Annotation:Daft Robin
Tune properties and standard notation
DAFT ROBIN (Robie Donua Gorach). Scottish, Air. A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB (O'Farrell): AABBCCDDEEFF (Gow). Gow notes it is an "old Highland song," and, according to John Glen (Early Scottish Melodies, 1900), it was included in a number of song collections prior to the Scots Musical Museum (1787-1803), including Daniel Dow's Ancient Scots Tunes (c. 1715) and in Reverend Patrick McDonald's Collection of Highland Vocal Airs (1784). William Stenhouse, in his notes to Burns' song "The Captive Ribband" in his Illustrations of the lyric poetry and music of Scotland (1853), says the "Daft Robin" tune (to which Burns' song was set) is "evidently a slight alteration of the fine old triple time tune, entitled 'Earl Douglas's Lament', which may be seen in Oswald's collection, book vii, p. 30." Malcolm MacFarlane, in The Celtic Monthly (1894) gives:
Robaidh donn gòrach (or Robaidh tha thu gòrach)--Daft Robin. To this air, or variants of it, are sung, in Scotland, "Todlin' hame," "My ain fireside," "Johnnie Armstrong" "Earl Douglas's Lament," "Carronside," "The Maid of Selma," and "The days o' langsyne" (not "Auld langsyne"); In Ireland, "The lame yellow beggar," "The wild geese," "Bonny Portmore," "The boys of Kilkenny," and the beautiful and popular "The meeting of the waters;" while in the Highlands, as far as I know, we have only "Na Laithean a dh'aom" and "A Chuairt Shamraidh."
The late Bruce Olsen adds these titles to the "Daft Robin" tune family: "Armstong's Farewell" (Johnny Armstrong's Farewell), the first strain of "Lude's Lament", "Drunk at Night and Dry in the Morning," "My Name is Dick Kelly," "Bacah/Bockagh" (Lame yellow beggar), "Did you not hear of Boccough" (Coffey, Begger's Wedding, 1729)
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Carlin (The Gow Collection), 1986; No. 538. Gow (The First Collection of Niel Gow's Reels), 1784 (revised 1801); p. 36. O'Farrell (Pocket Companion, vol. III), c. 1808; p. 14.
Recorded sources: