Annotation:Gaberlunze Man (The)
GABERLUNZIE MAN, THE. AKA - "Gaberlunyie-Man (The)," "Auld Gaberlunzie (The)." Scottish, Air (3/4 time). E Minor (Oswald): G Minor (Thomson): A Minor (Davie). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Davie, Thomson): AABBCCDD (Oswald). The ballad appears in the mid-19th century volumes of antiquarian Francis Child as "The Gaberlunyie-Man" (Child No. 279A, Appendix). "The Gaberlunzie Man" has persistently been attributed to James V of Scotland who is said to have occasionally traveled his kingdom in the guise of a beggar, from which vantage to assess the reality of his realm. However, there is no evidence that James wrote the ballad, which, in any case does not appear in print until the early 18th century, long after James's reign. An early version of the melody was printed by Adam Craig in his Collection of the Choicest Scots Tunes (Edinburgh, 1730, p. 19).
The melody exists in both triple- and duple- meter versions. See "Gaberlunzie (The)" for a duple time setting.
Musicologist Samuel Bayard (Dance to the Fiddle, 1981,p. 138) identified the second strain as "amounting to a floating formulaic passage" used to construct composite tunes when combined with strains from other tunes. He was of the opinion that the second strain of "Wagoner (1)" or "Tennessee Wagoner" was derived from "Gaberlunzie", although the association seems weak.
