Tobar an Dualchais - Kist O Riches

Title - Robin Tamson's Smiddy
Contributors - Ethel Findlater
Reporters - Elizabeth Neilsen

Summary - In this comic courtship song, the singer visits Robin Tamson's smithy, and while having his horse shod, woos the smith's daughter. She decides to run off with him, as she believes her father will not let her marry until she is old. When the smith catches up with the pair, the singer suggests the smith marry his mother [ends abruptly].

Ethel Findlater learned this song from her husband many years before.

Track Duration (h:m:s) - 00:02:09
Date Recorded - 1961
Language - English, Scots
Genre - Song, Information
Collection - School of Scottish Studies

Track ID - 46896
Original Tape ID - SA1961.088
Original Track ID - SA1961.88.A14
Audio Quality - Fair
Audio Format - R2R

Classification - GD1009; LO12; R939;


Recording Location:
  County - Orkney
  Parish - Birsay and Harray
  Island - Orkney Mainland

Item Notes - 5 verse of 4 lines. 'Robin Tamson's Smiddy' was composed by Alexander Rodger (1784-1846), and was one of his most popular songs. Rodger's last verse, in which the smith agrees to marry, is missing here.
See:
Greig-Duncan, vol. 5 pp. 263-265, no. 1009
'Poems & Songs' (A. Rodger, 1838) pp. 186-188
'Traditional Tunes' (F. Kidson, 1891) pp. 82-84
'Book of Scottish Song' (A. Whitelaw, 1845) p. 165
'Poems & Songs' (A. Rodger, ed. R. Ford, 1897) pp. 1-3
'Whistlebinkie' vol. 1 (pub. D. Roberston, 1905) pp. 398-400
'Vagabond Songs & Ballads' vol. 1 (R. Ford, 1899) pp. 194-196
'The Glasgow Poets: Their Lives and Poems' (G. Eyre-Todd, 1906) pp. 174-175
'Folk-Song of the North-East' (G. Greig, K. Goldstein & A. Argo, 1963 reprint) art. CXXXIX
National Library of Scotland, Broadside Ballad collection, L.C.Fol.70(42b), (Poet's Box, Dundee, 1880-1900)


Permanent Link - http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/fullrecord/46896/1


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