Annotation:Jock o' Hazeldean
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JOCK O' HAZELDEAN. AKA and see "Sailor Jack." Scottish, "Fling" or Air (2/4 time). F Major (Hardings): E Major (Neil): G Major (Rook). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Neil, Rook): AABB (Hardings). The original ballad [Roud 250, Child 293] melody can be found in the Leyden MS under the title "Bony Brow (The)," and an early version appears in Lady Margaret Wemmyss' lute manuscript from the 1640's under the title "My Lady Binnis Lilt." The original and ancient ballad is called "John of Hazelgreen" [Child 293)], but later the lyrics were substantially reworked (as was the melody) with additional words by Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), adding on to a stanza accredited to Thomas Pringle. Scott's "Jock o' Hazeldean" tells the tale of a young woman forced into an arranged marriage by her family who elopes on her wedding day with her true love, Jock O' Halzeldean. It was first published by Scott's old music teacher, Alexander Campbell, and was also published in George Farquhar Graham's The Songs of Scotland (1854). Scott's daughters were musical, and one, Sophia, copied ballad airs into her music book, among them "Jock O' Hazeldean." Purser (1992) remarks that her father loved to hear her sing it, preferring her rendition to Madame Caradori's. James Hogg recorded:
She loved her father so...I shall never forget the looks of affection she would throw up to him as he stood leaning on his crutch and hanging over her harp as she chaunted to him his favorite old Border Ballads or his own wild Highland Gatherings...
Francis O'Neill printed the tune in his Music of Ireland (1903) under the title "Sailor Jack."
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Harding's All Round Collection, 1905; No. 167, p. 53. Kerr (Merry Melodies, vol. 3), c. 1880's; No. 91. Neil (The Scots Fiddle), 1991; No. 31, p. 40.
Recorded sources: Lochshore CDLDL 1215, Craob Rua - "The More that's Said the Less the Better" (1992).
See also listing at:
Jane Keefer's Folk Music Index: An Index to Recorded Sources [1]