CASTLE OF DROMORE, THE. AKA and see "My Wife is Sick (and Like to Die)," "October Winds." Scottish, Irish; Air (6/8 time, "with feeling"). D Major. Standard. AB. The words below are from an 18th century song, rewritten by Sir Harold Boulton (1859-1935), an English baronet who arranged and edited several song collections and adapted some Irish and Scotch folk songs (see also "Skye boat song"). Boulton also wrote "The Loch Tay Boat Song."
***
October winds lament around the castle of Dromore.
Yet peace is in its lofty halls, a phaisde ban a stor,
Though autumn winds may droop and die, a bud of spring are you,
(Sing hush-a-bye, lul, lul, lo, lan, sing hush-a-bye, lul, lul, loo. )
***
Bring no ill will to hinder us, my helpless babe and me,
Dread spirits of the Blackwater, Clann Eoghain's wild banshee;
And holy Mary pitying us in Heaven for grace doth sue.
***
Take time to thrive, my ray of hope, in the garden of Dromore;
Take heed, young eaglet, till thy wings are fairer fit to soar.
A little rest, and then the world is full of work to do.
***
The song was recorded by the Scottish group the Corries, and proved a popular version. Ted Hastings points out that the Scottish version refers to "Drumore," near Campbeltown, in Argyll, while the Irish version refers to "Dromore," located in Co. Down, only a few miles away across the Irish Sea. He suspects the names have a common origin. Graves (The Irish Song Book), 1895. O'Neill (1850), 1979; No. 52, pg. 9. Stanford/Petrie (Complete Collection), 1905; No. 509, pg. 129 (appears as "My Wife is Sick").
T:Castle of Dromore
T:October Winds
S:Clancy Bros. and Tommy Makem (both on "CB&TM" and "Hearty & Hellish")
Z:Jerome Colburn
M:6/4
L:1/4
K:C
E/F/ | "C"G2 G G2 G | "F"A2 G "C"G2\A/B/ | "F"c2 F "Am"E2-E/ F/ |
"C"G4 z\A/B/ | "Am"c2 C C2 C | "G"D2 C "C"CD | "F"F2 A "G7"G2 F |
"C"G4 z\A/B/ | "Am"cd c "G"Bc B | "F"A>B A "G"G2\F | "C"E2 G "G7"FE D |
"C"C3 ||\"Am"E2 G | "G7"F>E D B,2 F | "C"E2 C "Am"E2 G |
"G7"F>E D B,2 B, | "C"C4 z |]**
EAST NEUK OF FIFE. AKA and see "She Gripped At the Greatest On't," "Green Grow the Rushes" (Bayard, 1981;No. 206H-M). Scottish (originally), Shetland, Canadian; March, Country Dance, Scots Measure or Reel. Scotland, Lowlands region. Canada, Prince Edward Island. G Major (double tonic, G and A). Standard. AB (Skye): AABB (Athole, Brody, Emmerson, Hardie, Hunter, Kerr, Perlman, Skinner, Williamson): AA'BB' (Cooke {Thomson}). Composed by James Oswald (c. 1711-1769) and included in his Caledonian Pocket Companion (Bk. 4, 1752) as "She gripped at the greatest o't." It first appears under the above title in William McGibbon's (c. 1690-1756) Third Collection (1755) and Bremner's 1759 Scots Tunes (Bremner negotiates the double tonic by using G and A Major in even numbered strains and G and A Minor in odd numbered strains"). It is still a popular Scots tune today, including the variations which uncharacteristically have survived in the popular repertory (variations were published by Nathaniel Gow in 1823-the first three were recorded by J. Scott Skinner in the first part of the 20th century). The East Neuk of Fife is that part of Scotland's county of Fife that juts into the North Sea and contains the town of St. Andrews, the ancestral home of the game of golf. In the eighteenth century Fife sported a profusion of decaying architectural marvels, a trade in thread, the making of calico, and the shooting of porpoises in the firth for their blubber-oil" (Williamson, 1976). The tune has become associated with a Robert Burns song, though it was not his choice of an air for the words, but rather an editor's substitution (Alburger). Bayard (1981) collected versions of the tune "Green Grow the Rushes" or by the floating title (in America) "Over the Hills and Far Away." Johnson (1984) retells an anecdote about the tune which was first published in Murdoch's Fiddle in Scotland, pg. 59 (Murdoch learned it from Baillie's grandson): "One day in about 1805, the fiddler Peter (Pate) Baillie of Loanhead, near Edinburgh, was on his way to play at a ball in Fife. The journey involved crossing the Firth of Forth by ferry, and when Baillie boarded the boat at Leith the other passengers noticed the violin he was carrying. As everyone had an hour to kill before the boat reached Burntisland, Baillie was soon holding an impromptu musical session on deck, with the other passengers calling out requests for tunes:
***
A gentleman asked Pate if he could play the 'East Neuk of Fife'
with ten variations, to which the minstrel replied in his homely
way: 'Weel, sir, I'll try it'. Off Pate set at a brisk pace with both
theme and variations, till the number bargained for was completed.
But Pate did not stop here. He dashed into fresh variations of his
own improvising, more wonderful than the first, and went on,
and on, and on, the gentleman looking at him with astonishment,
till at last the fiddler did make a halt. 'Well I declare!' said the
gentleman. 'Every one of the variations must have turned out
twins since I last heard them!' (pgs. 66-67).
***
Sources for notated versions: Henry Thomson (Vidlin, Mainland, Shetland) and George Sutherland (Bressay, Shetland) [Cooke], Bremner's (Scots Tunes), pg. 17 [Johnson, 1983]; George MacPhee (b. 1941, Monticello, North-East Kings County, Prince Edward Island) [Perlman]. Aird (Selections), 1778, Vol. 1; No. 57. Brody (Fiddler's Fakebook), 1983; pg. 97. Carlin (The Gow Collection), 1986; No. 251. Cooke (The Fiddle Tradition of the Shetland Isles), 1986; Ex's. 52 and 53, pgs. 110-111. Emmerson (Rantin' Pipe and Tremblin' String), 1971; No. 89, pg. 164. Hardie (Caledonian Companion), 1992; pg. 31. Henderson (Flowers of Scottish Melody), 1935 (includes the traditional set of variations). Hunter (Fiddle Music of Scotland), 1988; No. 309. Johnson, (The Scots Musical Museum) 1787-1803; Vol. 3; No. 277. Johnson (Scottish Fiddle Music in the 18th Century), 1983; No. 34, pg. 92-93 (with variations). Kerr (Merry Melodies), Vol. 1; pg. 23. MacDonald (The Skye Collection), 1887; pg. 170. McGibbon CST, pg. 89. McGibbon Scot, Vol. 3; pg. 17. McGlashan (Collection of Scots Measures), 177?; pg. 8. Perlman (The Fiddle Music of Prince Edward Island), 1996; pg. 61. Skinner (Harp and Claymore), 1904. Skinner (The Scottish Violinist, with 5 of his variations), pg. 22-23. Smith (The Scottish Minstrel), 1820-24; Vol. 2; pg. 42. Stewart-Robertson (The Athole Collection), 1884; pg. 147. Thompson (Original Scottish Airs for the Voice, 1805; Vol. 4; No. 165. Williamson (English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish Fiddle Tunes), 1976; pg. 53. Olympic 6151, The Scottish Fiddle Festival Orchestra- "Scottish Traditonal Fiddle Music" (1978). Topic 12T280, J. Scott Skinner- "The Strathspey King."
T:East Neuk of Fife
L:1/8
M:C|
R:Country Dance
B:The Athole Collection
K:G
D|G2G2G2Bc|dBGB dBGB|A2A2A2gf|edef g2fe|dcBA GABc|
dBGB d2cB|ABcd BcAB|B2E2E2:|
|:dc|B2G2G2dc|B2G2G2ed|c2A2A2 eg|a2A2A2dc|B2G2d2G2|
g2G2d2cB|ABcd BcAB|G2E2E2:|
JORUM, THE. AKA - "Jorram." Scottish. A Highland boat-song, sung to accompany and give time to the oarsmen in the act of rowing a boat. Two, from Perthshire and Skye, were published by the Rev. Patrick Donald in his Collection of Highland Vocal airs never hitherto published (1783). John Glen (1891) finds a tune by this name earliest printed in Joshua Campbell's 1778 collection (pg. 33).
SKYE BOAT SONG, THE. Scottish, Air (6/8 time). G Major. Standard. ABB. Words to the tune were written by Sir Harold Boulton to an air collected by Miss Annie MacLeod (Lady Wilson) in the 1870's. It seems that Miss MacLeod was on a trip to the isle of Skye and was being rowed over Loch Coruisk (Coire Uisg, the 'Cauldron of Waters') when the towers broke out into the Gaelic rowing song "Cuchag nan Craobh" (The Cuckoo in the Grove). A talented composer and singer, MacLeod remembered fragments of the song and fashioned them into an air which she set down in notation with the intentions of using it later in a book she was to co-author with Boulton. Sir Harold joined Miss MacLeod at Roshven House, Invernesshire, soon after to work on their book, by which time the whole group at the residence was humming the "scrap of chanty" collected by her, and he too soon began to work the air around in his imagination. It was he that transformed the words the group had been singing:
***
Row us along, Ronald and John
Over the sea to Roshven
into:
Over the sea to Skye
***
and it was he who wrote additional lyrics in a Jacobite mold, introducing the heroic figures of Bonny Prince Charlie and Flora MacDonald. As a piece of modern romantic literature with traditional links it succeeded perhaps too well, for soon people began "remembering" they had learned the song in their childhood, and that the words were 'old Gaelic lines'. In 1893 a publisher, believing the tune to be an ancient traditional air, commissioned a Brechin teacher named Margaret Bean to compose another set of lyrics to it, which gained some popularity.
The song begins:
***
Loud the winds howl, loud the waves roar,
Thunderclaps rend the air,
Baffled our foes stand on the shore,
Follow they will not dare.
Chorus:
Speed bonnie boat, like a bird on the wing,
Onward the sailors cry!
Carry the lad that is born to be king,
Over the sea to Skye!
While Bean's words go:
Waft him, ye winds, far o'er the sea,
Far from a traitor's eye,
Fly, little boat, that our Prince may be free
Over to loyal Skye.
***
See also note for "The Castle of Dromore." Kerr (Merry Melodies), Vol. 3; No. 410, pg. 45. North Star RS0009, "The Wind in the Rigging: A New England Voyage" (1988).