Annotation:Banks and Braes of Boony Doon (The)
X:1 T:Banks and Braes of Bonny Doon M:6/8 L:1/8 R:Air Q:"Slow" S:O'Farrell - Pocket Companion (c. 1805) Z:AK/Fiddler's Companion K:A E/F/ | A3B3 | cec BAB | cBA A<FE | EFA B3 | A2A BAB | cec BAB | cBA AFE | EFA A2 :: c/d/ | e2f ecA | e2f ecA | ecA ecA | fec B3 | A2A BAB | cec BAB | cBA AFE | EFA A2 :||
BANKS AND BRAES OF BONNY DOON, THE. AKA - "Banks o' Doon," "Ye Banks and Braes." AKA and see "Caledonian Hunt's Delight (The)." Scottish, Air (6/8 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. "Banks o' Doon"is the name of a song written in 1792 by poet Robert Burns set to the tune of "Caledonian Hunt's Delight (The)." Burns had fashioned a previous version of the song in 1787, but revised it in 1792 for The Scots Musical Museum. It is sometimes called "Ye Banks and Braes" after the opening line of the third version of the song. The first couple of stanzas go:
Ye banks and braes o' bonny Doon how can you bloom so fresh and fair,
How can ye sing ye little birds while I'm so weary fu' o' care?
You'll break my heart ye little birds that warble o-n the flow'-ry thorn;
It minds me o' Departed joys. Departed, never to return.
Aft ha I stray'd by bonny Doon
To see the rose and woodbine twine
And hear ilk bird sing of its love,
As fondly so did I of mine;
Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd arose,
So sweet upon its thorny tree;
But my fause love has stou'n the rose,
And left the sharpest thorn to me.
According to wikipedia,
The song was inspired by the story of Margaret (Peggy) Kennedy (1766–1795), who was seduced and then abandoned by Andrew McDouall, the son of a wealthy family and sometime Member of Parliament for Wigtonshire. Kennedy sued for a declarator of marriage, but died prior to adjudication of the case. Although the Consistorial court found the marriage claim valid, the Court of Session decided the marriage claim failed, but found McDouall to be the father of Kennedy's daughter and ordered that he pay £3,000 to Kennedy's estate and provide for the child.
The song uses the same tune as the East Anglian variant of the English Folk song "Foggy Dew"[1].
- ↑ "The Foggy Dew" [Roud 558; Laws O3; G/D 7:1496], mainlynorfolk.info.