Recordings & Info 5. A-Growing (The Trees They Do Grow High)
[See print sources
R. Matteson 2016]
CONTENTS:
1) Alternative Titles
2) Traditional Ballad Index
3) Mudcat posts
4) Brodie Family History http://www.glenbuchatheritage.com/picture/number1107.asp
ATTACHED PAGES: (see left hand column)
1) Roud No. 31 ( Listings, not attached yet)
2) The trees they do grow high- by Ian Pittaway 2016
Alternate Titles
Still Growing
Young But Daily Growing
My Bonny Love is Young
The Trees So High
Young but Daily Growing
The Trees They Grow So High (The Bonny Boy)
Young and Growing
My Bonnie Laddie's Young (But He's Growing Yet)
Young Craigston
The College Boy
Traditional Ballad Index: A-Growing
A-Growing (He's Young But He's Daily A-Growing) [Laws O35]
DESCRIPTION: The girl rebukes her father for marrying her to a much younger boy. He tells her the lad is growing. She sends him to school in a shirt that shows he's married, for he is a handsome lad. She soon bears his son. He dies young; she sadly buries him
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1792 (as "Lady Mary Anne"), based on a text in the Herd manuscript (c. 1776)
KEYWORDS: marriage youth death mourning clothes
FOUND IN: US(Ap,NE) Canada(Mar,Newf) Britain(Scotland,England(All)) Ireland Australia
REFERENCES (34 citations):
Laws O35, "A-Growing (He's Young But He's Daily A-Growing)"
Flanders/Olney, pp. 196-197, "Young But Daily Growing" (1 text, 1 tune)
Sturgis/Hughes, pp. 11-14, "Daily Growing" (1 text, 1 tune)
OBB 156, The Trees So High" (1 text)
Warner 60, "Young but Daily Growing" (1 text, 1 tune)
Meredith/Anderson, p. 177, "My Bonny Love is Young" (1 text, 1 tune)
Peacock, pp. 677-678, "He's Young but He's Daily Growing" (1 text, 2 tunes)
Karpeles-Newfoundland 29, "Still Growing" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton/Senior, pp. 107-109, "He's Young but He's Daily A-Growing" (2 texts plus 1 fragment, 1 tune)
Creighton-Maritime, pp. 100-101, "He's Young But He's Daily A-Growing" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
SharpAp 72, "Still Growing" (1 text, 1 tune)
Sharp-100E 25, "The Trees They Do Grow High" (1 text, 1 tune)
Reeves-Sharp 96, "Still Growing" (1 text, a composite of two versions)
Reeves-Circle 134, "The Trees They Are So High" (2 texts)
BroadwoodCarols, pp. 56-57, "Oh, the Tres are getting high" (1 text, 1 tune)
Vaughan Williams/Lloyd, p. 99, "The Trees They Grow So High" (1 text, 1 tune)
Butterworth/Dawney, p. 44, "The Trees they do grow high" (1 text, 1 tune)
Scott-BoA, pp. 16-18, "The Trees They Grow So High (The Bonny Boy)" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Hodgart, p. 147, "Still Growing" (1 text)
Kennedy 216, "Young and Growing" (1 text, 1 tune)
Palmer-ECS, #107, "The Trees They Do Grow High" (1 text, 1 tune)
Munnelly/Deasy-Lenihan 40, "The Trees They Do Be High" (1 text, 1 tune)
DBuchan 40, "The Young Laird of Craigstoun" (1 text)
GreigDuncan6 1222, "Still Growing" (5 texts, 2 tunes)
Lyle-Crawfurd2 122, "The Lament of a Young Damsel for Her Marriage to a Young Boy" (1 text)
GlenbuchatBallads, pp. 45-46, "Craigston's Growing" (1 text)
Ord, p. 112, "My Bonnie Laddie's Lang, Lang o' Growing" (1 text)
MacSeegTrav 23, "Long A-Growing" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Darling-NAS, pp. 132-133, "The Trees They Grow So High" (1 text)
Behan, #18, "Child Wedding" (1 text, 1 tune, modified)
Silber-FSWB, p. 217, "Daily Growing" (1 text)
DT 307, DAILYGRO* LANGGRO*
ADDITIONAL: Maud Karpeles, _Folk Songs of Europe_, Oak, 1956, 1964, pp. 40-41, "The Trees They Do Grow High" (1 text, 1 tune)
cf. James Kinsley, editor, Burns: Complete Poems and Songs (shorter edition, Oxford, 1969) #374, pp. 510-511 "My bonie laddie's young but he's growin yet" ["Lady Mary Ann"] (1 text, 1 tune, from 1792)
Roud #31
RECORDINGS:
Sean 'Ac Donnca, "The Bonny Boy" (on TradIre01)
Liam Clancy, "Lang A-Growing" (on IRLClancy01)
Charlotte Decker, "He's Young but He's Daily Growing" (on PeacockCDROM) [one verse only]
Nathan Hatt, "He's Young But He's Daily A-Growing" (on MRHCreighton)
Mary Anne Haynes, "Long A-Growing" (on Voice06)
Lizzie Higgins, "Lady Mary Ann" (on Voice17)
Fred Jordan, "The Bonny Boy" (on Voice03)
Tom Lenihan, "The Trees They Do Be High" (on IRTLenihan01)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 16(156d), "My Bonny Lad is Young, But He's Growing", H. Such (London), 1849-1862; also Firth c.21(19), Harding B 11(4066), "My Bonny Lad is Young, But He's Growing"; Harding B 11(2216), "My Bonny Lads Growing"; Harding B 11(1685), Harding B 15(210b), "My Bonny Lad is Young and Growing"
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Days Are Awa That I Hae Seen" (lyrics)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Daily Growing
Lady Mary Ann (a rewrite by Robert Burns)
My Bonnie Laddie's Young (But He's Growing Yet)
Young Craigston
The Young Laird of Craystoun
NOTES: [A. L. Lloyd writes,] "It is sometimes said that the ballad is based on the actual marriage of the juvenile laird of Craigton to a girl several years his senior, the laird dying three years later in 1634. But in fact the ballad may be older; indeed, there is no clear evidence that it is of Scottish origin. Child marriages for the consolidation of family fortunes [or other political reasons - RBW] were not unusual in the Middle Ages and in some parts the custom persisted far into the seventeenth century. The presenting and wearing of coloured ribbons, once common in Britain, still plays a prominent part in betrothal and marriage in Central and Eastern Europe." - PJS
The notes in GlenbuchatBallads, p. 230, detail the story of John Urquhart of Craigston, and seem certain that he inspired the song, but they admit the ballad "recalls relatively little of the story." I'm simply not convinced. - RBW
GreigDuncan6 1222A is the first two verses of Burns's "Lady Mary Ann." The tune there is "Shule Agra"; Burns's tune is "Craigstone's Growin'" which, I assume, is "A-Growing." The GreigDuncan6 citation for the next note refers to the "estate of Crayston [Craigstoun]."
GreigDuncan6 cites North Country Garland 1824 as a source of A.L. Lloyd's note on the 1631/1634 story." - BS
MacColl and Seeger report this song from 1670 in the Guthrie manuscript. We have been unable to verify this, and they are lumpers. - PJS, RBW
Lizzie Higgins's "Lady Mary Anne" on Voice17 is very close to the Robert Burns text (source: "Lady Mary Anne" on Burns Country site). Munnelly/Deasy-Lenihan 40 is [also] close to "Lady Mary Anne."
Also collected and sung by Ellen Mitchell, "Lady Mary Ann" (on Kevin and Ellen Mitchell, "Have a Drop Mair," Musical Tradition Records MTCD315-6 CD (2001)) - BS
While the usual marriage custom was for older men to marry younger women, there were several very early instances of the reverse in English and Scottish royal history, though I doubt any of them actually inspired this song.
The first that we know of came in 1017. Canute (Cnut), who was King of Denmark by right but had become King of England by conquest, displacing the native dynasty of Ethelred II Unraed ("Ethelred the Unready," though his nickname actually translates as "no-council"), married Emma the widow of Ethelred a year after he assumed the throne (Ashley, p. 486).
Canute was 21 at the time of the marriage; we don't know Emma's age, but her son Edward the Confessor was born around 1004, so Ashley, p. 482, suggests she was born c. 985, making her 31 or 32. O'Brien, p. 14, thinks Edward was born 1005, and notes that Emma bore her last child around 1021, and so conjectures a birth date c. 988, which would make her 29 when Canute married her. Since she married Ethelred probably in 1002 (O'Brien, p. 23), her latest possible birth date is probably 990, making her 27 when she married Canute.
There is no question that Emma was much older than her second husband (though still young enough to bear him a son, Harthecanute, and a daughter, Gunnhild; O'Brien, p. viii). This is hardly similar to the story here, though, as Emma probably married Canute voluntarily, and in any case, her father, Duke Richard I of Normandy, had died in 996 (Ashley, p. 499).
Emma may have had a right to gripe, though, since Canute did not set aside his earlier common law wife Aelgifu when he married Emma. Canute declared Aelgifu his "temporary wife" (Brooke, p. 135) -- but her older son, Harold, succeeded to the throne of England after Canute (Brooke, p. 138). Emma's son Harthecanute became King of England only after Harold died. On the other hand, Canute seems to have come to genuinely respect Emma and given her a place in his councils (O'Brien, p. 119). Which isn't the same as saying he slept with her much, however....
A more suitable parallel to the situation in this song arose after the Norman Conquest. King Henry I had married his daughter Matilda/Maud to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V. But she was very young when they married (perhaps twelve), and when the emperor died in 1125, she was still childless (and perhaps 23). The lords in Germany didn't want to send her home, and she doesn't seem to have had a strong desire to return to England either, but Henry -- who now desperately needed an heir -- got her back (Warren; p. 11). Her father Henry I then married her to Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, who was ten or twelve years younger than she (Ashley, p. 517).
The match managed to produce several children, but that is all that can be said for it -- Matilda, though described by Warren as "strikingly handsome," seems to have been a fairly prickly person, On p. 12, Warren calls her "haughty and domineering, expecting devotion as her due rather than trying to earn it."
McLynn, p. 7, declares that "the marriage was not a success, largely because Matilda was such a domineering personality; this was the very quality that lost her England when she had [King] Stephen on the ropes in 1141. Headstrong, overbearing, tactless, haughty, arrogant, and abusive, Matilda alienated everyone she came in contact with, even her own kinsmen. The general consensus was that Matilda was an over-masculine woman; her lack of the traditionally feminine qualities appalled contemporaries who thought her a freak of nature.... And since Matilda acted like a virago and indicated to her husband that, as a king's daughter, she had married beneath her, it was not long before he ignored her and consoled himself with a harem of mistresses. Nonetheless, the duty of founding a new dynasty had to be performed, so it was into this loveless union that Henry II was born on 1 March 1133."
Henry II himself was the third, and probably the most famous, instance of the phenomenon in the English royal family of an older wife with a young husband. As McLynn notes in the very next sentence after the above, "Henry II would continue the Angevin pattern of contracting unhappy marriages." More, he once again wedding a much older woman. In 1152, at the age of 18, he married Eleanor Duchess of Acquitaine, who had been divorced from King Louis VII of France (Ashley, p. 518). She was at least ten, and probably 11 or 12, years older than her husband (though she still managed to bear him eight children, and she outlived him by 15 years, dying in 1204 at about the age of 82). Here again, though, her father was dead.
Fourth, King Henry VIII took as his first wife Katherine of Aragon (Ashley, p. 630). They married in 1509, shortly after he came to the throne; he was about to turn 18, she was 23 or 24, and the widow of Henry's older brother Arthur. That marriage was the worst flop of all; Henry by 1514 was giving most of his energy to mistresses (Mattingly, p. 162). This is in some ways a good fit -- Katherine did complain to her father about being kept in poverty after Arthur's death (Mattingly, p. 98). But she had no children by Arthur, and Henry outlived her.
Fifth, Frances Brandon, whose first husband was Henry Grey of Dorset and whose daughter by him was Jane Grey the "Nine Days' Queen," after the execution of her first husband in 1554 married one of her servants, Adrian Stokes (Plowden, facing p. 119). She was born in 1517; he was said to be 16 years younger, meaning that she was in her late thirties (and, based on her portrait, gone to fat) and he in his early twenties when they married. There were apparently no offspring of the marriage; she died in 1559.
It should be noted that in none of these cases was the younger husband the *first* spouse of the older wife. All four queens had been married before (though it is possible that Arthur and Katherine had not consummated their marriage; this at least was the argument that was given to the Pope to make the marriage between Henry and Katherine legal; Williamson, p. 76). Thus in no case was the wife really a spinster. And all four husbands were old enough to consummate the marriage at once (though Geoffrey of Anjou was barely so), and none of the husbands died soon after -- though Emma of Normandy, who died in 1052, outlived Canute by 17 years (and her son Harthecanute by ten); Eleanor of Aquitaine, as noted, outlived Henry II by 15; and Matilda, who died 1167, outlived Geoffrey by 16 years; only Katherine of Aragon, who died in 1533, predeceased her husband.
There was one later case in which the wife had not had a previous husband: Mary Tudor, at 37, married the future Philip II of Spain in 1554 (Ashley, pp. 638-640). Although he was about ten years younger than she was (Prescott, p. 397), he was already a widower (and would end up marrying four times; Smith, p. 163). But although she loved him desperately (quite literally), the feeling was not returned; Prescott, p. 397, says he spent the first year after their marriage in a "ceaseless and apparently convincing simulation of love." After that year of play-acting, he quit trying, although he continued to take advantage of their love. In any case, although Mary at one time convinced herself she was pregnant, she had no children.
Another instance, involving high royalty although not the actual king or queen, came after the Stuart succession. Arabella Stuart (1575-1615), who had been the heir of James VI and I until that king had children, clandestinely (and voluntarily) married William Seymour (1587-1660), who was thirteen years her junior (Macalpine/Hunter, p. 213). James -- who had already repressed one plot made on her behalf, although she was no part of it (Magnuson, p. 409n) -- was concerned by the fact that both she and her husband had English royal blood, and responded by throwing her in the tower in 1611.
He may have had a point, since the marriage seems to have been Somerset's idea; Magnuson, p. 378n., thinks Arabella accepted his proposal because she was middle-aged and running short of prospects. I wonder if it might not have been some sort of psychological side-effect of all the time she spent with her captive cousin, Mary Queen of Scots (Magnuson, pp. 377-278). In any case, she died in the Tower, perhaps of the effects of porphyria (Macalpine/Hunter, pp. 217-218, although given the vagueness of the data, I think her problem might have been as mundane as shingles), in 1615 (Magnusson, pp. 318n., 378n.).
She and her husband had tried to flee together, but where she was slowed by sickness, he was nimble and managed to escape (Macalpine/Hunger, p. 218), remaining in exile until 1616 (OxfordCompanion, p. 878). He survived her by more than forty years and was eventually restored to the Dukedom of Somerset.
If we look to the Scots, Margaret, daughter of Alexander III of Scotland, was 19 when she married 14-year-old Erik II King of Norway (Magnusson, p. 104).
Not one of these marriages seems to have been happy. Canute kept a second wife. Matilda spent most of her time after 1135 in England, while Geoffrey stayed in Normandy. Henry II took mistresses (notably Rosamund Clifford) and in time imprisoned Eleanor. Henry VIII, besides taking mistresses, tried to have his marriage with Katherine annulled (though that was due to her inability to bear a male heir, which most now think was more his problem than hers; Ashley thinks he had syphilis, though genetic disease seems at least as likely; the Tudors had inherited a lot of very bad genes from Catherine of France, the daughter of the mad king Charles VI). Margaret of Scotland died, probably in childbirth, at the age of 22, bearing the future Margaret Maid of Norway (Magnusson, p. 105. For the Maid of Norway, see the notes to "Sir Patrick Spens" [Child 58].) And Philip of Spain abandoned his creaky, unattractive, seemingly infertile wife after only a little more than a year.
I suppose I should add that King Edward IV married a significantly older woman, Elizabeth Woodville, but this hardly counts; she was still fairly young and regarded as quite beautiful, and Edward pursued her entirely voluntarily and -- as it turned out -- at great cost to himself and his family. In any case, she not only married him happily but clearly set out to lure him into marriage.
Instances of a younger man marrying an older woman for her money are even more common among the lower nobility and gentry. These cases are too numerous to list, but we might cite the example of the famous soldier Sir John Fastolf, one of the best of Henry V's lieutenants. Himself relatively poor, in 1409, at the age of about 29, he married Millicent Scrope, age about 41, whose lands were worth five times as much as his (Castor, p. 101). The joke proved to be rather on him, though -- he lived another half century, and became very rich indeed, but produced no legitimate heir.
Finally, we might mention the case of Cleopatra VII of Egypt ("the" Cleopatra) marrying two of her younger brothers in the period around 50 B.C.E. But that was just politics and Egyptian custom -- and the marriages surely were not consummated. - RBW
Bibliography
Ashley: Mike Ashley, British Kings and Queens, Barnes & Noble, 2000 (originally published as The Mammoth Book of British Kings and Queens, 1998)
Brooke: Christopher Brooke, The Saxon and Norman Kings, 1963 (I use the 1975 Fontana paperback edition)
Castor: Helen Castor, Blood & Roses: The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century, Faber & Faber, 2004
Macalpine/Hunter: Ida Macalpine and Richard Hunter, George III and the Mad Business, Pantheon, 1969
Magnusson: Magnus Magnusson, Scotland: The Story of a Nation, Atlantic Monthly Press, 2000
Mattingly: Garrett Mattingly, Catherine of Aragon, 1941 (I use the 1990 Book-of-the-Month club edition)
McLynn: Frank McLynn, Richard & John: Kings at War, da Capo, 2007
O'Brien: Harriet O'Brien, Queen Emma and the Vikings, Bloomsbury, 2005
OxfordCompanion: John Cannon, editor, The Oxford Companion to British History, Oxford, 1997
Plowden: Alison Plowden, Lady Jane Grey: Nine Days Queen, Sutton, 2003
Prescott: H. F. M. Prescott, Mary Tudor: The Spanish Tudor, revised edition, 1952 (I use the 2003 Phoenix paperback)
Smith: Rhea Marsh Smith, Spain, University of Michigan Press, 1965
Warren: W. L. Warren, Henry II, University of California Press, 1973; I use the 1977 paperback edition)
Williamson: James A. Williamson, The Tudor Age, 1953, 1957, 1964; I use the slightly revised 1979 Longman paperback edition.
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Second hand songs
The Trees They Do Grow High A.L. Lloyd 1951 (Lomax) 1956
Lang A-Growing Ewan MacColl 1956
The Trees Are Getting High Audrey Coppard 1956
The Trees They Do Grow High Joan Baez September 1961
Young but Growing Paul Clayton 1961
The Bonny Boy Peg Clancy 1961
Bonny Boy Lynn Gold 1963
Bonny Boy Is Young Judy Collins October 1964
Lang A-Growing Liam Clancy 1965
Lang A-Growing Alex Campbell 1965
The Trees They Do Grow High Martin Carthy 1965
The Trees They Do Grow High The Pentangle December 1968
The College Boy (Lang A-Growing) Lizzie Higgins 1969
Long A-Growing Steeleye Span 1974
The Trees They Do Grow High Peter Bellamy 1979
Bonny Boy Is Young Shanna Beth McGee 1980
The Trees They Grow High The John Renbourn Group 1982
The Trees They Grow So High Sarah Brightman accompanied by Geoffrey Parsons [1] 1988
The Trees They Grow So High Philip Langridge, Graham Johnson 1995
Growing (The Trees They Do Grow High) Eliza Carthy & Nancy Kerr 1995
The Trees They Grow Green Mason Brown and Chipper Thompson 1999
Young and Growing Donovan 2005
The Trees They Do Grow High Barbara Dickson February 2011
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Gardham: The only 1871 f I have a list for is 1871 f 13 and that has all Scottish sheets and the datable ones are 1820-1830s. I've had a quick look through the list which has titles and first lines and can't see anything that looks like Bonny Boy. There are other 1871 f books such as f3 but I haven't got a list for that. Steve Roud has done more listing than I have and we usually exchange lists as we do them, but he has been moving house for the last few months and may not have any new info.
I'll use the first line and check the list thoroughly then I'll try the BL catalogue.
Woah, lad! Found it. I only had time to copy out the first stanza. It is 1871 f 13 60a if you want to send for it. The title is 'My Bonnie Laddie's Young'. SBG's first line is wrong.
Here it is as I copied it.
The trees they are high and the leaves are green
The days they are awa that you and I have seen
The cauld winter nights I maun lie my lane,
My bonnie laddie's young but he is growing.
There are as you have above 7 sts but how accurately SBG published them I don't currently know.
On the version itself I have a few comments. Firstly our old friend Peter Buchan was printing in Aberdeen around that time and he, like SBG, was quite fond of mixing and matching. That stanza 6 comes from at least 2 different ballads. For the first line see Christie Vol 2, p230, or Ord p179. There are 5 versions in Greig Duncan. The line given here occurs at the start of a version in Journal of the EFDSS Vol 4 No5. 1944 titled 'It happened on a day' sung by James Grant. The song does have some stanzas in common with Bonny Boy but the tune I have heard is different. The 3rd line I have a vague memory of from some other ballad. Does this st occur in any other versions?
Journal - Volumes 4-6 - Page 183
English Folk Dance and Song Society - 1940
IT HAPPENED ON A DAY Sung by James Grant, August, 1942.
1. It happen'd on a day in the merry month of May,
I gaed oot to meet my bonny led, he promis'd to come this way.
I gaed oot to meet my bonny lad, he promis'd to come this way
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From the notes to the Penguin Book (1959):
"This is one of the most curious, most beautiful, and most widespread of British ballads. Some fifty years ago, Kidson reported it as "common all over the country", and it is not infrequently met with nowadays, especially in Scotland and Ireland. Sharp alone collected a dozen sets of it. Perhaps the fullest printed texts are Scottish, though English and Irish sets include verses not found in Scottish versions. It is sometimes said that the ballad is based on the actual marriage of the juvenile laird of Craigton to a girl several years his senior, the laird dying three years later in 1634. But in fact the ballad may be older; indeed, there is no clear evidence that it is Scottish in origin. Child marriages for the consolidation of family fortunes were not unusual in the Middle Ages and in some parts the custom persisted far into the 17th. century. The presenting and wearing of coloured ribbons, once common in Britain, still plays a prominent part in betrothal and marriage in Central and Eastern Europe. For some reason this ballad, so common in Britain, is very rare in the U.S.A. The melody given is in the Phrygian mode, seldom met with in English folk song (a different tune to these words, in Songs of the West, ed. Baring Gould and others, 1896, pp.8-9, is also Phrygian). Only one stanza of Miss Bidder's version has survived. The greater part of the text we print comes from the versions sung to Sharp by Harry Richards of Cerry Rivell, Somerset, in 1904 ¹ (FSJ vol.II [issue 6] pp.44-6), and to Lucy Broadwood by Mrs. Joiner, of Chiswell Green, Hertfordshire, in 1914 (FSJ vol.V [issue 19] p.190). In FSJ, further versions will be found from Surrey (vol.I [issue 4] pp.214-15), Somerset (vol.II [issue 6] pp.46-7), Sussex (vol.II [issue 8] p.206), Yorkshire (vol.II [issue 9] p.274) and Dorset (vol.II [issue 9] p.275)." -R.V.W./A.L.L.
This version was collected by Bertha Bidder from an unnamed woman singer of Stoke Fleming, Devon (date unknown), and was first published in the Folk Song Journal, vol.II [issue 9] p.95.
---------------------------------
LADY MARY ANN
(Robert Burns)
O, Lady Mary Ann looks o'er the Castle wa'
She saw three bonie boys playing at the ba'
The youngest he was the flower amang them a'
My bonie laddie's young, but he's growin yet!
O father, O father, an ye think it fit,
We'll send him a year to the college yet;
We'll sew a green ribbon round about his hat,
And that will let them ken he's to marry yet!'
Lady Mary Ann was a flower in the dew,
Sweet was its smell and bonie was its hue,
And the longer it blossom'd the sweeter it grew,
For the lily in the bud will be bonier yet.
Young Charlie Cochran was the sprout of an aik,
Bonie and bloomin and straurht was its make;
The sun took delight to shine for its sake, '
And it will be the brag o the forest yet.
The simmer is gane when the leaves they were green,
And the days are awa that we hae seen;
But far better days I trust will come again,
For my bonie laddie's young, but he's growin yet.
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THE YOUNG LAIRD OF CRAIGSTOUN
Father, she said, you have done me wrong
For ye have married me on a child young man
For ye have married me on a child young man,
And my bonny love is long a growing.
Daughter, said he, I have done you no wrong
For I have married you on a heritor of land
He's likewise possess'd of many bill and band
And He'll be daily growing,
Growing, deary, growing, growing
Growing, said the bonny maid,
Slowly's my bonny love growing.
Daughter said he, if ye do weel
Ye will put your husband away to the scheel,
That he of learning may gather great skill,
And he'll be daily growing.
Growing, &c.
Now young Craigston to the College is gane
And left his Lady making great mane
That he's so long a growing
Growing, &c.
She dress'd herself in robes of green
They were right comely to be seen
She was the the picture of Venus the Queen
And she's to the College to see him.
Growing, &c.
Then all the colleginers was playing at the ba'
But young Craigstone was the flower of them a'
He said - play on, my school fellows a'
For I see my sister coming.
Now down into the College park
They walked about till it was dark,
Then he lifted up her fine holland sark-
And she had no reason to complain of his growing.
Growing, &c.
In his twelfth year he was a married man,
In his thirteenth year there he got a son,
And in his fourteenth year his grave grew green,
And that was an end of his growing -
Growing, &c.
^^
"The text is from the Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe transcript at Broughton House, Kirkudbright, of the MS. entitled in the Scott transcript North Country Ballads. A printed version of the Nicol text also appears in James Maidment, A North Countrie Garland (Edinburgh, 1824)... As Sharpe's text is untitled, this title comes from Maidment." David Buchan, A Book of Scottish Ballads, 1973.
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Bruce Olsen : 2000; Sorry, I should have noted this yesterday in the "Lang A-Growing" thread. The text that Malcolm gives above from David Buchan's 'A Book of Scottish Ballads' is nearly the same as that which C. K. Sharpe gave (untitled) in 'Additional Illustrations to the Scots Musical Museum', #377. There are some small differences: 'wrang' for 'wrong' in the 1st and 2nd verses, repeat of 2nd line as the 3rd in the 4th verse, colligeneers vs collegineers, gat for got, and some capitalization. In 'Additional Illustrations' Sharpe deleted the line in the 7th verse -'Then he lifted up her fine holland sark'.
There is a good traditional text of 6 verses collected about 1825 in Emily Lyle's 'Andrew Crawfurd's Collection of Ballads and Songs', II, #122, 1996, but no tune was recorded for it. In her notes she says the earliest tune known for the ballad is one in Christie's 'Traditional Ballad Airs', which I don't have.
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Bruce: Note from the file of Scots tunes in manuscripts on my website that there is a tune "Long a-growing" in the Guthrie MS, c 1675- 80. To the best of my knowledge the tune has not been translated from the Italian viola de braccia tablature. From the few tunes that I know of that have been translated from the MS (these noted in my file, search for GTMS) I don't hold out much hope of getting a good tune for our song (or any other song) from that manuscript. The translated tunes are either extremely variant or totally unrecognizable compared to later tunes of the same title.
The tune "John Robinson's Park" is also in the manuscript. The delightful song is in the Scarce Songs 1 file on my website, without music.
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Here's a quote from MacColl-Seeger, Travellers' Songs from England and Scotland:
The earliest reported text of the ballad is a two-stanza fragment in the Herd MSS, entitled "My Love Is Lang a-Growing." This was used by Burns as the basis of "Lady Mary Ann," a song written for the Scots Musical Museum (1787). In a note to the Burns song, James Dick reports that a "tune entitled 'Long A-Growing' is said to be in Guthrie's MSS (c. 1670)."
----------------
One version collected by Sharp is given with sheet music in his "One Hundred English Folksongs," 1916, reprinted by Dover, pp. 58-59.
In the notes, Sharp says: "The singer [not named!] varied his tune, which is in the Dorian mode, in a very remarkable way, a good example of the skill with which folksingers will alter their tune to fit various metrical irregularities in the words..." "For particulars of the custom of wearing ribands to denote betrothal or marriage, see 'ribands" in Hazlitt's Dictionary of Faiths and Folk-Lore."
Malcolm has provided the background and linked the variants of this peculiar song. The lyrics below are those given by Sharp.
Lyr. Add: THE TREES THEY DO GROW HIGH
"Collected and arranged by Cecil J. Sharp"
1. The trees they do grow high, and the leaves they do grow green;
But the time is gone and past, my Love, that you and I have seen.
It's a cold winter's night, my Love, when you and I must bide alone.
The bonny lad was young, but a-growing.-
2. O father, dear father,, I fear you've done me harm,
You've married me to a bonny boy, but I fear he is too young.
O daughter, dearest daughter, but if you stay at home with me
A Lady you shall be, while he's growing.-
3. We'll send him to the college for one year or two,
And then perhaps in time, my Love, a man he may grow,
I will buy you white ribbons to tie about his bonny waist,
To let the ladies know that he's married.
4. At the age of sixteen O he was a married man,
At the age of seventeen He was the father of a son,
At the age of eighteen, my Love, his grave it was a-growing green,
And so she saw the end of his growing.-
5. I made my love a shroud of the holland, O so fine,
And ev'ry stitch I put in it the tears came trinkling down;
And I will sit and mourn his fate until the day that I shall die,
And watch all o'er his child while it's growing.
6. O now my Love is dead and in his grave doth lie,
The green grass that's over him it groweth up so high.
O once I had a sweetheart, but now I have got never a one,
So fare you well, my own true Love, for growing.-
So fare you well, my own true Love, for growing.-
So fare you well, my own true Love, forever.
---------------
First time I ever heard "the sex verse" was from the Dransfields way back when. I feel it's pretty rare but it makes sense that it be there, of course, since the "father of a son" line is common enough. Likely they got it from Penguin...
They sing it very close to the DT verse:
And so early in the morning at the dawning of the day *
They went out into the hayfield to have some sport and play;
And what they did there, she never would declare
But she never more complained of his growing.
*additional verse from Penguin Book of English Folk Songs, Williams and Lloyd
-------------
The Trees They Grow So High
From: Malcolm Douglas - PM
Date: 19 Apr 06 - 02:20 AM
Ah, you haven't got yourself a copy of Classic English Folk Songs yet, then, Abby. The verse in question didn't come from the lady at Stoke Fleming at all, but was interpolated from a set published in the Journal of the Folk-Song Society, I (4) 1904, 214-5, which Lucy Broadwood got from a Mr Ede of Dunsfold, Surrey, in 1896. Bert Lloyd like his love-songs racy, of course. He altered it a little, too; Mr Ede sang
And 'twas on one summer's morning by the dawning of the day,
And they went into some cornfields to have some sport and play,
And what they did there she never will declare,
But she never more complained of his growing.
That verse isn't common. Baring-Gould noted it (but didn't publish it) and David Buchan printed one from Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe's MSS, but those are the only examples I can think of.
----------------
From: Steve Gardham - PM
Date: 14 Feb 16 - 02:54 PM
Are you sure you mean medieval? Even the few ballads that are set in medieval times probably originated in the early modern period and even then we're only talking about a handful of ballads and not many more beyond 1550.
If the ballad indeed does relate to any real event then the most commonly accepted theory is it relates to an event that happened to the Laird of Craigton c1634 but it may well be older than that. However it is highly unlikely that the ballad itself is medieval. As for the story, well I suppose it's possible that could be much older. Certainly some of the stories told in the ballads can be traced back to medieval times, but not in ballad form in English.
--------------
From: Steve Gardham - PM
Date: 18 Feb 16 - 01:43 PM
Hi Mrrzy,
You were quite right to point this out and it is relevant. The thought had crossed my mind once or twice when listening to the song. Off the top of my head I can't think of any other ballads where the 2 motifs combine except for this one and The Cruel Mother so it could just be that the image of boys playing at ball was a common one and the looking over the castle wall is a widespread commonplace in ballads. However the English broadside ballad, The Cruel Mother (Child 20) is late 17th century and in Scotland it acquired stanzas from Child 21 during the 18th century, not found in any English versions, so the lifting of an image from Child 20 into our ballad here would not be at all surprising. The Gentry in Scotland and later Scots editors frequently moved material from one ballad into another so it was accepted practice. Personally I think many of the so-called commonplaces were the result of this mixing and matching rather than oral tradition.
-------------
From: Jack Campin - PM
Date: 18 Feb 16 - 09:38 PM
This is the way I remember the descending tune (title from the first line, this is the last verse):
X:1
T:Father dear father you've done to me great wrong
M:6/8
L:1/8
K:EMin
z | e2e e2e |d3 (dc)B|A2c B2 A|E3- E
w:At the age of six-teen* he was a marr-ied man
(EF)| G2G G2A |B2B (BA)G|A2B (AG)F|E3- E2
w:and* at the age of sev-en-teen* the fath-er of* a son
z | e3 e2e |d3 dcB |A2c B2 A|E3- E
w:At the age of eight-een the grass grew ov-er him
z2 | E2F G2A |G2F E3 |D2D HE3 |B3- B2||
w:and* death* put an end to his grow-ing.
z | e3 e3 |d3 (dc)B|A2c B2 A|E3- E
w:Grow-ing, grow-ing,* the grass grew ov-er him
z2 |(E2F) (G2A)|G2F E3 |D2D HE3 |B3- B2|]
w:and* death* put an end to his grow-ing.
-----------
Surely the most spectacular version of the song was that MacColl sand on the Riverside series -
Pat once sang it in a singing session during the Willie Clancy School here in Miltown Malbay back in the seventies
Half an hour later, Seamus Ennis came in and a singer from Cork said to him: "This woman has a beautiful version of "Long a-Growing".
Without hesitation, Ennis replied "I have a better one".
That was Seamus for you
Jim Carroll
The trees they are ivied, the leaves they are green,
The times they are past that we hae seen;
In the lang winter nicht, it's I maun lie my lane
For my bonnie laddie's lang, lang a-growing.
"O faither, dear farther, ye had dune me muckle wrang,
For you hae wedded me to a lad that's ower young;
For he is but twelve and I am thirteen,
And my bonnie laddie's lang, lang a-growing. "
"O dochter, dear dochter, I hae dune ye nae rang,
For I hae wedded you tae a noble lord's son;
And he shall be the laird and you shall wait on,
And a' the time your lad'll be a-growing. "
"O faither, dear faither, if ye think it will fit,
We'll send him tae the scule for a year twa yet,
And we'll tie a green ribbon aroon aboot his bonnet
And that'll be a token that he's married.
"O faither, dear faither, and if it pleases you,
I'll cut my lang hair abune my broo;
And vestcoat and breeks I'll gladly put on,
And 1 tae the scule will gang wi' him."
She's made him a sark o' the holland sae fine,
And she has skew'd it wi' her fingers ain,
And ay she loot the tears doon fall,
Saying, "My bonnie laddie's lang, lang a-growing."
In his twelfth year he was a married man,
And in his thirteenth he had gotten her a son,
And in his fourteenth his grave it grew green,
And that put an end tae his growing
---------------
'Isabel Sutherland Bonny Boy' descending melody
Jim Carroll has been on this thread once already and tis 2 recordings of his that have the very tune. Brian, go to the Songs of Clare website and look for the Tom Lenihan recording (Milltown Malbay) and Vincie Boyle (Mullagh). If I remember rightly Ian Manuel was born in Belfast but brought up in Glasgow. Plenty of Irish influence there. So perhaps despite Jock and Isabel we were looking in the wrong place.
--------------
The history of the troubles and memorable transactions in Scotland, by John Spalding, 1792
Ye heard before of the death of John Urquhart of Craigstoun, and how his eldest son John Urquhart of Leathers shortly followed; his son again departs this life upon the last of November instant [30th November, 1634]. Thus in three years space the goodsire, son, and [b]oy, died. It is said this young man's father willed him to be good to Mary Innes his spouse, and to pay all his debts, because he was young and had a good estate, whereunto his goodsire had provided him; the young boy mourning past his promise so to do, then he desires the laird of Cromartie being present to be no worse tutor to his son than his father had been to him, and to help to fee his debts paid, being then above 40,000 pounds, for the whilk several gentlemen in the country were heavily engaged as cautioners. The laird of Innes (whose sister was married to this John Urquhart of Leathers) and not without her consent, as was thought, gets the guiding of this young boy, and without advice of friends, shortly and quietly married him upon her own eldest daughter Elizabeth Innes. Now Leathers' creditors cry out for payment against the cautioners; the cautioners crave Craigstoun, and the laird of Innes his father in law (who had also the government of his estate) for their relief. The young man was well pleased to pay his father's debt, according to his promise, albeic he was neither heir nor executor to him. Yet his goodfather, seeing he could not be compelled by law to pay his father's debt, would in noways consent thereto; there followed great outcrying against him; friends met and trysted; at last it resolved in this, the creditors compelled the cautioners to pay them completely to the hazard of the sum of their estates, and they got some relief, others little or none, which made the distressed gentlemen to pray many maledictions, which touched the young man's conscience, albeit he could not mend it. And so through melancholy, as was thought, he contracts a consuming sickness, whereof he died, leaving a son behind him called John, in the keeping of his mother, and left the laird of Innes and her to be his tutors, without advice of his own kindred, which is remarkable, considering the great care and worldly conquest of his goodsire to make up an estate to fall in the government of strangers. This youth deceased in the place of Innes, and was buried beside his father in his goodsire's isle in Kinedwart.
--------------
The Diary of Alexander Brodie of Brodie,
by Alexander Brodie
Alexander Brodie Of Brodie, the Author of this Diary, was born the 25th of July, 1617. "1 was sent," he says, "into England, in Anno 1628, being little more than ten years old, and returned in Anno 1632, in which my Father of precious memory deceased." Of his early history we have no other particulars, excepting that in the years 1632 and 1633, he was enrolled as a Student in King's College, Aberdeen, but did not take his degree of Master of Arts. On being of age, he was served heir of his father, 19th May, 1636, by dispensation of the Lords of Council; but on the 28th of October, the previous year, he had formed a matrimonial alliance with the relic of John Urquhart of Craigston, tutor of Cromarty, who died 30th March, 1634. This lady to whom he was most devotedly attached, was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Robert Innes of Innes, Bart., by Lady Grizzel Stewart, danghter of James, second Earl of Murray. The young Laird of Brodie, when twenty-three years of age, had to bewail the loss of his wife, who died 12th of August, 1640, leaving one son and one danghter. [David Laing, 1863]
----------------------
The Diary of Alexander Brodie
DIARY OF ALEX. BRODIE OF BRODIE.
AVID, the elder son to Alexander Brodie of that Ilk, my grandfather, was born in the year 1558, lived seventy-four years, and died in May, 1627.
David Brodie his son, my father, was born in the year 1586, and died in the forty-sixth year of his age, 22nd September, 1632.
I Alexander, his son, was born on the 25th July, 1617. I was sent into England in anno 1628, being little more than ten years old, and returned in anno 1632, in which my father, of precious memory, deceased.
I was married the 28th October, 1635. My dearest wife" deceased the 12th August, 1640, when [I] was twenty-three years old. I went into Holland twice for the King, in anno 1649 and 1650. I was entred on the Session the same year, 1650; and again, after much resistance and reluctancy, I took the place on me in January, 165S. Let the Lord turn it to his glory, mine, and his people's good. Grissel Brodie, my danghter, was born on 2nd October, 1636. James, my only son, was bor n 15th September, 1637. William Brodie, my uncle, died in September, 1650. The early harvest [was] in the year 1652. All [was] shorn and in'd within the last of August, or thereby.b
• Elizabeth Innes, oldest daughter of Sir Robert Innes of Innes, and widow of John Urquhart of Craigstoun.
-----------------
To the youthful John Urquhart, of Craigston, who died (of a " consuming seikness ") at the Place of Innes, November 30, 1634 under circumstances which caused a good deal of comment.1 His father had left a debt of £40,000 for which the
------------------
John Urquhart of Craigston, in Aberdeenshire, had raised a Nov. handsome estate, 'but court or session;—that is to say, without 1634 court favour or by legal oppression—and built himself a beautiful semi-castellated house, the elegance of which is still calculated to impress those who visit it. As grand-uncle of the well-known Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty, he had taken charge of that gentleman's affairs, and thus came to be generally recognised as the Tutor of Cromarty. His death in November 1631 was bewailed by the elegant Aberdeenshire poet, Arthur Johnston, who says of him, in his epitaph in Kinedart church:
( Posteritas, cui liquit agros et prs6dia, disce
Illius exemplo vivere, disce mori.'
The son of the Tutor, John Urquhart of Laithers, being deep in debt—to the extent of £40,000 Scots—his father settled the estate upon the next generation, now a boy. As John Urquhart was returning from his father's funeral, he took sickness suddenly by the way, and soon found himself upon his death-bed. It was a bitter moment for the spendthrift, for he knew that his death would occasion severe losses to many gentlemen who stood as cautioners for his debts, and leave his own widow unprovided for. He could only call the boy to his bedside, and desire him to be good to his step-mother, and pay his father's debts out of the large estate which would shortly be his. 'The young boy passed his mourning promise so to do. Then he desires the Laird of Cromarty, who was present, to be nae waur tutor to his son nor his father was to him, and to help to see his debts paid/
It seems to have been impossible in that age for either boy or girl to be left as this boy was, without becoming the subject of sordid speculations amongst those who had any access to or influence over them. The Laird of Innes, who was brother-in-law to the deceased Laithers, immediately 'gets the guiding of this young boy, and, but advice of his friends, shortly and quietly marries him upon his awn eldest dochter, Elizabeth Innes/ Such an outrage to the decency of nature for the sake of rich connection, does not seem to have been thought more than dexterous in those days. Innes, who was one of the first baronets of Nova Scotia, is described as ' a man of great worth and honour/ As a member of the Committee of Estates, he took a prominent part in the war which was some years afterwards commenced for the defence of the national religion.
To the boy the affair became sadly tragical. When craved by the cautioners for his father's debts, he was willing to comply; but the selfish father-in-law would not listen to any such Ibs*. proposition. The unfortunate gentlemen had to pay,, in some instances to the wreck of their own estates. The many maledictions which they consequently launched at the youth, affected him greatly in his conscience and feelings. (And so, through melancholy, as was thought, he contracts ane consuming sickness, Nov. so. whereof he died, leaving behind him ane son called John in the keeping of his mother/—Spal.
The singular fortunes of this boy of sixteen—for he is said to have been no older at his death—became the subject of a ballad containing some stanzas of a more poetical character than are usually found in that class of compositions.1
----------------
Alexander Brodie Of Brodie, the Author of this Diary, was born the 25th of July, 1617. "1 was sent," he says, "into England, in Anno 1628, being little more than ten years old, and returned in Anno 1632, in which my Father of precious memory deceased." Of his early history we have no other particulars, excepting that in the years 1632 and 1633, he was enrolled as a Student in King's College, Aberdeen, but did not take his degree of Master of Arts. On being of age, he was served heir of his father, 19th May, 1636, by dispensation of the Lords of Council; but on the 28th of October, the previous year, he had formed a matrimonial alliance with the relict of John Urquhart of Craigston, tutor of Cromarty, who died 30th March, 1634. This lady to whom he was most devotedly
» Cawdor Papers, Spalding Club volume, pp. 285, 300.
attached, was Elizabeth, danghter of Sir Robert Innes of Innes, Bart., by Lady Grizzel Stewart, danghter of James, second Earl of Murray.
The young Laird of Brodie, when twenty-three years of age, had to bewail the loss of his wife, who died 12th of August, 1640, leaving one son and one danghter.
--------------------------------
The Trees They Do Grow High [Laws O35/Sh 72]
Rt - Lady Mary Ann ; College Boy
At - Young Craigston ; Daily Growing ; Trees They Are So High
Sm - Ta Mo Chleamhnas a Dheanmh
Laws, G. Malcolm / American Balladry from British Broadsides, Amer. Folklore Soc., Bk (1957), p242 (A-Growing)
Scott, John Anthony (ed.) / Ballad of America, Grosset & Dunlap, Bk (1967), p 16 (Trees They Grow So High)
Scott, John Anthony (ed.) / Ballad of America, Grosset & Dunlap, Bk (1967), p 18 (Bonny Boy - III)
Luboff, Norman; and Win Stracke (eds.) / Songs of Man, Prentice-Hall, Bk (1966), p122
Sharp, Cecil J. / One Hundred English Folksongs, Dover, Sof (1975/1916), p 58/# 25
Baez, Joan. Joan Baez, Volume 2, Vanguard VSD 2097, LP (1961), trk# 2
Baez, Joan. Siegmeister, Elie (arr.) / Joan Baez Song Book, Ryerson Music, Sof (1971/1964), p 78
Baez, Joan. Fire at Club 47, Talkeetna 25001, CD (1999), trk# 15 (Bonny Boy - III)
Briggs, Anne. Collection, Topic TSCD 504, CD (1999), trk# 6 [1964] (My Bonny Boy)
Broghton, Mollie. Sharp & Karpeles / English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, I, Oxford, Bk (1932/1917), p410/# 72 [1918/05/08] (Still Growing)
Brown, Mason; and Chipper Thompson. Am I Born to Die. An Appalachian Songbook, Dorian Dor 83217, CD (1999), trk# 10 (Trees They Grow Green)
Carthy, Martin. Martin Carthy, Topic 12TS 340, LP (1977/1965), trk# A.02
Chudacoff, George. Unfinished Business, Chudacoff, CD (2006), trk# 4
Clancy, Liam. Liam Clancy, Vanguard VSD7 9169, LP (1965), trk# A.07 (Lang A' Growing)
Clancy, Peg and Bobby. Traditional Songs of Ireland, Olympic 6172, LP (196?), trk# A.06 (Bonny Boy - III)
Collins, Judy. Judy Collins Concert, Elektra EKS-7 280, LP (1964), trk# A.04 (Bonnie Boy Is Young)
Cooper, Phil; & Margaret Nelson. Lady's Triumph, Cooper & Nelson PP8109, Cas (1990), trk# 5 (Lang A' Growing)
Cox, Harry. What Will Become of England, Rounder 1839, CD (2000), trk# 15 [1953/10] (Young and Growing)
Donnchadha, Sean Mac. Lark in the Morning. Songs & Dances from the Irish Countryside, Tradition TLP 1004, LP (1956), trk# 19 (My Bonny Boy)
Emery, Alfred. Reeves, James (ed.) / Idiom of the People, Norton, Sof (1958), p200/# 96 [1908] (Still Growing)
Fish, Lena Bourne. Warner, Anne & Frank / Traditional American Folk Songs, Syracuse Univ. Press, Bk (1984), p159/# 60 [1941] (Young But He's Daily Growing)
Galvin, Patrick. Irish Love Songs, Riverside RLP 12-608, LP (195?), trk# A.05 (Bonny Boy - III)
Gavin Family. Traveling People of Ireland, Lyrichord LLST 7178, LP (1967), trk# B.05 (Long Time A'Growin')
Green, Debbie. Fire at Club 47, Talkeetna 25001, CD (1999), trk# 4 [1960ca]
Hatt, Nathan. Maritime Folk Songs, Folkways FE 4307, LP (1956), trk# A.04 [1952/05] (He's Young But He's Daily A-Growing)
Holland, Lori. Irish Folk Songs for Women, Folkways FG 3518, LP (1958), trk# A.02 (My Bonny Boy)
Langstaff, John. Nottamun Town, Revels 2003, CD (2003/1964), trk# 6
Langstaff, John. Langstaff, John / Lark in the Morn, Revels CD 2004, CD (2004), trk# 6 [1949-56]
MacColl, Ewan. Sing Out Reprints, Sing Out, Sof, 7, p30 (1965) (Lang A' Growing)
MacColl, Ewan. Great British Ballads Not Included in the Child Collection, Riverside RLP 12-629, LP (1956), trk# A.02 (Lang A' Growing)
MacColl, Ewan. Newport Folk Festival. Recorded Jun 24/26, 1960. Vol.2, Vanguard VSD 2088, LP (1961), trk# B.03 [1960/06] (Lang A' Growing)
Mac Kinnon, Raun. American Folk Songs, Parkway SP 7024, LP (1962), trk# A.04
McCaslin, Mary. One More Song. An Album for Club Passim, Philo PH 1197, CD (1996), trk# 11
McCullough, Gordeanna. McCulloch, Gordeanna / In Freenship's Name, Greentrax CDtrax 123, CD (1997), trk# 5 (My Bonnie Laddie's Lang a'Growin)
McGarvey, Mary. Kennedy, Peter (ed.) / Folksongs of Britain and Ireland, Oak, Sof (1984/1975), #216, p473 [1954] (Trees They Did Grow Tall)
Misty River. Rising, Misty River MRCD 001, CD (2000), trk# 2
Ochs, Phil. Okun, Milt (ed.) / Something to Sing About, MacMillan, Bk (1968), p199 (Lang A' Growing)
Paton, Sandy. Many Sides of Sandy Paton, Elektra EKL 148, LP (1959), trk# B.01 (Daily Growing)
Paton, Sandy. Edwards, Jay; and Robert Kelley / Coffee House Songbook, Oak, Sof (1966), p 50 (Daily Growing)
Penfold, Nelson. English Folk Music Anthology, Folkways FE 38553, LP (1981), trk# 3.03 [1974-1980] (Young A-Growing)
Pentangle. Sweet Child, Reprise 8002, LP (1969), trk# 22
Redpath, Jean. Scottish Ballad Book, Elektra EKL 214, LP (1962), trk# 6 (Bonny Boy - III)
Robb, Ian. Rose and Crown, Folk Legacy FSI 106, LP (1985), trk# A.04
Tear, Robert; and Philip Ledger. Foggy Foggy Dew, Musical Heritage MHS 4792Y, LP (1983/1975), trk# B.08 (Trees They Grow So High)
Unnamed Woman Singer. Williams, R. Vaughan; & A. L. Lloyd (eds.) / Penguin Book of English Fol, Penguin, Sof (1959), p 99 (Trees They Grow So High)
Warner, Jeff; and Jeff Davis. Days of Forty Nine, Minstrel JD 206, LP (1977), trk# A.02 (Young But He's Daily Growing)
College Boy
Rt - Daily Growing
Redpath, Jean. Song of the Seals, Philo PH 1054, LP (1978), trk# B.03
----------------
No 4 THE TREES THEY ARE SO HIGH (Baring- Gould, 1892 Songs and Ballads of the West)
All the trees they are so high,
The leaves they are so green,
The day is past and gone, sweet -heart,
That you and I have seen.
It is cold winter's night,
You and I must bide alone;
Whilst my pretty lad is young
And is growing.
In a garden as I walked,
I heard them laugh and call;
There were four and twenty playing there,
They played with bat and ball.
O the rain on the roof,
Here and I must make my moan:
Whilst my pretty lad is young
And is growing.
I listened in the garden,
I looked o'er the wall;
Amidst five and twenty gallants there
My love exceeded all.
O the wind on the thatch,
Here and I alone must weep:
Whilst my pretty lad is young
And is growing.
O father, father dear,
Great wrong to me is done,
That I should married be this day,
Before the set of sun.
At the huffle of the gale,
Here I toss and cannot sleep:
Whilst my pretty lad is young
And is growing.
My daughter, daughter dear,
If better be, more fit,
I'll send him to the court [college] awhile,
To point his pretty wit.
But the snow, snow flakes fall,
and I am chill as dead:
Whilst my pretty lad is young
And is growing.
*To let the lovely ladies know
They may not touch and taste,
I'll bind a bunch of ribbons red
About his little waist.
But the raven hoarsely croaks,
And I shiver in my bed;
Whilst my pretty lad is young
And is growing.
I married was, alas,
A lady high to be,
In court and stall and stately hall,
And bower of tapestry,
But the bell did only knell,
And I shuddered as one cold:
When I wed the pretty lad
Not done growing.
At seventeen he wedded was,
A father at eighteen,
At nineteen his face was white as milk,
And then his grave was green;
And the daisies were outspread
And buttercups of gold,
O'er my pretty lad so young
Now ceased growing.
Songs and Ballads of the West: A Collection Made from the Mouths of the People edited by Sabine Baring-Gould, Henry Fleetwood Sheppard, Frederick William Bussell 1891
IV. "The Trees they are so high." Words and air taken in 1888 from James Parsons and Matthew Baker, a cripple on Lew Down. The same ballad to the same melody obtained in 1891 from Richard Broad, aged 71, at Herodsfoot, near S. Keyne, Cornwall. Some verses completing the ballad we have, since the publication of the first edition, obtained from Roger Hanaford, of Lower Widdicombe, but his melody was not the same; it was less archaic. There are several versions of this ballad; some very fragmentary, by Catnach and other broadside printers — a very fairly complete one printed in Aberdeen at the end of last century or beginning of this.
Johnson, in his "Museum" professed to give a Scottish version:
"O Lady Mary Ann looks owre the Castle wa'
She saw three bonny boys playing at the ba'
The youngest he was the flower among them a' ;
My bonny laddie's young, but he's growing yet."
But of this version, only three of the verses are genuine, and they are inverted; the rest are a modern composition. A much more genuine Scottish form is in Maidment's "North Country Garland " (Edinburgh, 1824) ; but it is an adaptation to the story of a young Laird of Craigstoun. It begins:
" Father, said she, you have done me wrong.
For ye have married me on a childe young man,
And my bonny love is long
A-growing, growing, deary,
Growing, growing, said the bonny maid."
But by far the truest form is that in an Aberdeen broadside ; it will be found in the British Museum, under Ballads (1750 — 1840), Scottish, (Press mark, 1871 f.). The Scottish version has verses not in the English, and the English has a verse or two that are not in the Scottish.
I have also received an Irish version as sung in Co. Clare by a old lady some years ago; it is in six verses, but that about the "Trees so High" is lacking. The rhyme is more correct than any of the other printed versions; the lines are in triplets that rhyme. One verse runs :
" O Father dear Father, I'll tell you what we'll do.
We'll send him off to College for another year or two
And we'll tie round his college cap a ribbon of the blue.
To let the maidens know he is married."
In one of the versions I have taken down (Hannaford's), there were traces of the triplet, very distinct, and the tune is akin to the Irish melody sent me from Clare.
Again, another version of this ballad I obtained from William Aggett, a paralysed labourer of 70 years, at Chagford, to an entirely different melody. Apparently, there exist two distinct variants of this ballad, each to its peculiar melody.
For broadside version, see Ballads collected by Crampton, B.M. (1162, h.), Vol. VII. ; it is No. 63 of Such's Broadsides.
In most versions, the age of the boy when married is 13, and he is a father at 14. I advanced his age a little, in deference to the opinion of those who like to sing the song in a drawing-room or at a public concert. The Scotch have two airs, one in Johnson's Museum, the other in " The British Minstrel," Glasgow, 1844, Vol. II., p. 36, entirely distinct from ours.
-------------
4. "The Trees they are so High." Words and melody taken down in 1888 first from James Parsons, then from Matthew Baker. Again in 1891 from Richard Broad, aged 71, of Herodsfoot, near S. Keyne, Cornwall. Again, the words, to a different air, from Roger Hannaford [May, 1890]. Another version from William Aggett, a paralysed labourer of 70 years, at Chagford. Mr Sharp has also obtained it in Somersetshire. A fragment was sung at the Folk-Song Competition at Frome in April 1904. Mr Kidson has noted a version in Yorkshire, Miss Broadwood another in Surrey, see Folk-Song Journal, vol. i. p. 214. Apparently there exist two distinct variants of the ballad, each to its proper melody.
Johnson, in his " Museum," professed to give a Scottish version —
"O Lady Mary Ann looks owre the Castle wa',
She saw three bonny boys playing at the ba',
The youngest he was the flower among them a' ;
My bonny laddie's young, but he's growing yet."
But of his version only three of the stanzas are genuine, and they are inverted; the rest are a modern composition.
A more genuine Scottish form is in Maidment's "North Country Garland," Edinburgh, 1874; but there the young man is fictitiously converted into a Laird of Craigstoun. It begins —
"Father, said she, you have done me wrong,
For ye have married me on a childe young man,
And my bonny love is long
A-growing, growing, deary,
Growing, growing, said the bonny maid."
But the most genuine form is on an Aberdeen Broadside, B.M., 1871, f. This, the real Scottish ballad, has verses not in the English, and the English ballad has a verse or two not in the Scottish.
I have received an Irish version as sung in Co. Tipperary ; it is in six verses, but that about the "Trees so High" is lacking. The rhyme is more correct than that of any of the printed versions and the lines run in triplets. One verse is —
"O Father, dear Father, I'll tell you what we'll do,
We'll send him off to college for another year or two,
And we'll tie round his college cap a ribbon of the blue,
To let the maidens know he is married."
In one of the versions I have taken down (Hannaford's and Aggett's) there were traces of the triplet very distinct, and the tune was akin to the Irish melody sent me, as sung by Mary O'Bryan Cahir, Tipperary. Portions of the ballad have been forced into that of "The Cruel Mother" in Motherwell's MS., Child's "British and Scottish Ballads," i. p. 223. In this a mother gives birth to three sons at once and murders them; but after they are murdered—
"She lookit over her father's wa',
And saw three bonnie boys playing at the ba' "
Our melody is in the Phrygian mode, a scale which is extremely scarce in English folk-song. The only other example we know is in Ducoudray's book of the " Folk Melodies of Brittany."
The Scotch have two airs, one in Johnson's " Museum," the other in "The British Minstrel," Glasgow, 1844, vol. ii. p. 36, both totally distinct from ours.
That the ballad is English and not originally Scotch is probable, for Fletcher quotes it in "The Two Noble Kinsmen," 1634. He makes the crazy jailer's daughter sing us a snatch of an old ballad —
" For I'll cut my green coat, a foot above my knee,
And I'll clip my yellow locks, an inch below my eye,
Hey ninny, ninny, ninny ;
He's buy me a white cut (stick) forth for to ride,
And I'll go seek him, through the world that is so wide,
Hey ninny, ninny, ninny."
In the ballad as taken down from Aggett —
"I'll cut my yellow hair away by the root,
And I will clothe myself all in a boy's suit,
And to the college high, I will go afoot."
I have had versions also from Mary Langworthy, Stoke Flemming, in the Hypodorian mode, and from W. S. Vance, Penarth, as sung by an old woman at Padstow in 1863, now dead. Mr Sharp gives a version in "Folk Songs from Somerset," No. 15.
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Songs and Ballads of the West: A Collection Made from the Mouths of the People
edited by Sabine Baring-Gould, Henry Fleetwood Sheppard, Frederick William Bussell; .
Also in Popular British Ballads, Ancient and Modern, Volume 2; 1894
Baring -Gould
The Trees they are so High - James Parsons and Mathew Baker (compilation) c. 1888
1. All the trees they are so high,
The leaves they are so green,
The day is past and gone, sweet-heart,
That you and I have seen.
It is cold winter's night,
You and I must bide alone:
Whilst my pretty lad is young
And is growing.
2. O father, father dear,
Great wrong to me is done,
That I should married be this day,
Before the set of sun.
At the huffle of the gale,
Here I toss and cannot sleep:
Whilst my pretty lad is young
And is growing.
3. O daughter, daughter dear,
No wrong to thee is done,
For I have married thee this day
Unto a rich Lord's son.
O the wind is on the thatch
Here and I alone must weep:
Whilst my pretty lad is young
And is growing.
4. 0 father, father dear,
If that you think it fit,
Then send him to the school awhile,
To be a year there yet.
At the huffle of the gale
Here I toss and cannot sleep:
Whilst my pretty lad is young
And is growing.
5. To let the lovely ladies know[1]
They may not touch and taste,
I'll bind a bunch of ribbons blue
About his little waist,
And I'll wait another year
0 the roaring of the sea:
Whilst my pretty lad is young
6. And is growing,
In a garden as I walked,
I heard them laugh and call;
There were four-and-twenty playing there,
They played with bat and ball;
I must wait awhile, must wait,
And then his bride will be:
O my pretty lad is young
And is growing.
8. I listened in the garden,
I looked o'er the wall;
Amidst five-and-twenty gallants there,
My love exceeded all.
O the snow, the snowflakes fall,
O and I am chill and freeze:
But my pretty lad is young
And is growing.
9. I'll cut my yellow hair,
I'll cut it close my brow,
I'll go unto the high college
And none shall know me so;
O the clouds are driving by
And they shake the leafy trees:
But my pretty lad is young
And is growing.
10. To the college I did go,
I cut my yellow hair;
To be with him in sun and shower,
His sports and studies share.
O the taller that he grew
The sweeter still grew he:
O my pretty lad is young
And is growing.
11. As it fell upon a day,
A bright and summer day,
We went into the green green wood
To frolic and to play,
O and what did there befall
I tell not unto thee:
But my pretty lad so young,
Was still growing.
12. At thirteen he married was,
A father at fourteen,
At fifteen his face was white as milk,
And then his grave was green;
And the daisies were outspread,
And buttercups of gold
O'er my pretty lad so young,
Now ceased growing.
13. I'll make my pretty love
A shroud of holland fine,
And all the time I'm making it
My tears run down the twine;
And as the bell doth knell
I shiver as one cold,
And weep o'er my pretty lad
Now done growing.
1. may be omitted in singing
--------------
Roger Hannaford of Lower Town, Widecombe, May, 1890
Baring -Gould MS
The Trees they are so High
1. The sun is gone and set; and the moon is going down,
'Tis time for you and me love, no more to meet again, [sweet love once more has come]
On a cold winter's night; all as we walked alone,
So [and] my bonny lad is young but is growing.
2. O father, father dear, to me you've done great wrong,
You've wed me to a bonny lad that's far, far too young,
For I am only twelve and he but thirteen
But my bonny lad is young but is growing.
3. O daughter, daughter dear, no worry to you is done, [I've done to you no wrong]
I wed you to a bonny lad that is a rich Lord's son.
He'll make of you a lady great if [that] you will say done.
So my bonny lad is young but is growing.
4. O daughter, daughter dear, if you will agree,
We'll send him for a month or two to a high collegie
And there he shall abide awhile a month or two or three,
So my bonny lad is young but is growing [but still a-growing]
5. I'll cut my yellow hair, I'll cut it to the root,
I'll cast aside my maiden's garb and follow him a foot, [I'll cut my yellow hair, I'll cut it to the brow,]
To the high collegie I'll follow him (by suit,) [And I'll go to college with him, I'll go to college now,]
So my bonny lad so young but is growing.
6. As i looked o'er my father's castle wall [my father's castle wall]
I saw four and twenty[gallant] lads[boys] [were] playing at the ball,
But my bonny lad [was there and] he did exceed them all
And my bonny lad is young and he is growing.
7. At the age of thirteen he was a married man[1],
At the age of fourteen he was the father of a son
And when he was fifteen O then his grave was green,
so that made the end of his growing. [For my bonny lad so young has ceased growing.]
8. I'll buy five yards of holland so fine,
As a present to my bonny lad, that is a rich man's son
And as I sew it along my tears run down the twine
For my bonny lad so young has ceased growing.
1. stanzas 7 and 8 have been reversed
----------------
Minstrelsy by William Motherwell, 1827, published Burns "Lady Mary Ann"
--------------
Walter Pardon's version of I 'The Trees They Grow So High' for a while
"Plymouth Fair Copy Notebooks"
Mainly Norfolk
The Trees They Grow So High / Long A-Growing / The Bonny Boy / Lady Mary Ann
[ Roud 31 ; Laws O35 ; G/D 6:1222 ; Ballad Index LO35 ; trad.]
Bertha Bidder collected The Trees They Grow So High in May 1905 in Stoke Fleming, Devon, from an unnamed female singer. This version was printed in 1959 in A.L. Lloyd's and Ralph Vaughan Williams' Penguin Book of English Folk Songs.
Harry Cox of Catfield, Norfolk, sang a fragment of Young and Growing in October 1953 to Peter Kennedy. This recording was included in 2000 on his Rounder anthology What Will Become of England?.
Lizzie Higgins sang Lang A-Growin' to Hamish Henderson in 1954. This recording was included in the early 1960s on the Prestige album Folksongs and Music from the Berryfields of Blair. Another recording with the title My Bonny Boy, made by Hamish Henderson and Sandy Paton in Aberdeen in September 1958, was included in 2000 on the Folk-Legacy anthology Ballads and Songs of Tradition. A third recording, made by Bill Leader on January 5, 1968, was released as The College Boy (Young Craigston) in the following year on her first Topic album, Princess of the Thistle. Peter Hall commented in the sleeve notes:
This moving song, known variously as The Bonny Boy Is Lang Lang A-Growin and The Trees They Do Grow High is popularly supposed to have had a factual basis in an arranged marriage in the early 17th century. However, such marriages were once so common that to pick out one in particular seems entirely arbitrary. Tradition has it that the ballad is originally Scots but there is little concrete evidence of this and a number of the musical variants suggest an Irish ancestry. Lizzie’s tune is a fine and fitting pipe air.
Lizzie Higgins sang another version named Lady Mary Ann in 1975 on her Topic album Up and Awa' Wi' the Laverock. This track was also included in 1998 on the Topic anthology It Fell on a Day, a Bonny Summer Day (The Voice of the People Series Volume 17). Peter Hall commented in the original album's sleeve notes:
Many traditional singers know more than one version of the same song and here Lizzie gives us another setting of The College Boy (The Bonnie Laddie’s Lang, Lang A-Growing, The Trees They Do Grow High) which appeared on her first LP. The text came from her father’s aunt, Jean Stewart, and it has something of the flavour of the printed page. Lizzie was dissatisfied with the melody used by her great-aunt and, at her father’s suggestion, put the words to a pipe tune Mrs MacDonald of Dunacht. The composer of the tune is supposed to have written it close to a reverberant wall, giving him echoes of some of the phrases which he then incorporated into his composition.
A further recording of Lizzie Higgins singing The College Boy at the Blairgowrie Folk Festival in between 1986 and 1995 was included in 2000 on the festival's anthology The Blair Tapes.
A.L. Lloyd sang The Trees They Do Grow High in 1956 on his Tradition album The Foggy Dew and Other Traditional English Love Songs. In 1960, he sang it with the title The Trees They Grow So High on his album A Selection from the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs. Like all tracks from this LP it was reissued in 2003 on the CD England & Her Traditional Songs. Lloyd wrote in the album's sleeve notes:
A ballad common all over the British Isles. Scottish, Irish and English versions resemble each other in text but not always in tune. In Irish sets, the young lovers are of more respectable age. There is a story that the ballad was made after the death in 1634 of the juvenile laird of Craigton who married a girl some years older than himself, and died within a short time. In fact, the song is probably older, and may have originated in the Middle Ages when the joining of two family fortunes by child-marriage was not unusual. Our tune was notated by Bertha Bidder from a woman in Stoke Fleming, Devon, some time before 1905.
Ewan MacColl sang Lang A-Growing in 1957 on his and A.L. Lloyd's Riverside album Great British Ballads Not Included in the Child Collection.
May Bradley sang a fragment of Long A-Growing to Fred Hamer in Ludlow, Shropshire, in October 1959. This recording was included in 2010 on her Musical Traditions anthology Sweet Swansea. Rod Stradling commented in the accompanying booklet:
May Bradley's skill is amply displayed in her penultimate verse, where the extra-long text “When me and you was sitting all alone” are effortlessly fitted into a modified melody. Beautiful!
Isla Cameron sang Still Growin' in 1962 on her and Tony Britton's Transatlantic album Songs of Love, Lust and Loose Living.
Queen Caroline Hughes sang a fragment of Young But Growing to Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger in between 1963 and 1966. This recording was included in 2014 on her Musical Traditions anthology Sheep-Crook and Black Dog.
Joe Heaney sang this song as My Bonny Boy Is Young in a recording session at Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger's home in Beckenham in 1964. This was published in 2000 on his Topic CDs The Road from Connemara.
Lorna Campbell sang Lang A-Growin' in 1965 on the Campbell Family's Topic album The Singing Campbells. Peter A. Hall and Arthur Argo commented in the sleeve notes:
This ballad, although widespread, was not included in Professor Child’s famous anthology. It has been suggested that it is based on the marriage of the young Urquhart of Craigston to Elizabeth Innes about 1633, although many other such arranged marriages at this time or before may have been the origin.
Martin Carthy sang The Trees They Do Grow High in 1965 as on his eponymous first album, Martin Carthy; this track was later included on the 1999 compilation Martin Carthy: A Collection. A live recording from the Sunflower Folk Club, Belfast, on October 20, 1978 was published in 2011 on his CD The January Man; and he returned to this song on Brass Monkey's 2009 CD, Head of Steam. Martin Carthy commented in his original album's sleeve notes:
The Trees They Do Grow High first appeared in print in 1792 under the title Lady Mary Ann and the young man is named as Young Charlie Cochran. In 1824 another version was printed as the Young Laird of Craigs Town with a note attached saying he had been married when very young, and had died shortly afterwards in 1634. There is no real evidence to suggest that the many English versions collected date back to this incident; indeed the ballad may well be older as child marriages of convenience were by no means uncommon in Mediaeval times.
Fred Jordan was recorded singing The Bonny Boy by Bill Leader and Mike Yates in a private room in The Bay Malton Hotel, Oldfield Brow, Altringham, Cheshire, in 1966. This was published on his 1966 Topic album Songs of a Shropshire Farm Worker and on the anthology O'er His Grave the Grass Grew Green (The Voice of the People Series Volume 3; Topic 1998). Another, 1982 recording by Sybil Clarke is on his 2003 Veteran anthology A Shropshire Lad. Mike Yates commented in the latter album's notes:
England, Scotland and Ireland share this very favourite ballad, which appeared on several broadsides during the nineteenth century. Burns rewrote it as Lady Mary Ann—Lizzie Higgins can be heard singing this on Topic TSCD667—and some have suggested that the story relates to an actual event, namely the marriage of the boy Laird of Craigton to a girl some years his senior in 1631. Such marriages, often formed to consolidate family alliances, were not uncommon. Fred learned the song from his mother.
Pentangle sang The Trees They Do Grow High in 1968 on their second Transatlantic album, Sweet Child.
Ian Manuel sang Lang-A-Growing live at Folk Union One in 1969. This recording was included in the same year on the rare privately issued album Blue Bell Folk Sing which was finally reissued on CD in 2014.
Robin and Barry Dransfield sang The Trees They Do Grow High in 1970 on their first album, The Rout of the Blues on the Trailer label. Barry Dransfield also recorded it in 1994 with the title Bonny Boy for his CD Be Your Own Man. Their first album's liner notes commented:
Barry first heard this song played by the Irish musicians who frequent the Roscoe public house in Leeds. He included it in his solo repertoire, but after he joined with Robin and after they both had been deeply impressed by the Fairport Convention at their Festival Hall concert during summer of 1969, they put together this closely integrated duet which, although it sounds as though Barry's voice and fiddle might have been double tracked, in fact was performed as it is in a live performance.
Tony Rose sang The Trees They Do Grow High unaccompanied in 1971 on his second album, Under the Greenwood Tree. He commented in his sleeve notes:
The Trees They Do Grow High has been quite unashamedly learned from the version noted by Sharp from Harry Richards of Curry Rivell in Somerset. As Sharp states, the way in which the concluding strain of each verse is varied is a fine example of how lines of irregular length can be adapted to the same melody. As in the True Lovers tune, there is here the octave jump of which the old singers seem particularly fond.
George Dunn of Quarry Bank, Staffordshire, sang a fragment of The Trees They Do Grow High on December 4, 1972 to Roy Palmer. This recording was included in 2002 on his Musical Traditions anthology Chainmaker.
Mary Ann Haynes of Brighton, Sussex, sang Long A-Growing on July 17, 1974 to Mike Yates. This recording was included a year later on the Topic anthology of traditional songs from Sussex, Sussex Harvest, in 1998 on the Topic anthology Tonight I'll Make You My Bride (The Voice of the People Series Volume 6), and in 2003 on the Musical Traditions anthology of gypsy songs and music from South-east England, Here's Luck to a Man.
Walter Pardon sang The Trees They Do Grow High at home in his cottage in Knapton, Norfolk, in May 1974. This recording made by Bill Leader and Peter Bellamy was issued in the following year on Walter Pardon's Leader LP A Proper Sort. An alternate take was included in 2000 on his Topic CD A World Without Horses.
Steeleye Span recorded Long A-Growing in 1974 for their sixth album, the first one with drummer Nigel Pegrum, Now We Are Six.
Isabel Sutherland sang The Bonny Boy in 1974 on her eponymous EFDSS album Isabel Sutherland.
Harry Brazil sang Long A-Growing to Gwilym Davies at Staverton, Gloucestershire on November 27, 1977. This recording was included in 2007 on the Brazil Family's Musical Tradition anthology Down By the Old Riverside. The album's booklet noted:
Roud shows this song to be widely known, with 181 entries from right across the Anglophone world, but with the majority from England. It is most usually titled The Trees They Do Grow High, but examples along the lines of Long A-Growing are also very frequent. Clearly its popularity endured until recently, since about one third of his entries are sound recordings.
Although the sad tale of such failed arranged marriages was universal, Aberdeenshire claims it firmly for the marriage and death three years later of the young Laird of Craigston in 1634, as attested by James Maidment in A North Country Garland (1824).
Traveller Nelson Penfold of Westlake, Devon, sang Young A-Growing to Sam Richards and Tish Stubbs in between 1974 and 1980. This recording was included in 1981 on the Folkways album An English Folk Music Anthology. The album's booklet commented:
Nelson Penfold here sings another of the ballads that Child omitted. His rendition begins with a short spoken passage to set the scene, moving into song at what is variously found elsewhere as a second, third or even fourth verse. He says that the spoken passage is traditional, although often longer than he gives it.
The sense of the story usually revolves around an arranged marriage. Nelson's version changes the sense. As in the other versions the boy is too young, although he fathers a son but dies soon after. Nelson has them, though, as two young lovers seeking parental consent, and sometimes calls the song “the tale of the little boy and the big maid”.
Jean Redpath sang Lady Mary Ann in 1976 on her anthology The Songs of Robert Burns Volumes 1.
John Goodluck sang The Trees They Do Grow High in 1977 on his Traditional Sound Recordings album Monday's Childe.
Peter Bellamy sang The Trees They Do Grow High on his 1979 LP Both Sides Then. He laconically commented in his sleeve notes:
Learned from Walter Pardon of Knapton in Norfolk. (One verse omitted, one verse from a variant inserted).
Yorkshire Relish (Derek, Dorothy and Nadine Elliott) sang The Trees They Do Grow High on their 1980 Traditional Sound Recordings album An Old Family Business.
Gill Bowman sang Lang A-Growin' in 1990 on her Fellside CD City Love.
Janet Russell and Christine Kydd sang Lady Mary Ann in 1994 on their Greentrax CD Dancin' Chantin'.
Eliza Carthy learnt this song from Walter Pardon and sang it with the title Growing (The Trees They Do Grow High) in 1995 on her and Nancy Kerr's second album Shape of Scrape. The track was later included in their compilation CD On Reflection.
Bob Copper sang The Trees They Do Grow High on the 1995 Veteran CD When the May Is All in Bloom. According to the liner notes, he “learned this version from Seamus Ennis while they were working together for the BBC in the 1950s.” John Copper sang it ten years later on the Fellside anthology of English traditional songs and their American variants, Song Links 2, with Tim Eriksen providing the American variant.
Ray Driscoll of Longborough, Leicestershire sang My Bonny Boy on April 13, 1996 to Gwilym Davies. This recording was included in 2008 on his CD Wild, Wild Berry.. Gwilym Davies commented:
Also known as Long A-Growing or The Trees They Grow High. Ray learnt several songs from his Irish father, who was also a fiddle player. This song was Ray’s favourite and demonstrates well his Irish style of singing.
Billy Ross sang Lady Mary Ann on the 1996 Linn anthology The Complete Songs of Robert Burns Volume 1.
Gordeanna McCulloch sang My Bonnie Laddie's Lang a' Growin on her 1997 Greentrax album In Freenship's Name.
Brian Peters and Gordon Tyrrall sang Long A-Growing in 2000 on their duo CD The Moving Moon.
Sangsters sang Lady Mary Ann in 2000 on their Greentrax album Sharp and Sweet.
Ellen Mitchell sang Lady Mary Ann on her and Kevin Mitchells's 2001 Musical Traditions anthology Have a Drop Mair and a year later on her Tradition Bearers CD On Yonder Lea.
The Cecil Sharp Centenary Collective sang The Trees They Do Grow High in 2003 on their Talking Elephant CD As I Cycled Out on a May Morning.
Annie Grace sang The Trees They Grow High in 2004 on her Greentrax CD Take Me Out Drinking Tonight.
Bob Fox sang Still Growing in 2006 on his Topic CD The Blast. He commented in his liner notes:
This is the first folksong I ever learned to sing and play. I have used both of the tunes that I know and have compiled the words from many sources. Also known as The Young Laird of Craigston, it appears to be about the marriage of Lord Craigston to Elizabeth Innes who was several years his senior. He died shortly after, in 1634, of melancholy due to unpaid debts left by his own father.
Graham Metcalfe sang The Trees Grow High in 2006 on his WildGoose CD Songs from Yorkshire and Other Civilisations. He commented:
Some say the story relates to the actual marriage of the boy Laird of Craigton to an older girl in 1631. Some people say anything!
Jon Boden and Fay Hield learned The Trees They Do Grow High from Barry Dransfield's album and sang it in a Bright Young Folk recording as the September 22, 2010 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day.
Kirsty Bromley sang The Trees They Do Grow High in 2011 on her privately issued EP Sweet Nightingale.
Jim Moray sang The Trees They Do Grow High on Concerto Caledonia's 2011 album Revenge of the Folksingers. His sister Jackie Oates sang The Trees They Are So High in the same year on her CD Saturnine.
Jeff Warner sang Young But Daily Growing in 2011 on his WildGoose album Long Time Travelling. He commented:
Also known as The Trees They Do Grow High, this is another song Lena Bourne Fish gave the Warners in 1940. Some see its origins with a young laird of Craigton, Scotland, who died in 1634, three years after his marriage to a woman several years his senior. Others say it is an even older song. It's not in the Francis James Child collection of The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. But it probably should be.
Maggie Boyle sang The Trees They Do Grow High in 2012 on her CD Won't You Come Away. She commented in her liner notes:
From the singing of Peter Bellamy (excepting the tiny changes I made—including a few words from Jeff Warner. Thanks Jeff!). Peter made his customary, indelible mark on this popular folk story. I hope he would have approved of this (he’d certainly have told me if he did not!).
Lauren McCormick sang Trees Grow High on her 2012 WildGoose CD On Blue Stockings. She commented:
This tune comes from May Bradley via the listening room at Cecil Sharp House. Her take on the story was rather happier than usual—nobody died and the young couple just had a nice chat for two verses. As lovely as this is, I thought I’d flesh it out with some verses from the George Butterworth Collection.
Steve Roud included The Trees They Do Grow High in 2012 in The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs. Lucy Ward and Bella Hardy sang it a year later on the accompanying Fellside CD The Liberty to Choose: A Selection of Songs from The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs.
Emily Smith sang this ballad as My Darling Boy in 2014 on her CD Echoes.
Andy Turner learned The Trees They Do Grow High from the 1995 recording of Bob Copper mentioned above. He sang it as the January 9, 2015 entry of his project A Folk Song a Week.
Sarah Hayes sang The Trees They Grow Tall in 2015 on her CD Woven.
Fiona Hunter learned Lady Mary Ann from the singing of Lizzie Higgins and sang it in 2015 on Malinky's album Far Better Days (which took its title from the ballad's verses: “Far better days I trust will come again / For my bonnie laddie’s young, but he’s growin yet”.)
Kirsty Potts sang College Boy on her 2015 album The Seeds of Life. She commented in her liner notes:
Learnt from the superb singing of Lizzie Higgins of Aberdeen. It is also known as Young Craigston, Lang A-Growing and Trees They Do Grow High. Versions are well spread in Britain and North America. This is one of the few classic ballads which does not appear in Child's collection.
The Rails (Kami Thompson and James Walbourne) sang The Trees They Do Grow High in 2015 on their CD Australia.
David Stacey learned The Trees They Do Grow High from Joe Dolan and sang it on his 2015 Musical Traditions anthology Good Luck to the Journeyman.
Lyrics
A.L. Lloyd sings The Trees They Grow So High
The trees they grow so high and the leaves they grow so green,
The day is past and gone, my love, that you and I have seen.
It's a cold winter's night, my love, when I must bide alone,
For my bonny boy is young but a-growing.
As I was a-walking by yonder church wall,
I saw four-and-twenty young men a-playing at the ball.
I asked for my own true love but they wouldn't let him come,
For they said the boy was young but a-growing.
“Oh father, dearest father, you've done to me much wrong,
You've tied me to a boy when you know he is too young.”
“Oh daughter, dearest daughter, if you'd wait a little while,
A lady you shall be, while he's growing.”
“We'll send your love to college, all for a year or two,
And then perhaps in time the boy will do for you.
I'll buy you white ribbons to tie about his waist
To let the ladies know that he's married.”
And so early in the morning at the dawning of the day,
They went out into the hay-field to have some sport and play,
And what they did there she never would declare,
But she never more complained of his growing.
And at the age of sixteen he was a married man,
And at the age of seventeen she brought to him a son,
And at the age of eighteen the grass grew over him,
And that soon put an end to his growing.
May Bradley sings Long A-Growing
Now the trees they do grow high, my love,
But the leaves they do grow green
The time has gone and past, my love,
That me and you have seen
It's a cold and a frosty night, me love,
When me and you was sitting all alone
And we would let the ladies know
That we are growing.
Now I'll buy my wife a gown
Sure the best of linen brown
And while she is a-wearing it
The tears they will roll down
For she asked me for blue ribbons
To tie around her bonny bonny waist
And then we'll let those ladies know
That we are married.
Martin Carthy sings The Trees They Do Grow High
Oh the trees they do grow high and the leaves they do grow green,
And many's the cold winter's night my love and I have seen.
On a cold winter's night my love you and I alone have been.
Oh my bonny boy is young but he's growing,
Growing, growing,
My bonny boy is young but he's growing
“Oh father, dear father, you've done to me much harm,
For to go and get me married to one who is so young.
For he is only sixteen years old and I am twenty-one,
Oh my bonny boy is young but he's growing,
Growing, growing,
My bonny boy is young but he's growing.”
“Oh daughter, dear daughter, I'll tell you what I'll do,
I'll send your love to college for another year or two.
And all around his college cap I'll tie a ribbon blue,
For to let the ladies know that he's married,
Married, married,
To let the ladies know that he's married.”
Now at the age of sixteen he was a married man,
And at the age of seventeen the father to a son,
And at the age of eighteen the grass grew over him.
Cruel death soon put an end to his growing,
Growing, growing,
Cruel death soon put an end to his growing.
And now my love is dead and in his grave doth lie,
The green grass grows over him so very very high.
I'll sit here and mourn his death until the day I die
And I'll watch all o'er his child while he's growing,
Growing, growing,
I'll watch all o'er his child while he's growing,
Robin & Barry Dransfield sing The Trees They Do Grow High
Oh, the trees they do grow high and the leaves they do grow green,
And many's the long and winter's night my love and I have seen.
It's a cold and winter's night, my love, you and I must lie alone.
My bonny boy is young but he's growing.
“Oh father, dear father, you've done to me great wrong,
To go and get me married to one who is too young.
Oh, he's only sixteen years and I am twenty one,
My bonny boy is young but he's growing.”
“Oh daughter, dear daughter, I'll tell you what we do:
We'll send your love to college for another year or two.
And all around his college cap we'll tie a ribbon blue
To let the ladies know that he's married.”
So early, so early, so early the next day,
This couple they went out to sport amongst the hay;
And what they did there I never will declare,
But she never more complained of his growing.
At the age of sixteen he was a married man,
And at the age of seventeen the father to a son,
And at the age of eighteen the grass grow over him,
Cruel death had put an end to his growing.
Tony Rose sings The Trees They Do Grow High
The trees they do grow high and the leaves they do grow green,
The day is past and gone, my love, that you and I have seen.
It's a cold winter's night, my love, when you and I must lie alone.
The bonny lad is young but he's growing.
“Oh father, dearest father, you've done to me great wrong,
You married me a boy and I fear he is too young.”
“Oh daughter, dearest daughter, and if you stay at home and wait along with me,
A lady you shall be while he's growing.”
“We'll send him to the college, all for a year or two,
And then perhaps in time, my love, a man he may grow.
I will buy you a bunch of white ribbons to tie about his bonny, bonny waist
To let the ladies know that he's married.”
And so early in the morning at the dawning of the day,
They went out into the hay-field to have some sport and play,
And what they did there she never would declare,
But she never more complained of his growing.
At the age of sixteen, oh, he was a married man,
And at the age of seventeen she brought to him a son.
At the age of eighteen, my love, oh his grave was growing green
And so she put to an end to his growing.
I made my love a shroud of the holland oh so fine
And every stitch she put in it, the tears come trinkling down.
Oh once I had a sweetheart but now I have got never a one,
So fare you well my own true love forever.
Now he is dead and buried and in the churchyard laid
The green grass is all over him so very, very thick
Oh once I had a sweetheart but now I have got never a one,
So fare you well my own true love forever.
Peter Bellamy sings The Trees They Do Grow High
Now the trees they do grow high, love, the leaves they do grow green,
The time it is now gone, love, that you and I have seen.
It's a cold winter's night when you and I must bide alone
For the bonny boy is young, he's a-growing, growing,
For the bonny boy is young, he's a-growing.
“Oh father, dear father, you have done to me much wrong,
You've married me to a boy who I fear is too young.”
“Oh daughter, dear daughter, if you stay at home with me
Then a lady you will be while he's growing, growing,
A lady you will be while he's growing.”
“Oh, we will send your love to college, for another year or two,
Perhaps in that time to a man he will grow.
I will buy you white ribbons for to bind around his bonny waist
Just to let the ladies know that he's married, married,
Just to let the ladies know that he's married.”
As I was a-looking off my father's castle wall
There I spied all them bonny boys they was playing at the ball.
And my true love he ran among them, he was flower of all,
Though my bonny boy is young, he's a-growing, growing,
Though my bonny boy is young, he's a-growing.
At the age of sixteen he was a married man,
At the age of seventeen he was the father of a son,
At the age of eighteen, love, well his grave it was a-growing green,
So she soon saw the end of his growing, growing,
So she soon saw the end of his growing.
I made my love a shroud of the Holland oh so fine,
Every stitch I put in it, my tears came trickling down.
And I will mourn his fate until the day that I do die,
But I will watch o'er his child while it's growing, growing,
Yes I will watch o'er his child while it's growing.
Steeleye Span's Long A-Growing
As I was walking by yonder church wall,
I saw four-and-twenty young men a-playing at the ball.
I asked for my own true love but they wouldn't let him come,
For they said the boy was young but a-growing.
“Father, dear father, you've done me much wrong,
You've tied me to a boy when you know he is too young.”
“But he will make a Lord for you to wait upon,
And a lady you will be while he's growing.”
“We'll send him to college for one year or two
And maybe in time the boy will do for you.
I'll buy you white ribbons to tie around his waist
For to let the ladies know that he's married.”
The trees they do grow high and the leaves they do grow green,
The day is passed and gone, my love, that you and I have seen.
It's on a cold winter's night that I must lie alone,
For the bonny boy is young but a-growing.
At the age of sixteen he was a married man,
And at the age of seventeen the father to a son,
And at the age of eighteen his grave it did grow green.
Cruel dead had put an end to his growing.
Eliza Carthy sings Growing
The trees they do grow high, the leaves they do grow green,
The time is long past, love, you and I have seen.
It's a cold winter's night that you and I must bide alone,
Tho' my bonny lad is young, he's a-growin'.
“Oh father, dear father, you've done me much wrong,
You've married me to a boy who I fear is too young.”
“Oh daughter, dear daughter, if you stay at home with me,
A lady you shall be while he's growin'.”
“And we'll send him off to college for one year or two
Perhaps then, my love, to a man he will grow.
Now I'll buy you white ribbons to tie round his bonny waist
So the ladies will know that he's married.”
At the age of sixteen he was a married man,
And at seventeen the father of a son,
At the age of eighteen, love, his grave it was a-growin' green,
So she saw the end of his growin'
I made my love a shroud of Holland oh so fine,
Every stitch I put in it, the tears came trickling down.
Now I'll abhor his fate until the day I shall die,
And I'll watch o'er his child while it's growin',
I'll watch o'er his child while it's growin'.
Now my love is dead and in his grave he lies
And the grass I sowed o'er him it groweth so high.
I had a sweetheart but now I've got never a one,
Fare ye well my own true love for growin', growin',
Fare ye well my own true love for growin'.
Jon Boden & Fay Hield sing The Trees They Do Grow High
Oh, the trees they do grow high and the leaves they do grow green,
And it's many's the long and winter's night my love and I have seen.
It's a cold and winter's night, my love, you and I must lie alone.
Oh, my bonny boy is young but he's growing.
“Oh father, dear father, you've done to me great wrong,
To go and get me married to a boy who is too young.
For, he is only sixteen years and I am twenty one,
Oh, my bonny boy is young but he's growing.”
“Oh daughter, dear daughter, I'll tell you what we'll do:
We will send him off to college for another year or two.
And all around his college cap we will tie the ribbons blue
For to let the ladies know that he's married.”
So early, so early, so early the next day,
This couple they went out for to sport among the hay;
And what they did there I never will declare,
But she never more complained of his growing.
At the age of sixteen he was a married man,
And at the age of seventeen the father to a son,
But at the age of eighteen years the grass grow over him,
Cruel death had put an end to his growing.
Lizzie Higgins sings Lady Mary Ann
Lady Mary Ann looked o'er the Castle wa'
When she saw three bonny laddies a-playing at the ba'
And the youngest he was the flooer amang them a'
He's my bonny, bonny boy, aye and growing o,
“Father, dear father, I'll tell you what to do:
We'll send him tae the college for another year or two.
And round about his cap I will sew the ribbons blow
For to let the ladies know that he's growing .”
Lady Mary Ann was a flower in the dew,
Sweet and bonnye, aye bright was her hue,
And the longer she blossomed the sweeter she grew,
For the lily in the border will be bonnier o.
Young Charlie Cochran was as proud as an ake,
Blithe and bonny and straight was his make.
And the sun it shone a' for his sake,
And he will be the brag o' the forest o.
The summer it is gaen and the leaves they are green,
And the days are awa that we hae seen;
Far better days I trust will come again,
For my bonny laddie's young, aye, and a-growing o.