204A. Waly, Waly, or, The Water Is Wide
[In addition to Jamie Douglas No. 204, Child gives the text of a version an older song, Waly, Waly, Gin Love Be Bony (also known as The Water is Wide, my 204A) and shows the textual relationship between the two. As an appendix Child gives the text of Arthur's Seat Shall be my Bed, etc., or, Love In Despair.
Roud gives versions of Waly, Waly (The Water Is Wide- 1906) mixed with version of Jamie Douglas as does The Child Ballad Collection. The Traditional Ballad Index separates "Jamie Douglas" and "Waly, Waly (The Water Is Wide)" as I do.
There are no known US or Canadian versions of Jamie Douglas. The related "Waly, Waly (The Water Is Wide)" is my Appendix to 204 or 204A.]
CONTENTS:
1. Child's Narrative (Excerpt from 204. Jamie Douglas)
2. Child's Ballad Text
3. Footnotes (Found at the end of Child's Narrative)
4. Brief (Matteson; see top of page in blue)
5. Appendix: Arthur's Seat Shall be my Bed, etc., or, Love In Despair
6. End-Notes (b version and Appendix)
ATTACHED PAGES (see left hand column):
1. Recordings & Info: 204A. Waly, Waly, or, The Water Is Wide
A. Roud No. 87: Waly, Waly (Water Is Wide) (96 Listings); includes Jamie Douglas
B. Some Notes on "O Waly Waly"- Allen 1954
C. On the Antrim version of "Waly, Waly"
2. Sheet Music: 204A. Waly, Waly, or, The Water Is Wide (Bronson's music examples and texts)
3. US & Canadian Versions
4. English and Other Versions (Including Child versions and Appendix with additional notes)]
Child's Narrative: 204A. Waly, Waly
[Excerpt from 204. Jamie Douglas]
A-M have all from one stanza to four of a beautiful song, known from the first quarter of the eighteenth century, and printed fifty years earlier than any copy of the ballad.[5] This song is the lament of an unmarried woman for a lover who has proved false, and, as we find by the last stanza, has left her with an unborn babe. A, C have this last stanza, although the lady in these copies has born three children (as she has in every version except the fragmentary E). [6]
Waly, Waly, Gin Love Be Bony.
a. Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany, the second volume, published before 1727; here from the Dublin edition of 1729, p. 176.
b. Thomson's Orpheus Caledonius, second edition, 1733, I, 71; four stanzas in the first edition, 1725, No 34. [7]
1 O Waly, waly up the bank!
And waly, waly, down the brae!
And waly, waly yon burn-side,
Where I and my love wont to gae!
2 I leand my back unto an aik,
I thought it was a trusty tree;
But first it bowd, and syne it brak,
Sae my true-love did lightly me.
3 Waly, waly! but love be bony
A little time, while it is new;
But when 't is auld, it waxeth cauld,
And fades away like morning dew.
4 O wherefore shoud I busk my head?
Or wherf ore shoud I kame my hair?
For my true-love has me forsook,
And says he'll never love me mair.
5 Now Arthur-Seat shall be my bed,
The sheets shall neer be fyl'd by me;
Saint Anton's well shall be my drink,
Since my true-love has forsaken me.
6 Martinmas wind, when wilt thou blaw,
And shake the green leaves off the tree?
gentle death, when wilt thou come?
For of my life I am weary.
7 'T is not the frost that freezes fell,
Nor blawing snaw's inclemency;
'T is not sic cauld that makes me cry,
But my love's heart grown cauld to me.
8 When we came in by Glasgow town,
We were a comely sight to see;
My love was cled in the black velvet,
And I my sell in cramasie.
9 But had I wist, before I kissd,
That love had been sae ill to win,
I'd lockd my heart in a case of gold,
And pin'd it with a silver pin.
10 Oh, oh, if my young babe were born,
And set upon the nurse's knee,
And I my sell were dead and gane!
For a maid again I'll never be.
A stanza closely resembling the third of this song occurs in a Yule medley in Wood's Manuscripts, about 1620. [8]
Hey trollie lollie, love is jolly
A qhyll qhill it is new;
Qhen it is old, it grows full cold,
Woe worth the love untrew!
The Orpheus Caledonius has for the fourth stanza this, which is found (with variations) in A-M, excepting the imperfect copy E:
When cockle-shells turn siller bells,
And mussles grows on evry tree,
When frost and snaw shall warm us a',
Then shall my love prove true to me.
Ed. 1725.
Several stanzas occur in a song with the title 'Arthur's Seat shall be my bed,' etc., which is thought to have been printed as early as the Tea-Table Miscellany, or even considerably earlier. This song is given in an appendix.
Aytoun's ballad, 1859, I, 135, is loosely translated by Knortz, Schottische Balladen, p. 59.
Footnotes:
5. All but E have b 4: E has a 4. All but A, D, E, L, M have 1. A, C, E have 10; J has 2, 3; A has 8; F has 9.
6. It must be said, however, that stanza 8, 'When we came, in by Glasgow town,' etc., hardly suits the song, and would be entirely appropriate to the ballad (as it is in A 2). It may have been taken up from this ballnd (which must date from the last quarter of the seventeenth century), or from some other.
7. a is followed in Percy's Reliques, 1765, III, 144, Herd, Ancient and Modern Scots Songs, 1769, p. 196; b, in the Musical Museum, p. 166, No 158; with slight variations in each copy.
8. Scottish Psalter, 1566, Wood's Manuscripts, Bassns, Laing's Manuscripts, University of Edinburgh, Manuscript Books, 483, III, p. 209. The medley is by a different and later hand: Laing in the Musical Museum, 1853, 1, xxviii f., IV, 440*. It is printed in the second edition of Forbes's Cantus, Aberdeen, 1666. There was a much older stave, or proverb, to the same purport, as we see by Chaucer's Clerk's Tale, vv. 855, 57.
But sooth is seyd, algate I fynde it trewe,
Loue is noght old as whan that it is newe.
End-Notes
Variations of Waly, Waly, etc.
a. Put among 'Auld Sangs brushd up' in Earnsay's "Contents," p. 329. Printed in eight-line stanzas.
4. Burns had heard this stanza "in the west country" thus (Cromek's Reliques, 1817, p. 245):
O wherefore need I busk my head?
Or wherefore need I kame my hair?
Sin my fause luve has me forsook,
And says he'll never luve me mair.
78. my cry: me in the London edition of 1733.
b. 11, up yon bank.
12, down yon brea.
13. And waly by yon river's side.
14. Where my love and I was wont to gae.
2, 3 are 3, 2.
24. And sae did my fause love to me.
31. Waly, waly, gin love be bonny.
32. little while when.
33. it's: waxes.
34. wears away like.
4. Already given.
61. O Martinmas.
64. And take a life that wearies me.
Appendix 204. Jamie Douglas
Arthur's Seat Shall be my Bed, etc., or, Love In Despair
A new song much in request, sung with its own proper tune.
Laing, Broadsides Ballads, No. 61, not dated but considered to have been printed towards the end of the seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century, and probably at Edinburgh.
1 Come lay me soft, and draw me near,
And lay thy white hand over me,
For I am starving in the cold,
And thou art bound to cover me.
2 O cover me in my distress,
And help me in my miserie,
For I do wake when I should sleep,
All for the love of my dearie.
3 My rents they are but very small
For to maintain my love withall,
But with my labour and my pain
I will maintain my love with them.
4 O Arthur's Seat shall be my bed,
And the sheets shall never be fil'd for me,
St Anthony's well shall be my drink,
Since my true-love 's forsaken me.
5 Should I be bound, that may go free?
Should I love them that loves not me?
I'le rather travel into Spain,
Where I 'le get love for love again.
6 And I'le cast off my robs of black,
And will put on the robs of blue,
And I will to some other land
Till I see my love will on me rue.
7 It 's not the cold that makes me cry,
Nor is "t the weet that wearies me,
Nor is 't the frost that freezes fell;
But I love a lad, and I dare not tell.
8 O faith is gone and truth is past,
And my true-love 's forsaken me;
If all be true that I hear say,
I 'le mourn until the day I die.
9 Oh, if I had nere been born
Than to have dy'd when I was young!
Then I had never wet my cheeks
For the love of any woman's son.
10 Oh, oh, if my young babe were born,
And set upon the nurse's knee,
And I my self were dead and gone!
For a maid again I 'le never be.
11 Martinmas wind, when wilt thou blow,
And blow the green leqfs off the tree
O gentle Death, when wilt thou come!
For of my life I am wearie.
11. darw.