agreeing that preservation is important, Mr Hill says: “Perhaps you know the story of the Eastern potentate who said to a European – ‘I can’t understand why you people want to dance, when you can afford to pay other people to do it for you.’ A good many people seem to think like that about singing.” Very true, Mr Hill.
Another letter on Binorie came from Mr S. Methlick, who kindly passed on information about reference books on the subject as well as enclosing two variants of the song.
Borrowed Bits
The second of these is the more interesting:
There were twa sisters sat in a bower,
Edinburgh, Edinburgh;
There were twa sisters sat in a bower,
Stirling for aye;
There were twa sisters sat in a bower,
There cam’ a knight to be their wooer,
Bonny St Johnstone stands upon Tay.
Falling back on the Christie collection once more, I found a song with that refrain going under the title of ‘Bonny St Johnston stands fair upon Tay.’ But the texts proper bore no resemblance to Binorie.
It would appear that here is yet another example of a common habit in folk-song – borrowing bits from one song to fit into another when memories fail. The practice seems to have been carried out on several occasions and as a result the same refrain is often used for a number of songs.
This Methlick reader is keen to trace the origin of an old traditional air from County Tyrone, Ireland – ‘The Riddle.’ Textually, it bears a close resemblance to ‘Robin’s Daughter’ (‘Captain Wetherburn’s Courtship’), once a very popular ballad in Scotland. He would also like to trace its connections with this country. Can anyone help?
The story tells how a would-be lover has to solve a sequence of riddles put to him by his lady before he can win her.
The other morning, I received a letter from Mr James Milne, 58 High Street, Inverurie, in which he passed on the words and melody of ‘The Lass Amang The Heather.’
From the place-name mentioned in the song – Ballymena – it would appear that this is a Scotticised version of a text from the Emerald Isle. It would not be altogether surprising were this to be the case, for, according to Greig, several Irish songs found their way to the North-east last century along with singing wanderers from that quarter.
‘Braes o’ Mar’
Mr Milne picked up the song from a picturesque old man who travelled all over the countryside singing to his own concertina accompaniment. Because of his partiality for the song of that name, he was known as the ‘Braes o’ Mar.’
Most of his songs were of the Jacobite type, says Mr Milne. It would be interesting to hear other snatches from this man’s repertoire if any reader can oblige.
Another letter said: “I remember, some years ago, having to copy from my father’s script the words and music of ‘Johnnie Kiss Yer Auntie’ for a young lad to sing in [sic] the air.”
And that was how I re-established contact with Miss Esther H.P. Jaffray, 71, Gairn Terrace, Aberdeen, because it was for me, although she did not realize it when writing, that she had copied out the text and melody of George Bruce Thomson’s charming ditty.
Miss Jaffray’s letters have been most interesting. There is a link between her family and Gavin Greig and she has some old music scores of presentations organized by him in which her father took part. She has very kindly offered to lend me any of the materials which can be of assistance.
Of ‘Johnnie Kiss Yer Auntie,’ she says: “Didn’t you love the bit where ‘the gan’er’ (gander) steals my bannock an’ dang me ower forby’ on Johnnie’s first day in breeks?”
I certainly did, as I enjoyed all the other songs from the Thomson pen.
The one-time New Deer chemist had a marvellous command of the vernacular and a rich vein of humour. His songs, if not already in oral tradition, are well advanced in this direction. Gavin Greig wrote of them: “To hear them sung by the author himself is a memorable treat. We have known such a performance break all local records in the matter of bringing down a house.”
Among Thomson’s better-known works are such masterpieces as ‘Sheelicks’ (The Mairrage o’ McGinnis); ‘Macfarlan’ o’ the Sprotts o’ Burnieboozie’ and ‘M’Ginty’s Meal-an-Ale.’
Sleepy-steadin’
Miss Jaffray enclosed a copy of one of his lesser-known songs – ‘Pirn-Taed Jockie.’
Here is just one succulent sample – from ‘Sheelicks’ – of typical Thomson humour:
Pay attention tae my sang, an’ I’ll tell ye o’ a weddin’
On the thirty-first o’ July, at the toon o’ Sleepy-steadin’
A’ the country-side wis there, for ye didna need a biddin’
Tae the mairrage o’ M’Ginnis tull his cross-eyed pet.
There wis lots o’ fun an’ frolic, tho’ we hidna a piana,
But a fluter wi’ a niz for a’ the earth like a banana,
An’ a piper wi’ his chanter in a seck that heeld guana,
At the mairrage o’ M’Ginnis tull his cross-eyed pet.
CHORUS
Tootle tootle gaed the flute, fiddle fiddle gaed the fiddle,
They gaed reelin’ oot an’ in again, an’ up an’ doon the middle;
An’ they ging-a-ring-it roon aboot like sheelicks roon a riddle,
At the mairrage o’ M’Ginnis tull his cross-eyed pet.
In her letter, Miss Jaffray throws an interesting light on Greig’s character. She points out that on a programme for Prince Charlie, a musical drama, his name appears only once – as organist – although he was the author and composer!
Informative
Without exception, the letters I have received so far have been helpful, interesting, informative – AND MOST WELCOME. Further songs, variants, fragments or folk-lore of any kind would be received equally gratefully.
Meantime, in addition to the letters already mentioned, I should like to thank the following contributors:
‘B.C.D.’, Alex. Stuart, Wellhowe, Stevensburn, New Deer; Mrs Mary McDonald, Nether Aucheoch, Brucklay, Maud; Mrs W. Cullen; W. Moir, Netherton Croft, Balquhain, Inverurie; Mrs A. Banchory; Mrs Laura E. Wilson, Turtory, Bridge of Marnoch, by Huntly; Mrs B. Nairn; and the many others who have passed on information verbally. Long may they do so.
Photo captions
1] It was no accident, but a reflection of the deep popular affection it has gained over the years that ‘The Mairrage o’ M’Ginnis’ was chosen to launch the bothy ballad type of programme in television from Aberdeen. Here is the setting that was devised to put across the famous George Bruce Thomson ditty whose title is, of course, ‘Sheelicks.’
2] ‘Bonny St Johnstone stands upon Tay…’ And here it is – a glimpse of the stately houses of Perth across the Tay from the Norie-Millar Park, showing the graceful spire of the West Church.