KAILYAIRD MINSTRELSY

Hawera Star, Volume L, 25 October 1930, Page 16

KAILYAIRD MINSTRELSY

rpn K late Superintendent John Ord, of the Glasgow Police Fcrce, was a re cognised authority on Scottish Bothy songs, and, for many years he collected the folk songs of Aberdeen, Banff and Moiray. His research work among the farmers for old-time melodies with tlieir histories have been gathered together and published by Mr Alexander Gardner, of Paisley, under tho title of ‘The Bothy Songs ail'd Ballads of Aberdeen, (Banff andiMoray, Angus, and- the Mearns.”

In a forword Principal Bait, of Glasgow University, says: “.Superintendent Ord has not lived to witness the publication! of what will be the classical work on a subject, the importance of which is receiving wide recognßton. We have here the real thing, the songs' as actually sung in the bothies of the farms. Their substance provides a living pc-ture of Scottish rural life.

'“Food and drink, work and play, lovers’ happiness and their tragedies (hero and there their comedies as well), echoes' of fairy tales and of civil war. the little incidents of daily life which vary with changing social custom —all of them things that might easily disappear and be lost—are here preserved with pious care in this Book of Remembrance. ’ ’

“This book recalls a farm bothy near Aberdeen. It is a- winter night. ” says the “Glasgow Herald" reviewer. “The rain, driven before the cruel northeaster, lashes In from the sea. and blatters on the window pane. The bothy is large, and lit by a small oil lamp which casts fantastic shadows on the

Scottish Bothy Songs

wall. There is a) low peat fire in ithe gable end. “Six or seven men are seated round -*■ it in a ring-. The foreman has the decrepit settle in t'hc warm corner. The ■ boy has a stool on the uneasy edge of the ring. One of the horsemen, an enormous fellow with a broken nose, draws sounds* from a battered cornet. The cattleman has a wheezy metodion, uncertain on the tenor and animal in the bass. The boy liasi a. Jew's harp, which sounds in a metallic monotone. “These are the orchestra. The singers are distinguished more by nature than by art. The song is ‘The Dying Ploughbcy. ’ It i s a heavy burden in ai heavy time, and the shadows thicken as the sense of rustic mortality fills the room. “Farewell, my horse, my bonnie pair; I’ll yoke and lowse wi ’ you uae mair; Fareweel, ma ploo, wi -’ you this han' T’ll turn ower uae mair fresh Jan- “ And so on till the end. “Let it be said first that the bothy songs are a familiar minstrelsy. They are domestic, and n.t their best humorous. The sorrows of a man who married a shrew, and of the shrew who found none to mary her, the jolly reward of the wooer who hissed) mother in. mistake for the daughter. 1 the condign punishment so wittily ■ visited on the ungallant butcher lad, these and all the lets and hindrances of country life are treated) with broad humanity by the unknown poets.’’ There will be Scotsmen the world over who will welcome this colunxe of nearly five hundred pages, which, apart from its interest, is wonderful value.