Up a Wide and Lonely Glen

Original Track ID

SA1954.91.B1

Original Tape ID

SA1954.091

Summary

A man asks a girl what she is doing so early. She tells him she is herding her ewes among the heather. He asks if she might fancy him and would go with him. She declines, saying she is only a poor shepherd's daughter. She says had he not been a bold ploughboy but a poor shepherd lad, she would have gone with him. The man says he has travelled far but the girl, kilted barefoot in the heather, is the bonniest lass he has seen.

Geordie Robertson heard the song from his wife, who sang a lot of old-fashioned songs, and who was also his second cousin. Jeannie Robertson adds that Geordie's wife was a cousin of her mother's, and her husband Donald's maternal aunt. She was born in Savoch parish, by Auchnagatt north of Ellon.

Item Notes

6 verses.

This song is a broadside derivative of a piece by James Hogg (1770–1835) entitled 'Song I' and published by him in 1801. In discussing 'The Queen Among the Heather', Hamish Henderson remarked on Hogg's piece but assumed it was a transitional form modelled on an old ballad; it seems more likely that Hogg's song was loosely inspired thematically by other traditonal songs, but was essentially an original composition. The broadside press of the 19th century regularly lifted songs from poets' publications and amended the language for wider appeal, making them easier to sing and better in keeping with the popular folk idiom. This is evident when comparing Hogg's song to a broadside called 'The Shepherd's Daughter', published in Dundee in the late 19th century. Chris Wright presents a detailed discussion of this process of adapting songs from poets to sell as street literature, including several songs to be found on this website.

See:

James Hogg, 'Song I', 'Scottish Pastorals, Poems, Songs, etc., Mostly Written in the Dialect of the South (Edinburgh: John Taylor, 1801), pp. 56-58.

Hamish Henderson, notes to 'The Stewarts Of Blair' LP (Topic RecoSrds 12T138, 1966)

'The Shepherd's Daughter' (Dundee: Poet's Box, before 1885), Dundee City Library Local History Centre, Lamb Collection 421(60).

Chris Wright, 'Forgotten Broadsides and the Song Tradition of the Scots Travellers' in 'Street Ballads in Nineteenth Century Britain, Ireland, and North America', Steve Roud and David Atkinson (eds) (Farnham: Ashgate, 2014), pp. 77-104.

Recording Location

Language

Scots

Genre

Song Information

Collection

SoSS

Classification

R375 GD962 R9750

Source Type

Reel to reel

Audio Quality

Good