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Oor Goodman

Date 22 July 1961
Track ID 45630
Part 1

Track Information

Original Track ID

SA1961.87.A3

Original Tape ID

SA1961.087

Summary

In this comic song, a man arrives home on several different nights, each time finding another man's horse, boots, etc. where his own should be. When he asks to whom they belong, his wife scolds him, saying he has blindly mistaken a cow for a horse, milk stoups [buckets] for boots, and so on. When he discovers another man in his bed, his wife tells him it is her grandmother come to visit them; the singer has never seen a grandmother with a black beard.

Henrietta Groundwater mentions that the song has a Jacobite origin.

Item Notes

3 verses of 10 lines; fifth and eighth lines spoken.

See:
'Tocher' 19 (1975) p. 102
Greig-Duncan vol. 7, pp. 322-326, no. 1460
'Scottish Ballads' (E. Lyle, 1994) pp. 173-177
'Come Gie's a Sang' (S. Douglas, 1995) pp. 18-19
'Scottish Ballad Book' (N. Buchan, 1973) pp. 177-179
'Book of Scottish Song' (A. Whitelaw, 1845) pp. 46-47
'Scotish (sic) Songs' vol. 2 (J. Ritson, 1794, 1869) pp. 296-301
'The Scottish Folksinger' (N. Buchan & P. Hall, 1973) p. 44
'Vagabond Songs & Ballads' vol. 1 (R. Ford, 1899) pp. 31-36
'Ballads of Scotland' vol. 1 (W. E. Aytoun, 1858) pp. 124-129
'Scottish Songs Ancient & Modern' (J. Gilchrist, 1865) pp. 340-344
'Sam Henry's Songs of the People' (G. Huntington, 1990) pp. 508-509
'Ancient & Modern Scottish Songs' vol. 2 (D. Herd, 1869, 1973) pp. 172-175
'The Scots Musical Museum' vol. 5 (J. Johnson, R. Burns, 1853) pp. 466-467, no.454
'Andrew Crawfurd's Collection of Ballads & Songs' vol. 2 (E. Lyle, 1996) pp. 148-151

Recording Location

County - Orkney

Parish - Kirkwall and St Ola

Island - Orkney Mainland

Village/Place - Kirkwall

Language

English, Scots

Collection

SoSS

Classification

R114 GD1460 C274

Source Type

Reel to reel

Audio Quality

Good