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Lord Ronald

Date January 1952
Track ID 19385
Part 1

Track Information

Original Track ID

SA1952.20.A7

Original Tape ID

SA1952.020

Summary

This ballad deals with a young man who returns unwell from a hunting trip, having been poisoned with a dish of fishes by his sweetheart. He details what he will leave to his family and leaves a rope to hang his sweetheart.

Mr Hay thinks his version is better than Willie Mathieson's. He learned his from a man called Paterson at Newton of King Edward.

Item Notes

Text and music transcribed in School of Scottish Studies. 5 verses. Last line of each verse, except for the last verse, is the same. A fine version which Mr Hay thinks is better than Willie Mathieson's (on tape SA1952.012.B1), which is also to the 'Vilikins' tune.

This song has been found as far east as Slovakia, as far north as Sweden, as far south as Calabria and as far west as British Columbia. Almost 500 hundred years ago it was first seen in print in Verona in a broadsheet version of a Piedmontese poem called 'L'Avvelenato'.

See:
Greig-Duncan vol. 2, pp. 60-65
Ord pp. 458-459

Recording Location

County - Aberdeenshire

Parish - Turriff

Language

Scots

Collection

SoSS

Classification

R10 GD209 C12

Source Type

Reel to reel

Audio Quality

Fair