Annotation:Scots came over the Border (The)
SCOTS CAME OVER THE BORDER (THE). AKA and see: "Border Reel," "Noble Squire Dacre," "Wright's Rant." English, Jig (6/8 time). England, Northumberland. A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. "Scots came over the Border" can be found in the large 1770 music manuscript collection of Northumbrian musician William Vickers, and is a different tune than the one that usually goes by that title (or its variant title formations). Vickers researcher Matt Seattle finds the tune correspondent with David Young's "Border Reel" and the Walsh's "Wright's Rant," and with another Borders tune, Riddell's "Noble Squire Dacre (Comes over the Border)." On the FARNE site, Seattle says the tune is also known as "Jockey's a traytor" and "Blue Bonnets over the border." He also points out the structural resemblance to "Stool of Repentance" and concludes "it is an open question whether [these tunes] are versions of the same tunes or close relatives." However, as Fr. John Quinn points out, it is the second strain of these tunes that is by far the strongest cognate strains. The first strains all have a general resemblance but differ in melodic detail.
