The Cruel Mither- Higgins (Aberdeen) 1973
Lizzie Higgins [Mrs Elizabeth Ann Youlden] was born in the Guest Row of Aberdeen in 1929. Her parents were settled Travellers: Donald ('Donty') Higgins, a piper of great repute, and Jeannie Robertson, the ballad singer. She was discovered when she was 38 and died in 1993.
Notes from Musical Traditions Records 2006 CD: Lizzie Higgins: In Memory of ... (MTCD337-8):
Once an extremely popular ballad, as 254 Roud entries make clear. Dave Atkinson’s article History, Symbol and Meaning in The Cruel Mother (Folk Music Journal 1992. Vol.6 no.3. pp.359 - 380) is extremely good and includes an illustration of a blackletter broadside, The Duke’s Daughter’s Cruelty, or, the Wonderfcul Apparition of twi Infants whom she Murther’d and Buried in a Forrest, for to hide her Shame, printed by Jonah Deacon towards the end of the 17th century. Child cites many European variants and Anne Gilchrist shows how the ballad became a children’s song in Journal of the Folk Song Society Vol.3. p.8.
Other recordings: Jock Duncan (Aberdeenshire) - Springthyne SPRCD 1039. Duncan Burke (Perthshire)/Cecelia Costello (Birmingham)/Thomas Moran (Leitrim) - Rounder CD 1775. Vicki Whelan (Lancashire) - Musical Traditions MTCD 311-2.
One of the 'big' ones, with 275 Roud entries, most of which are from the USA. Although he gives 35 sound recordings, few remain available on CD. Vicky Whelan sings There was a Lady Dressed in Green on Musical Traditions MTCD311-2 Up in the North and Down in the South, Lucy Stewart sings it on Traditional singer from Aberdeenshire CTRAX031, originally a Folkways release, and five of the usual suspects share one of those horrible composite tracks on Rounder's CD1775 Classic Ballads 1.
Herd first printed a fragment of this in his Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs in 1776, and similar versions, although with differing locations and choruses, were noted by Child from early in the next century. Aberdeenshire's Peter Buchan (1790-1854) published an unusual Minister's Daughter of New York version in his Ballads of the North of Scotland in 1828 so it is not surprising that some of Greig and Duncan's 1900's singers identified the story either with 'the Duke of York' or the 'Queen's/Minister's daughter of New York', pointing to considerable 'contamination' from printed sources (mentioned, in fact, by several of them). The pipe tune it is sung to, The Greenwood Side, is a favourite for Reveille in the Scottish regiments, especially the Gordon Highlanders. Lizzie's father taught it to her.
2-7 The Cruel Mither Lizzie Higgins, learned from her father; Recorded by Peter Hall at the Aberdeen Folk Festival, 1973
She's leant her back against a aik,[1]
All alone and aloney-o.
She's pushed and she's pushed
'Til her back's near break,
Doon in the bonny greenwoodsidey-o.
She's laid her head against a thorn,
All alone and aloney-o.
Two bonny babies ever were born,
Doon in the bonny greenwoodsidey-o.
She's went back til her father's castle ha,[2]
All alone and aloney-o.
She wis the sma'est[3] maid o them aa,
Doon in the bonny greenwoodsidey-o.
She looked ower her father's castle ha,
All alone and aloney-o.
Two bonny babies playin at the ba,
Doon in the bonny greenwoodsidey-o.
Oh dear babies, gin[4] ye were mine,
All alone and aloney-o.
I'd gie[5] ye bread, and I'd gie ye wine,
Doon in the bonny greenwoodsidey-o.
Oh dear mither, when we were thine,
All alone and aloney-o.
Aroon our necks you pult[6] a twine,
Doon in the bonny greenwoodsidey-o.
We are in the Heavens sae high,
All alone and aloney-o;
In the Hell's fires you will die,
Doon in the bonny greenwoodsidey-o.
1 oak;
2 hall;
3 smallest;
4 if;
5 give;
6 pulled.