Scan 307
The American history and encyclopedia of music .., 1908
10 lines. Read by computer on 6 September 2026. Printed page 221. See the scan on archive.org.
1Gray," "The Campbells are Comin," "Auld Lang Syne," "Annie Laurie," "The Land o' the Leal," "Ye Banks and Braes o' Bonnie Doon" and many others.
3As is the case with folk-songs everywhere a large proportion of those of Scotland deal with love in its many phases. They usually are in ballad style, telling a story, rather than being the expression of sentiment. They deal with a healthy, open-air love; they are direct and rather dramatic, not subtle, and sometimes somewhat coarse, and yet, back of all, the singer, no matter how humble, clothes his "ain love" in idealistic dress. Many of them are exultant, some are sad; some tell of courtship and marriage, others enumerate the dowry. The earliest known Scottish love-song, "A Song of Absense," is ascribed to King James I.
5National character is revealed in song in many ways. The Scotch, for example, being a superstitious people, reference is constantly made to fairies and witches, goblins and ghosts. The tendency to "tipple" is shown when "John Barleycorn" so often is mentioned, and the Scotch drinking-songs are among the world's best. Just recall "Todlin' Hame,"—for the pleasures of the bottle—and "Tam O' Shanter"—for the effects of a "wee drap too much."
7That the Scots early were proficient in music is seen from the writings of Giraldus Cambrensis (1187) in which he speaks of the harp, tabor and choro or bagpipe being in use at that time. There is record of money being paid to pipers in 1362 by the king's command. Every town had its pipers and minstrels. The town records of Edinburgh mention the maintenance of three public pipers in 1487. The town of Perth even maintained a piper up to the Nineteenth Century.
9There is in existence a manuscript of the time of Charles I. which contains eighty-five popular airs of the time. Two tunes of this collection are still admired; viz., "Bonnie Dundee" and "The Flowers of the Forest." The same tunes were often sung to different sets of words. That Scottish music had a distinctly national flavor as early
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