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Rigs o Rye

Date 16 April 1956
Track ID 52167
Part 1

Track Information

Original Track ID

SA1956.47.B5

Original Tape ID

SA1956.047

Summary

In this song, a conversation is overheard between two lovers. The young man tells his sweetheart that she is not a match for him as her fortune is too small for him to marry her. She begins to weep; he dries her tears and says he was only testing her. They marry and they and their children live in Forfar in the winter, and in Montrose in summer.

Alick Shand got the song from his mother.

Item Notes

6 verses. Sung at a cèilidh in Glenlivet. The tune sung here is less common, being eight lines (two verses) long. The text is also missing the usual emphatic disowning of her family by the girl in the song.

The song also appeared as a broadside called 'Twas in the Month of Sweet July', printed between 1880-1900, at the Poet's Box, in Dundee's Overgate.

See:
Greig-Duncan vol. 5, pp. 499-517, no. 1054
Ord pp. 31-32
National Library of Scotland Broadsides Collection, shelfmark RB.m.143(122)

Recording Location

County - Banffshire

Parish - Inveravon

Village/Place - Glenlivet

Language

English

Collection

SoSS

Classification

R985 GD1054 LO11

Source Type

Reel to reel

Audio Quality

Good