SCOTTISH SONG Wia Man Singt Ba Lass Vk\I Ru^Ig Ttubir

$SCOTTISH SONG Wia Man Singt Ba Lass Vk\I RuÎg Ttubir$ - l^^\ ,) ^X w * SCOTTISH SONG Wia man singt ba lass Vk\i ruîg ttubir, îjse p;^ns£^c« lâhn hein« fub^r. — German Proverb. SCOTTISH SONG ITS WEALTH, WISDOM, AND SOCIAL SIGNIFICANCE BY JOHN STUART (BLACKIE EMERITUS PROFESSOR OP GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OP EDINBURGH; AUTHOR OP 'LAYS AND LEGENDS OP ANCIENT GREECE,' ETC. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCLXXXIX 1^- z TO DR A. C. MACKENZIE, PRINCIPAL OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF MUSIC, LONDON, THIS HUMBLE ATTEMPT TO EXHIBIT THE WEALTH, STIMULATE THE STUDY, AND EXTEND THE INFLUENCE OF OUR NATIVE SCOTTISH SONG, IS WITH SINCERE ESTEEM ©etJicatetJ bg JOHN STUART BLACKIE. 129 PREFATORY NOTE. The title which this httle volume bears, sufficiently explains the reason of its appearance, and whatever small claims it may be able to advance for originality in a theme so often and so ably handled by experts in the folk-lore and the popular music of their country. I have no pretensions either to the scientific knowledge or to the curious literary research which might enable me to compete with these men of skill, and to share in any part of the praise which they have so justly earned; I only thought I might do some good, in an age urged by various stimulating forces to seek after what is new rather than to hold by what is true, if I should present, in a sort of dramatic totality, the wealth of moral, intellectual, and aesthetical nutriment of the best kind that lies stored in our heritage of national song. My task, therefore, was simply one of collection and selection, and presenting, so to speak, in a moral nosegay viii Prefatory Note. the lyrical blossoms that stood around me, as thick as flowers in the green meadow, or trouts in the amber pool. My selection was guided in the main by the currency which the songs had obtained in the life of the great mass sometimes also I had to of the people ; though complete the picture by productions equally significant of what is best in Scottish Hfe, but which had not found their way so widely into the popular ear. In making my selections, with accompanying historical remarks where they might appear useful or pleasant, I have used a great variety of the best authorities, which will be found acknowledged in the text; specially, however, I have to return thanks to those eminent musical publishers who have, with the greatest liberality, allowed me to make free use of those musical illustrations which had not yet passed from their special protectorship into the large arena of unclaimed melody. These gentlemen are, Messrs Paterson & Sons, Edinburgh; J. Muir Wood, Joseph Ferrie, and John Cameron, Glasgow ; Messrs Field & Tuer, J. Blockley, and Swan & Sons, London. I have also particularly to ac- knowledge the valuable assistance which I have received from Mr Alan Reid, Edinburgh, in the revision of the airs. 9 Douglas Crescent, Edinburgh, 20th December 1888. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. SCOTTISH SONG, ITS VALUE AND SIGNIFICANCE, . I II. SONGS OF LOVE, COURTSHIP, AND MARRIAGE, . 29 III. PATRIOTIC SONGS, WAR-SONGS, JACOBITE BALLADS, , 1 42 IV. SONGS OF CHARACTER AND INCIDENT IN DAILY LIFE, 248 V. DRINKING-SONGS, CONVIVIAL SONGS 296 VI. SEA-SONGS, NAVAL SONGS, AND BOAT-SONGS, . 334 VII. SONGS OF THOUGHT AND SENTIMENT, . 357 GLOSSARY, 385 SCOTTISH SONG, CHAPTER I. SCOTTISH SONG, ITS VALUE AND SIGNIFICANCE. "A people which takes no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered by remote descendants. Such pride is a sentiment which belongs to the higher and nobler part of human nature, and which adds not a little to the strength of states."—Macaulay. We have long been troubled with the feeling that there is something radically wrong in the place which Music holds in the moral life and social atmosphere of the people of these islands, especially of Scotland. It is more of an exhibition and an accomplishment, less of an educative force, than it ought to be in a well-balanced system of national culture. It is looked upon too much as an out- 2 Scottish Song. side affair, belonging to a professional or specially gifted few, not as a healthy atmosphere which all ought to breathe, and a girdle of strength to brace the manhood of the people. With the Greeks, who are our models in all the higher culture, it was not so. With them Music — Movo-tKi}—occupied the whole field of artistic expression for the mass of the people, except what was covered by the of courts eloquence the popular assemblies and the law ; and even their prose, as we see from the writings of the rhetoricians, was cultivated with a rhythmical curiousness which distinctly pointed to the musical cradle in which it had been nursed. When Homer, or any of the grand old school of Chian minstrels who gave circulation to his heroic cantos, commenced their recital with the words, "Sing, O Muse," they were not using a phrase as un- meaning as when a proud man signs himself at the bottom " of a letter your humble servant." They did sing. And the great festal compositions which we call the Greek drama or the Greek tragedy were in fact more lyrical than dramatic in their nature, and, if they are to bear a name expressive of their true character and significance, ought rather to be called sacred and patriotic operas. That they were accepted by the people as song, not as drama, followed naturally from the stirring power of the ixiXo^, or melody, as distinguished from the somewhat formal and stately National Music. 3 attitude of the Xcî?, or prose dialogue—an effect of which a striking witness remains to the present day in the word rpayovSi, or tragedy^ which in modern Greek simply means a song. But in Great Britain, both north and south of the Tweed, we are compelled to say, not without sorrow, and we may hope also with a certain shame, that our great store of sacred and secular tradition has not been used, as the Greeks would have used it, to enrich the blood and to brace the nerve our oratorios of the people ; and, though splendid compensate in some degree for the loss of that happy union between the pulpit and the stage indicated by the mys- teries of the middle ages, and do give us, only without the scenic accompaniment, what may well be called the soul of a sacred opera, yet these grand efforts of professional skill are more of the nature of a brilliant exhibition for the few than of a popular delight for the many. Our hymns, psalms, and spiritual songs also, in the weekly temple ser- vices, present to us the most solemn lessons, in strains not less popularly effective than the most sublime moralising of neither in the choruses ^^schylus and Sophocles ; but in the magnificent harmonies of the oratorio nor in the solemn soothings of the cathedral chant is there any place found for the native, national, and patriotic element so strongly pronounced in the national drama, or opera, of the Greeks. Shakespeare's historical plays, no doubt, as 4 Scottish Song. the Baron von Bunsen well remarked, are the true Iliad of but are not Not the English people ; they dramas, operas. less notable in the sesthetical use of historical and heroic " " tradition are the Lady of the Lake and other poems of are For the Scott ; but they read, not sung. purely native, patriotic, and national element so potent in Greek art we seek in vain, except in the sphere of the popular song or Volkslied — a domain of musical expression, therefore, which has peculiar claims on our attention, as retaining those charms of native growth, native atmosphere, native incident, and native heroism, from which the higher branches of the art have so unfortunately been divorced. It is natural in a certain class of persons of high culture, or who move on a certain elevated social platform, to look with indifference or contempt on the ballads of the people that are hawked about the street, and sung in rainy weather minstrels with a cracked voice but it is not wise. by ragged ; The songs that please the great mass of the people are the songs that flowed most directly and most potently from the heart of the wishes to know the people ; and whosoever people, must know to love their songs. If, as Richter with his usual wisdom said, the way to a mother's heart is through her children, and the way to a people's heart is through their mother-tongue, the utterance of this mother- tongue which goes most directly to the popular heart is The Volkslied. 5 and whoever has to do with the — the popular song ; people whether as politician, landlord, or spiritual guide—will find that a single well-timed verse from a popular ballad will prove more effective to point his address, and to strengthen his influence, than the most weighty sentence from an in- fallible Aristotle or a universal Shakespeare. Nor is this without reason, —the people do not feed on soap-bubbles : the songs which they sing are not pretty fancies or dainty conceits, but have a root in fact, a growth in experience, a blossom in the dramatic incidents, and a fruit in the ripe wisdom of life. They are the stuff of which Homer is made,—Homer who may be anybody, or nobody, as the Wolfians will have it, but is always the Greek people.

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