We Hadna Land Gane Inta Bed- McGill (NB) 1928 Barry
[From British Ballads From Maine; Barry Eckstorm and Smythe; 1929. My title, this version was surely learned by McGill in Scotland before 1911. Mrs. James McGill of Chamcook, New Brunswick, was originally from Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland where she learned songs and ballads from her grandmother and family. She moved to New Brunswick about 1911 and still sang in Scots diction. Barry's text follows.
R. Matteson Jr. 2014]
Campbell and Sharp print two texts of "Trooper and Maid," from North Carolina and Tennessee, respectively (pp. 149-150). Mrs. McGill's text is the only record of the ballad in the North. It is, on the whole, nearer to Greig's text (Last Leaves, pp. 246-247), than to any of Child's, since all four stanzas are represented in Greig's, though with such variants as are to be expected in different versions of any traditional ballad. Stanza 1 is not in any of Child's texts, while of stanza 2, only the first two lines have their counterpart in child A, 6, lines 1-2, D, 8, lines 1-2.
The melody is of a strikingly archaic, not to say primitive, character, and is evidently a bagpipe air. It is distantly related to the air printed in two variants by Greig (Last Leaves, pp. 247-245) but is more characteristically Scottish in that it has kept the upward skip of the octave in the first phrase. Otherwise, the first phrase corresponds nearly to the first phrase of Greig's air. The final cadence, also, resembles the final cadence in Greig's air, but is sung an octave lower. The air printed by Child (V,424) is nearly identical with Greig's, but admits the sixth of the scale, thereby losing another archaic feature of Scottish folk-melody.
[We Hadna Land Gane Inta Bed]- McGill (NB) 1928 Barry
A bagpipe tune.
1 We hadna lang gane inta bed,
An' yet we were na sleepin',
Till the pipes played at oor gate,
"It's up an' awa', bonnie lassie."
2 "Bonnie lassie, I maun leave ee noo,
Bonnie lassie, I maun leave ee;
An' it's sair the day ye'll rue
That e'er I lay sae near ee."
3 "O, it's bread an' cheese for the Cavalrymen,
Corn an' hay for their horses,
Pipes an' tobacco for auld wives,
An' lads for a' bonnie lassies."
4 "But bonnie lassie, I'll lie near ee yet,
Bonnie lassie, I'll lie near ee,
An' I'll tie a' yer ribbons yet,
Bonnie lassie, I'll lie near ee."