Silly Young Maid- Bella Stewart (Ross) 1955 REC Maclean
[Collection - School of Scottish Studies; Track ID - 20269; Original Tape ID - SA1955.116. Bella (not Belle) Stewart who died around 1964. She was born and brought up in Muir of Ord. She was a traveller.
Listen: http://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/fullrecord/20269/12
R. Matteson 2017]
Summary - In this song, a young woman has been abandoned by her lover after falling pregnant by him. She says: "When my apron strings were long / He [would] follow me [through] cold frost and snow / [?] [When] my apron reached my knee / He passed me by as he never knew me." She sees him courting another girl and wishes she were a maid again, but knows that this will never be, "Till an apple it grows on an orange tree." She wishes her own baby could be born, so that she may die.
I Wish I Was a Maid Again- sung by Bella Stewart; Recorded by Calum Iain Maclean in 1955. Transcription by Richard Matteson and Lighter, 2017.
What a silly young maid was I,
To fall in love with a trav'ller boy,
A trav'ller boy I never knew'd,
But he first [spoke] braid Scotch when he coorted me.
When my apron strings were long,
He can follow me [thro'] cold frost and snow
And when my aperon[1] reached my knee
And he passed me by [as] if he never knew me.
I wish I wish an' I wish in vain
An' I wish, I wish I wis a maid again,
For a maid, a maid I'll never be,
Till an apple grows in an orange tree.
I'm not the same, will never be,
It's a blackbird in yonder tree,
Some says [he's] blind and cannot see
I hope, I hope would happened [to] me,
When I fell in with his company.
It's a house in yonder town
My true love had to go down,
He'll take a strange girl on his[2] knee
And tell her things that he once told me
I wish, I wish, my baby's born,
And sitting small on his granny's knee,
But[3] she, poor thing, lies dead and gone,
And there's only green grass lying over her.
1. apron
2. originally "her"
3. abrupt change to 3rd person narrative.