Annotation:Banks of Forth (The)

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BANKS OF FORTH, THE. Scottish, Air (whole time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. Composed by James Oswald [1] (1710-1769).

The tune was used for a song in Johnson's Scots Musical Museum, beginning "Ye Sylvan powers that rule the plains," several stanzas of which appeared in Herd's collection and Yair's Charmer (1749), by an anonymous author. According to Stenhouse, another tune in Herd's volume may have been the original words to which the air had been adapted, also anonymously written:

Banks of Forth

Awake, my love, with genial ray,
The sun returning glads the day;
Awake, the balmy zephyr blows,
The hawthorn blooms, the daisy glows,
The trees retain their verdant pride,
The turtle woos his tender bride,
To love each warbler tunes the song,
And Forth in dimples glides along.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Manson (Hamilton's Universal Tune Book, vol. 2), 1846; p. 10. J. Murray Neil (The Scots Fiddle, Vol. 2: Tunes, Tales & Traditions of the Lothians), 2013. Oswald (Curious Collection of Scots Tunes), 1740. Oswald (Caledonian Pocket Companion, vol. 1), 1760; p. 26.

Recorded sources:

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