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Fa Saw the Country Geordies?

Date April 1960
Track ID 22447
Part 1

Track Information

Original Track ID

SA1960.167.A10

Original Tape ID

SA1960.167

Summary

A song set at the time of the Crimean War:

Fa saw the country Geordies?
Fa saw them gyaan awa?
Fa saw the country Geordies
Gaun tae the Russian Waar?

Some o them got beets [boots] an stockins,
Some o them got nane ava,
Some o them got beets an stockins,
Comin fae the Russian Waar.

Fa saw the country Geordies?
Fa saw them gyaan awa?
Fa saw the country Geordies
Comin fae the Russian Waar?

Item Notes

1 verse of 8 lines, followed by first half of verse again. This is one of many successive variants modelled on the Jacobite song 'Wha Wadna Fecht for Charlie?', which is sung to the old air 'Will you Go and Marry Katie'; the earliest known of these variants is 'Saw'd Ye the Cotton-Spinners', which Hamish Henderson dates to the time of the 1848 uprising in Scotland (as part of the Chartist movement seeking political and social reform), but which may refer to riots earlier that century. A later song called 'Wha Saw the Forty-Second' appears to refer to the Black Watch regiment of the Boer War era (1880–1881). Lucy Stewart's variant falls between these two, apparently describing country lads going off to fight in the Crimean War (1853-1856). Henderson also remarks on a ribald WWI successor to these 19th century songs. For a detailed discussion and performance of these songs by Hamish Henderson, see tape SA1951.24.

See also:
Greig-Duncan vol. 8, p. 180, no. 1628; pp. 250-251, no. 1718
'Children's Rhymes' (R. Ford, 1904) p. 32
'One Singer, One Song' (E. McVicar, 1994) pp. 164-165
'Jacobite Songs and Ballads' (G. S. MacQuoid, 1887) p. 170
'A Ballad History of England' (R. Palmer, 1979) pp. 115-116
'Scottish Nursery Rhymes' (N. & W. Montgomerie, 1946) pp. 92-93
'The Jacobite Relics of Scotland' 2nd series (J. Hogg, 1821) pp. 100-101

Recording Location

County - Aberdeenshire

Parish - Old Deer

Village/Place - Fetterangus

Language

Scots

Genre

Song

Collection

SoSS

Classification

R8250 R13073 GD1628

Source Type

Reel to reel

Audio Quality

Good