Annotation:Tibby Fowler o' the Glen (2) (The)

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TIBBY/TIBBIE FOWLER O' THE GLEN [2], THE. AKA - "Tibby Fowlerin the Glen," "Tibby Fowler O'er the Glen." AKA and see "Fouller's Rant," "Genty Tibby." Scottish; Reel or Slow Strathspey (whole time). G Dorian (Young): A Dorian (most versions). Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. John Glen (Early Scottish Melodies, 1900, p. 198) says there is "a very good version of the melody in The Musick for the Scots Songs in the Tea-table Miscelanny, c. 1726 entitled "Genty Tibby." Although Allan Ramsay did not direct any air for his song "Genty Tibby and Sonsy Nelly" in his first volume of the Tea-Table Miscellaney it is thought to be associated. An "imperfect" version of the song was published earlier in David Herd's Jacobite Relics (1776).

James Johnson used a version of the dance tune for the song "Tibbie Fowler o' the Glen" in his Scots Musical Museum, vol. 5 (1797, Song 440). The words tell of a wealthy woman beset by suitors, and go:

Tibbie Fowler o' the glen, there's o'er mony wooin at her,
Tibbie Fowler o' the glen, there's o'er mony wooin at her.

Chorus:
Wooin at her, pu'in at her, courtin at her, canna get her:
Silly elf, it's for her pelf, that a' the lads are wooin at her.

Ten cam east, and ten came west, ten came rowin o'er the water;
Twa came down the lang-dyke side, there's twa-and-thirty wooin at her.

There's seven but, and seven ben, seven in the pantry wi' her;
Twenty head about the door, there's ane-and-forty wooin at her.

[She sits amang them like a queen, Ilka chiel expects to get her;
Gin she but let her thimble fa', they're like to knock their heads together]. ... [verse from Robert Ford]

She's got pendles in her lugs, cockle-shells wad set her better;
High-heel'd shoon and siller tags, and a' the lads are wooin at her.

Be a lassie e'er sae black, an she hae the name o' siller,
Set her upo' Tintock-tap, the wind will blaw a man till her.

Be a lassie e'er sae fair, an she want the pennie siller;
A flie may fell her in the air, before a man be even till her.

William Nappier also published the song, five years before Johnson's Museum, in his Selection, vol. 2 (1792), with two additional stanzas. These are perhaps the "modern stanzas" the Victorian era antiquary William Stenhouse excoriated in Illustrations (p. 392) as the work of a "filthy snort of a man", but who published them anyway:

In came Frank wi' his lang legs,
Gard a' the stair play clitter clatter;
Had awa, young men, he begs,
For, by my sooth, I will be at her.

Fye upon the filthy snort,
There's o'er mony wooing at her;
Fiften came frae Aberdeen;
There's seven and forty wooing at her.

Paul Stewart Cranford (1995) and Dunaly & Greenberg (1996) believe “Alec Dan MacIsaac's” to be a Cape Breton variant of this piece. See note for "annotation:Tibby Fowler o' the Glen (1)" for more.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Aird (Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 3), 1788; No. 403, p. 155. Gow (Complete Repository, Part 1), 1799; p. 6. J. Murray Neil (The Scots Fiddle vol. 2: Tunes, Tales & Traditions of the Lothians, Borders...), pp. 14-15. Robert Ross (Choice Collection of Scots Reels or Country Dances & Strathspeys), Edinburgh, 1780; p. 14. David Young (Drummond Castle/Duke of Perth Manuscript), 1734; No. 38.

Recorded sources:

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