In Scotland Town- Maggie Hammons Parker; (WV) Recorded 1970 Jabbour (Learned pre-1926); Also collected Gainer, Aug. 6, 1970.
[There's no date given when Maggie Hammons Parker (1899-1987) learned "In Scotland Town" from her father Paris, who is reputed to have picked it up "on Cranberry." Paris Hammons was born before the Civil War and died in 1926. The date is therefore: pre-1926. It was recorded in 1970.
I have edited Jabbour's transcription slightly and provided footnotes when I used Gainer's transcription. I have the recording.
R. Matteson 2012, 2014]
11. IN SCOTLAND TOWN
From the article Hammons Family by Alan Jabbour: Maggie Hammons Parker, vocal, October 23, 1970, recorded by Carl Fleischhauer and Dwight Diller. AFS 15,529 A16. Maggie Hammons Parker, Burl Hammons, and Alan Jabbour, conversation, September 21, 1970, recorded by Alan Jabbour. AFS 14,265 A9. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first instance of this ballad in the United States, except along the upper New England coast. It is an old British ballad, based upon a story that occurs in medieval romances (see Child 17, "Hind Horn"). Nearly all known versions have been taken down in Scotland and along the northeast coast of Canada and the United States. Maggie's version is not remarkably different from the central modern tradition of the ballad, in both the British Isles and the New World. She learned it from her *cousin [the article says cousin] Paris, who is reputed to have picked it up "on Cranberry." Maggie has been lionized a bit about this song; visitors with some knowledge of ballad tradition keep making much of it, perhaps to her annoyance, for they tend to emphasize British origins, while she is a firm believer in the creativity of the early American frontier. Though the Hammonses may admit to the theoretical possibility of British origin for their family and their traditions, their imaginative view of the past focuses upon frontier origins, and they react to the British notion without interest. This is the context of her comments here, recorded at the conclusion of another rendition of the song. Her objection to the song, as she says, is not because of the story, which strikes her as believable, but because the tune seems unsatisfactory. Almost certainly her dissatisfaction stems from the fact that the tune is really half of a tune. The usual tune for the ballad is the "Bird Song" tune (see Bronson, Traditional Tunes, I, p. 254-264), a normal four-phrase tune widely circulated throughout British-American tradition. Maggie's tune is the last two phrases of the usual tune, fitted to the couplet form of the ballad. Though truncated tunes can be musically acceptable, the brevity and the resultant repetitiveness probably bothered her. Oddly, the shortened two-phrase tune makes a neat fit for a ballad set in rhyming couplets, and there was a time when ballad scholars speculated that rhymed couplets were the original poetical medium for the ballad. A version like Maggie's would be grist for the mill of that argument, were it not for the fact that the tune can be shown to be a truncated form of a normal four-phrase tune rather than a survival of an "antique" two-phrase tune. On the matter of couplet ballads and tunes, see Bronson, The Ballad as Song, p. 43-44.
IN SCOTLAND TOWN- Maggie Hammons Parker (1899-1987) learned it from her cousin Paris, who is reputed to have picked it up "on Cranberry."
In Scotland town where l was borned
A lady gave to me a ring.
"Now if this ring proves bright and fair
You know that l have proved true, my dear.
And if this ring proves old and worn
You knew that your true love is with some other one."
So he went on board and away sailed he,
He sailed and he sailed to some foreign country.
He looked at his ring and his ring was worn,
He knew that his true love was with some other one.
So he went on board and back sailed he,
He sailed and he sailed to his own country.
One morning as l was riding along
I met with a poor old beggar man.
"Old man, old man, old man I pray.
What news have you got for me today?"
"Sad news, sad news to you I'll say,
For tomorrow is your true love's wedding day."
"So you can take my riding seat,
The beggar's rig I will put on."
"The riding seat ain't fit for me,
Nor the beggar's rig ain't fit for thee."
Oh whether it be right or whether it be wrong,
The beggar's rig he did put on.
So he begged from the rich, he begged from the poor,
He begged from the high to the lowest of 'em all.
Then he went on in an old man's 'ray [1]
Till he came to the steps of yonders gay.[2]
When the bride came trippling down the stairs,
Rings on her finger and gold in her hair,
And a glass of wine t' hold in her hand
To gave to the poor old beggar man.
He taked her glass and drinked the wine
And in that glass he placed a ring.
"Oh where did you get it from sea or land,
Or did you steal it from a drownded man's hand?"
"Oh neither did I get it from sea or land,
Or neither did I steal it from a drownded man's hand.
You gave it to me on our courting day,
Now I'll give it back to you on your wedding day."
Off of her finger the ring she pulled,
And off of her hair the gold did fall.
And between the kitchen and the hall
The beggar's rig he did let fall.
His gold a-showing out more fair than 'em all,
He was the fairest of the young men was in that hall.
"I'll follow my true love wherever he may go,
If l have to beg my food from door to door."
Maggie: Now you got that one.
Alan: Oh, that's a good song.
Burl: Yes, it is.
Maggie: They claim that's a good one; I don't like it too well.
Alan: Don't you? Maggie: No sir, I don't. I never did care much about the tune to it, now.
Alan: Oh, you don't? Maggie: It's a true song, I have an idea. See, she knew the ring, just as quick as he dropped it in the glass—
Alan: Yeah.
Maggie: —when he drank the wine, and—and he dropped the ring in it, and then she knew the ring. And she knowed he'd either got from a drownded—she thought the man had got drownded—
Burl: Yeah, she thought he'd—
Alan: Yeah.
Maggie: And he'd stoled it from a drownded man's hand. Why yes, that—now a song like that's kindly true.
1. So he went on at an old man's rate, [Gainer]
2. Till he cam to the steps on yonders gate. [Gainer]