Johnie Scot- Gentry (NC) 1916 Sharp A
English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians
Comprising 122 Songs and Ballads, and 323 Tunes With Lyrics & sheet Music
Collected by Olive Dame Campbell and Cecil J. Sharp, circa 1917
Listen to melody; http://www.contemplator.com/child/johnscot.html
Sharp's notes: No. 25. Johnie Scot.
Texts without tunes:—Child, No. 99.
Texts with tunes:—Motherwell's Minstrelsy, Appendix, tune No. 15. Child, v., p. 418.
"Taverin" in the text is "Italian," "Tailliant," "Itilian," or simply "champion" in other versions. Child throws light upon the incident by quoting a story (Revd. Andrew Hall's Interesting Roman Antiquities recently Discovered in Fife, 1823, p. 216) in which James Macgill of Lindores is offered a pardon by Charles II. upon condition of his fighting an Italian gladiator or bully. In the contest which ensues, "the Italian actually leaped over his opponent as if he would swallow him alive, but in attempting to do this a second time Sir James run his sword up through him and then called out, 'I have spitted him; let them roast him who will.'" A similar story is related of the Breton seigneur Les Aubrays of St. Bricux, who is ordered by the French King to undertake a combat with his wild Moor (Luzel's Poesies populaires de la France, MS., vol. 1).
No. 25 Johnie Scot
1. When Johnnie Scot saw this big, broad letter,
It caused him for to smile.
But the very first line that he did read
The tears run down for a while.
But the very first line that he did read
The tears run down for a while.
2 Away to old England I must go,
King Edwards has sent for me.
Up spoke young Jimmy Scot himself
As he sat by his knees:
Five hundred of my best brave men
Shall bear you company.
3 The very first town that they rode through,
The drums, the fifes, they played;
The very next town that they rode through,
The drums they beat all around.
4 They rode, they rode to King Edwards's gate,
They dingled at the ring;
But who did he spy but his own sweetheart
And her footspade ( footpage ) a-peeping down.
5 I can't come down, dear Johnny, she says,
For Poppy has scolded me.
I'm forced to wear a ball and chain
Instead of the ivory.
6 Is this young Jimmy Scot himself,
Or Jimmy Scotland's king?
Or is the father of that bastard child
From Scotland just come in?
7 I'm not young Jimmy Scot,
Nor Jimmy Scotland's king;
But I am young Johnie Scot himself
From Scotland just come in.
8 There is a taveren in our town
That's killed more lords than one,
And before the sun rises tomorrow morning
A dead man you shall be.
9 The taveren flew over young Johnie's head
As swift as any bird ;
He pierced the taveren to the heart
With the point of his broad sword.
10 He whipped King Edwards and all his men,
And the king he liked to have swung.
I'll make your girl my gay lady
And her child the heir of my land.