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Little Beggarman, The/Red Haired Boy
Traditional Irish (originally), Scottish, English; Air or Hornpipe: American, Canadian; Reel or Breakdown. A Mixolydian. Standard. AABB (most versions): AA'BB' (Moylan). 'Red Haired Boy' is the English translation of the Gaelic title "Giolla Rua".
CATEGORY: Fiddle and Instrumental Tunes; DATE: Bunting's 1840: A Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland;
RECORDING INFO: Austen, Seth. Appalachian Fiddle Tunes for Finger Style Guitar, Kicking Mule KM 174, LP (1982), cut# 2. Bowers, Bryan. View from Home, Flying Fish FF-037, LP (1977), cut# 7. Bromberg, David; Band. Midnight on the Water, Columbia PC 33397, LP (1975), cut#A.02b .Brown, Sullivan & Company. Magnum Banjos, Sequatchie --, LP (197?), cut# 8 .Grossman, Stefan. Thunder on the Run, Kicking Mule KM 171, LP (1980), cut#A.04b (Redhaired Boy). Phipps, Bonnie. Autoharpin', Kicking Mule KM 228, LP (1982), cut# 5. Skylark. Favorites, Little Bird LB 1001, Cas (1990), cut#A.04; Stinnett, Cyril. Plain Old Time Fiddling, Stinnett SLP 1013, LP (197?), cut#B.06 (Gilroy) . Thomason, Ron. Mandolin and Other Stuff, Kanawha RT-3, LP (198?), cut#A.01a. Watson, Doc. Doc Watson's Favorites, Liberty LN-10201, LP (1983), cut#A.05a (Little Beggarman)
OTHER NAMES: "The Duck Chews Tobacco," "The First of May", "Gilderoy" (Ire.), "Giolla Rua" (Ire.), "Johnny Dhu," "The Little Beggarman" (Ire.), "The Little Beggar Boy," "An Maidrin Ruadh" (The Little Red Fox)," "The Old Soldier with a Wooden Leg" (W.Va.), "Old Soldier," "The Red Haired Lad," "The Red Headed/Haired Irishman" (Ky.), "Wooden Leg" (W.Va.).
SOURCES: J.P. Fraley (Rush, Ky.) [Phillips]; learned from fiddler Padraig O'Keeffe by accordion player Johnny O'Leary (Sliabh Luachra region of the Cork-Kerry border) [Moylan]; fiddler Dawson Girdwood (Perth, Ottawa Valley, Ontario) [Begin]. Begin (Fiddle Music in the Ottawa Valley: Dawson Girdwood), 1985; No. 27, pg. 40. Krassen (Appalachian Fiddle), 1973; pg. 81. Messer (Anthology of Favorite Fiddle Tunes), 1980; No. 69, pg. 44. Miller & Perron (New England Fiddlers Repertoire), 1983; No. 132. Moylan (Johnny O'Leary), 1994; No. 300, pg. 173. O'Neill (1915 ed.), 1987; No. 356, pg. 173 (appears as "The Redhaired Lad"). O'Neill (Krassen), 1976; pg. 209. O'Neill (1850), 1903/1979; No. 1748, pg. 325. O'Neill (1001 Gems), 1907/1986; No. 921, pg. 157. Phillips (Traditional American Fiddle Tunes), 1994. pg. 196. Spandaro (10 Cents a Dance), 1980; pg. 34. Sweet (Fifer's Delight), 1965/1981; pg. 77. Columbia C 33397, Dave Bromberg Band - "Midnight on the Water" (1975). Smithsonian Folkways SFW CD 40126, Northern Spy - "Choose Your Partners!: Contra Dance & Square Dance Music of New Hampshire" (1999).
NOTES: "The Little Beggarman" is best known in the US as the bluegrass fiddle tune, “Red Haired Boy.” A US version of the “Red Haired Boy” tune is "Old Soldier with a Wooden Leg" from the Civil War period.
From A Fiddler’s Companion: The English translation of the Gaelic title "Giolla Rua" (or, Englished, "Gilderoy"), and is generally thought to commemorate a real-life rogue and bandit, however, Baring-Gould remarks that in Scotland the "Beggar" of the title is also identified with King James V. The song was quite common under the Gaelic and the alternate title "The Little Beggarman" (or "The Beggarman," "The Beggar") throughout the British Isles. For example, it appears in Baring-Gould's 1895 London publication Garland of Country Song and in The Forsaken Lover's Garland, and in the original Scots in The Scots Musical Museum.
A similarly titled song, "Beggar's Meal Poke's," was composed by James VI of Scotland (who in course became James the I of England), an ascription confused often with his ancestor James I, who was the reputed author of the verses of a song called "The Jolly Beggar." The tune is printed in Bunting's 1840 A Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland as "An Maidrin Ruadh" (The Little Red Fox). The melody is one of the relatively few common to fiddlers throughout Scotland and Ireland, and was transferred nearly intact to the American fiddle tradition (both North and South) where it has been a favorite of bluegrass fiddlers in recent times. Here are the Irish lyrics for Little Beggarman:
I am a little beggarman, a begging I have been
For three score years in this little isle of green
I'm known along the Liffey from the Basin to the Zoo
And everybody calls me by the name of Johnny Dhu.
Of all the trades a going, sure the begging is the best
For when a man is tired he can sit him down and rest
He can beg for his dinner, he has nothing else to do
But to slip around the corner with his old rigadoo.
I slept in a barn one night in Currabawn
A shocking wet night it was, but I slept until the dawn
There was holes in the roof and the raindrops coming through
And the rats and the cats were a playing peek a boo.
Who did I waken but the woman of the house
With her white spotted apron and her calico blouse
She began to frighten and I said boo
Sure, don't be afraid at all, it's only Johnny Dhu.
I met a little girl while a walkin out one day
Good morrow little flaxen haired girl, I did say
Good morrow little beggarman and how do you do
With your rags and your tags and your auld rigadoo.
I'll buy a pair of leggins and a collar and a tie
And a nice young lady I'll go courting by and by
I'll buy a pair of goggles and I'll color them with blue
And an old fashioned lady I will make her too.
So all along the high road with my bag upon my back
Over the fields with my bulging heavy sack
With holes in my shoes and my toes a peeping through
Singing, skin a ma rink a doodle with my auld rigadoo.
O I must be going to bed for it's getting late at night
The fire is all raked and now ‘tis out of light
For now you've heard the story of my auld rigadoon
So good and God be with you, from auld Johnny Dhu.
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