The Jolly Beggar- Dixon (CA) pre-1892 Cox 1929
[This version, collected in 1929 (Bronson 2) and published by Cox in 1939 is from James Main Dixon (born 1856, in Paisley- died September 27, 1933), a Scottish teacher and author who resided in the US from about 1892 onward. Dixon's shortened version, which was surely learned in Scotland before he came to the US was probably learned from print before 1879 when he went to Japan. His version, according to Davis, is taken from an edition of Lyric Gems of Scotland (first edition 1856) which is based on or is similar to James Johnson's 1790 version found in The Scot Musical Museum. Here is some info about Dixon from Wiki:
James Main Dixon FRSE (1856, Paisley – 27 September 1933) was a Scottish teacher and author, and an important scholar of the Scots language.[1] He graduated at St. Andrews University in 1879 and was appointed scholar and tutor of philosophy there in the same year.
Dixon was the brother-in-law of the mathematician and seismologist Cargill Gilston Knott.[2]
Academic career
He was professor of English and secretary of the Imperial College of Engineering, Tokio, Japan, from 1879 to 1886, when he was called to the Imperial University of Japan in the same capacity. There he taught Hidesaburo Saito, one of the first Japanese writers of English Grammar, and Natsume Sōseki, a famous novelist and ex-university professor, who disliked his style of teaching English literature.
From 1892 to 1901 he was professor of English literature at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. In 1903–1904 he was president of Columbia College, in Milton, Oregon. He was professor of English literature at the University of Southern California from 1905 to 1911, when he was transferred to the chair of Oriental studies and comparative literature. In 1906 he became editor of the West Coast Magazine.
Writings
He compiled a Dictionary of Idiomatic English Phrases (1891) and wrote: Twentieth Century Life of John Wesley (1902); "Matthew Arnold," in Modern Poets and Christian Teaching (1906); and A Survey of Scottish Literature in the Nineteenth Century (1907). In 1920, he wrote, The Spiritual Meaning of Tennyson's "In Memoriam" and Manual of Modern Scots.
In 1908, he received an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Dickinson College.
References
1. Jump up ^ Jones, Charles (1997). The Edinburgh history of the Scots language. Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 978-0-7486-0754-9.
2. Jump up ^ "Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh". Royal Society of Edinburgh. Retrieved 2 September 2010.
It was collected in 1929 when Dixon was at the University of Southern California. Cox published it with tune in his Traditional Balllads Mainly from West Virginia in 1939. Here's what Davis says:
The seven-stanza fragment in Cox's Traditional Ballads Mainly from West Virginia (pp. 50-51) is almost identical with the Barry songster text except for two varying stanzas, and with the same refrain. According to Cox, it was contributed by James Main Dixon, of the University of Southern California, July, 1929. Says Cox (p. 100): "He refers the song to Lyric Gems of Scotland with music, Sol Fa Edition, Glasgow, John Cameron, 83 Dunlop Street, No date." [It's not in the first edition which appears in 1856.] Obviously this fragmentary text is directly from print and notation- another songster text.
R. Matteson 2013]
The Jolly Beggar- Dixon (CA) pre-1892 Cox 1929
1. There was a jolly beggar, and a begging he was bound,
And he took up his quarters into a landwart town.
And we'll gang nae mair a roving, sae late into the night,
And we'll gang nae mair a roving, let the moon shine e'er sae bright,
And we'll gang nae mair a roving.
2. He wad ne'er lie into the barn, nor yet wad he in byre,
But in shint the ha' door or else beyont the fire.
And we'll gang, etc.
3. The beggar's bed was made at e'en, wi'guid clean straw and hay,
Just in shint the ha' door, and there the beggar lay.
And we'll gang, etc.
4. Up raise the guidman's dochter, and a' to bar the door,
And there she saw the beggar man, was standing on the floor.
And we'll gang, etc.
5. He took the lassie in his arms, and to the neuk he ran,
"Oh hooly, hooly wi' me, sir, ye'll wauken our guidman."
And we'll gang, etc.
6. He took a horn frae his side, and blew baith loud and shrill,
And four-and-twenty belted knights came skipping o'er the hill.
And we'll gang, etc.
7. And he took his little knife, loot a' his duddies fa',
And he stood the brawest gentleman that was amang them a'.
And we'll gang, etc.