The Little Scotch Girl- Edwards (VT) c. 1940 Cazden 1958
[Edwards probably learned this ballad before 1940. He started recording with Flanders and Barry in 1932. Cazden published Edwards version of The Keach in the Creel in his 1958 Abelard Folksong Book. Here are some notes from Folk Songs of the Catskills by Norman Cazden, Herbert Haufrecht, Norman Studer published in 1982:
The Little Scotch Girl The locale of this delightful tale is said to have been Colliestown, near Aberdeen. Scotland. The ballad text was in print by 1828 (P. Buchan), and it is known to scholars as Child 281, The Keach i' the Creel. But the theme and its presentation are surely much older. They belong with the best traditions of Boccaccio and of Chaucer, or more exactly of the popular motifs on which those writers drew. A. L. Lloyd reports that the tale is a fabliau found in unidentified French jest books of the thirteenth century.
Blue is used in Scotland to mean a woolen blanket, which can serve in several ways to cover up. The ballad text neglects to inform us whether the girl's father ever got to sleep. The tune for #133 may be deemed a localized form.
Prior to the appearances of the present version in The Abelard Folksong Book (Cazden 1958), the only versions reported in any American collection are two fragments with unrelated tunes included in British Ballads from Maine (Ph. Barry). [Flanders version is not mentioned] Form A comes from New Brunswick and Form B from Ireland. That leaves us to wonderjust what point is made and what support given thereby to a regional, geographic orientation to the processes of traditional lore.
George Edwards' very full text for The Little Scotch Girl is strikingly similar to that in Child A. Among terms that remain obscure, cleek (or click) means a hook and creel a basket. Blue is used in Scotland to mean a woolen blanket, which can serve in several ways to cover up. The ballad text neglects to inform us whether the girl's father ever got to sleep. The tune for #133 may be deemed a localized form. So far as we have been able to determine, it does not occur elsewhere in traditional music for this or any other version.
Edwards version was covered by Milt Okun on his LP "Merry Ditties," Riverside RLP 12-603, (1955), trk# A.07 and also by Peggy Seeger on The Long Harvest- traditional English and Scottish ballads.
R. Matteson 2013]
The Little Scotch Girl- Edwards c. 1940s Burlinton, VT Cazden
There was a little Scotch girl, she went down-town.
Some whitefish for to buy.
Then she got acquainted with a little town clerk
He followed her by and bye O Bye,
He followed her bye and bye.
"Where are you going, sweet maid?" said he
"And whereon do you be?
Let this night be ever so dark
I'll come and visit thee, O Thee
I'll come and visit thee.
"My mama locks the door within
My papa keeps the key,
Unless you be a silly old witch
You'll never get up to me....
"Unless you have a ladder built
Of thirty steps and three,
And build it up to the chimney top
And then come down to me...
The town clerk he had a brother
And a wee little wit was he
He built his brother a great muckle ladder
Of thirty steps and three...
He put the click to his right shoulder
And the creel was to the pin,
He drew him up to the chimney top
And he let the bonny clerk in...
The old folks layed in the room close by
And hearing what was said,
"I'll lay my life," says the silly old wife
There's a man in our daughter's bed...
The good old man he goes upstairs
To see if this be true;
When she drew the bonny clark close in her arms
And covered him over with blue...
What brings you here, papa," she says,
"What bring you here so late?"
You disturb me of my evening prayers
And it's Oh, but they are sweet...
The good old man he goes downstairs.
Says, "You did not tell me true;
Our daughter has a great muckle hook in her arms
She's praying for me and you...
The good old woman, she goes upstairs
To see could this be true,
What in the devil should take her foot
But in the creel she flew...
The brother at the chimney top
Finding the creel was full,
He put the click to his right shoulder
And fast to her did pull...
He shook her up, he shook her down,
He gave her a right downfall,
Till every crick in the old girl's ribe
Played Knick-knack on the wall...
Here's to the blue, the bonny, bonny blue
Here's to the blue that will;
Every mother that is jealous of her daughter
Might fall into the creel, O creel,
Might fall into the creel.