The Hoose o Glenneuk
Track Information
Original Track ID
SA1952.07.B8
Original Tape ID
Summary
A pedlar comes to the House of Glenneuk while the ladies are getting ready for a wedding and offers himself and his modest pack to one. The goodwife dismisses the idea of one of her daughters trudging the country with a pack, but the pedlar shows them his rich stock of jewellery, ribbons and lace, to their delight. Nellie does not join in but steals looks at the pedlar. He gives her a pearl bracelet, and every time he comes to the farm she is thrilled. One day he tells her he has taken a shop and she thinks he is saying goodbye, but he asks her to marry him.
Her parents do not know, and her mother, shocked to hear the banns cried on Sunday, hurries home to tell the laird, who threatens to beat Nellie when she comes home. Nellie stay at a friend's house, goes with the pedlar and is married to him by the Reverend JP. They are very comfortable; the pedlar becomes rich and a bailie [magistrate]. His father-in-law, the Laird of Glenneuk, boasts about the bailie but does not let on he was once a packman.
Willie learned the song from his uncle, Willie Marr, when he was a loon [lad]. Marr was an insurance agent in Inverness.
Item Notes
Text and music transcribed in School of Scottish Studies. 9 verses. Not in Willie Mathieson's MS. Original by William Watt, author of 'Tinkers' Wedding'. Cf. Ford, 'Vagabond Songs' (p. 126).
See also:
Greig-Duncan vol. 2, p. 338
Ord p. 140
Recording Location
County - Aberdeenshire
Parish - Ellon
Language
Scots
Genre
Collection
Source Type
Reel to reel
Audio Quality
Good