7I. I Love You, Jamie (Foolish Young Girl)
A. "I Love You, Jamie" sung by Mr. Thompson of Aberdeenshire, collected by Gavin Greig in 1908.
B. "I Love You, Jamie" one stanza fragment sung by Bell Robertson (b. 1841 d. 1922) of New Pitsligo, Aberdeenshire.
C. "Foolish Young Girl," sung by Willie Mathieson of Ellon, Aberdeenshire was recorded by Hamish Henderson in 1952
["I Love You, Jamie" is a rare Scottish love song that uses a Scottish variant of the Died for Love songs titled "Foolish Young Girl[1]" as its chorus. The identifying stanza that begins "I love you Jamie, I love you well" is based on, or similar to, the opening of the English broadside Nelly's Constancy, an antecedent of several stanzas found in Died in Love. Only thee versions of the short song "I Love You, Jamie" are known to exist: it has been collected twice by Grieg[2] and was recorded by Scottish singer Willie Mathieson in 1952. The amended opening stanza (from Nelly's Constancy[3]) is found occasionally in various Died for Love songs. Here's the first stanza from "I Love You Jamie" sung by Mr. Thompson in 1908 as collected by Grieg:
1. I love you Jamie, I love you well,
I love you more than tongue can tell,
I love you better than you loved me,
My darling Jamie ye're dear tae me[4].
The chorus is the opening stanza of "Foolish Young Girl" also known as "The Irish Boy." Compare Thompson's stanza to the first stanza from Nelly's Constancy (c.1686) as taken from a broadside held at Magdalene College (Pepys 5.217) with a full title of An excellent New Song, Call'd, NELLY'S Constancy, OR, Her Unkind Lover: Who, after Contract of Marriage, leaves his first Mistress, for the sake of a better Fortune:
I Lov'd you dearly, I lov'd you well,
I lov'd you dearly, no Tongue can tell,
You love another, you love not me,
You care not for my Company.
In Nelly's Constancy the last line is different. In the Scottish song the last line is a recapitulation of the opening half of the first line which is a weak stanzic construction-- then at the end of the first line a new phrase ends by rhyming the same word-- "me." Perhaps the stanza was borrowed and the last line forgotten. Rather than create a new stanza from the old-- the old one was slightly modified.
The first two lines of the stanza are found in a syrupy sweet poem found in the book Bye-gones, Relating to Wales and the Border Counties, 1894 (see 3rd and 4th lines)[5]:
I love with a heart that's kind,
I love you with a tender mind,
I love you much—I love you well,
I love you more than tongue can tell,
And though I write with pen and ink,
I love you more than you can think,
And when you think and love like me,
A happy couple we shall be."[anonymous]
The identifying stanza appears as a chorus in "I Wish, I Wish" as sung by Mrs. Belle Anne MacAngus of Ross. It was recorded by de Groot in 1971:
Oh Billie, Billie I love you well
I love you better than tongue can tell
Than tongue can tell and then pen can write
My darling Billie is my heart's delight.
A complete version sung by Willie Mathieson of Ellon, Aberdeenshire was recorded by Hamish Henderson in 1952. It begins similarly to the variant by Mr. Thompson but add stanzas from two different songs at the end. This text was proofed from a MS provided by Cathlin Macaulay and Caroline Milligan of the School of Scottish Studies[6]:
The Foolish Young Girl
1. I love you Jamie, I love you well,
I love you better than tongue can tell,
I love you better than you love me,
My darlin' Jamie, ye're dear to me.
2. What a foolish young girl was I, I, I,
To fall in love with an Irish boy
An Irish boy tho' gin he be
He spake braw Scotch when he courted me.
3. How oft my Jamie when in your arms
You said I filled your heart with charms,
And when you gained my youthful heart
You said death only would us part.
4. How oft on Logie's banks we've met
In Strichen Toon we've wandered late;
How oft my Jamie I've heard you tell
It's in this house that we will dwell.
This is a previously missing version[6] of the ballad featuring the "Foolish Young Girl" as the chorus. Since it is a hybrid it could be categorized as a member of the Died For Love's "Foolish Young Girl"also known as "Irish Boy." Both of the versions collected by Gavin Grieg follow. The complete version by W. Thompson is nearly identical to the version by Mathieson. Bell Robertson, Grieg's most prolific informant, probably learned this fragment from her mother Jean Gall of Strichen by the later part of the 1850s.
A. I Love You, Jamie sung by W. Thompson of Aberdeen
1. I love you Jamie, I love you well,
I love you more than tongue can tell,
I love you better than you loved me,
My darling Jamie ye're dear tae me.
What a foolish young girl was I, I, I,
To fall in love with an Irish boy
An Irish boy O' gin he be
He spoke braw Scotch when he courted me.
2. How oft my Jamie when in your arms
You said I filled your heart with charms,
And when you gained my faithful heart
You said death only would us part.
3. How oft on Ugie's banks we've met
In Strichen Toon we've wandered late;
How oft my Jamie I've heard you tell
It's in this hoose that we will dwell.
B. I Love You, Jamie - sung by Bell Robertson (b. 1841 d. 1922) of New Pitsligo, Aberdeenshire.
1. I love you Jamie, I love you well,
I love you better than tongue can tell,
I love you better than hand can write,
For you are my jewel and my heart's delight.
Robertson's first stanza is the only one that has been artfully crafted. She supplied over 300 songs and ballads to Gavin Grieg during the early 1900s. The chorus taken from the Scottish ballad "Foolish Young Girl" or, "Irish Boy" is also old and an MS version titled "The Irish Boy," from Elizabeth St. Clair of Edinburgh is dated 1770. Clair's version was taken from The Mansfield Manuscript (2015) pp.4-6.
R. Matteson 2017]
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Footnotes:
1. "Foolish Young Girl," a variant of the Died for Love songs, and usually begins "What a foolish young girl was I/To fall in love with an Irish (student) boy." The oldest extant version of the Scottish ballad "Foolish Young Girl" or, "Irish Boy" is from an old MS from Elizabeth St. Clair of Edinburgh (1770) and is titled "The Irish Boy." Clair's version was taken from The Mansfield Manuscript (2015) pp. 4-6.
2. Gavin Grieg's two variants were collected by 1908 in Aberdeenshire and were later published in The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection edited by Patrick N. Shuldham-Shaw, Emily B. Lyle in 2002.
3. The full title is of An excellent New Song, Call'd, NELLY'S Constancy, OR, Her Unkind Lover: Who, after Contract of Marriage, leaves his first Mistress, for the sake of a better Fortune. It's dated c. 1686.
4. From Volume 6 of The Greig-Duncan Folk Song Collection edited by Patrick N. Shuldham-Shaw, Emily B. Lyle in 2002.
5. Bye-gones, Relating to Wales and the Border Counties, 1894 may be viewed online at Google Books.
6. Text proofed from an MS provided by Cathlin Macaulay and Caroline Milligan of the School of Scottish Studies