The Wylie Wife- Duncan (Aberdeenshire) c.1860s
Excerpt from The Tunes of the English and Scottish Ballads in the James Madison Carpenter Collection
by Julia C. Bishop.
In the case of 'The Wylie Wife of the Hie Toun Hie' and 'The White Fisher', the tunes which Carpenter had collected came from his most prized singer, Bell Duncan, an eighty-two-year-old woman living in a shepherd's cottage at Lambhill in the parish of Insch, Aberdeenshire.[44] She was the most prolific of his singers,[45] having over sixty Child ballads in her extensive repertoire, and he planned to give her songs-and her photograph-pride of place in his projected book.[46] Bell Duncan's version of 'The Wylie Wife' appears to be the only twentieth century version collected (see Figure 1),[47] for Bronson reprints no text or tune versions for the ballad. Child's English and Scottish Popular Ballads c ontains just four versions, of which the D text, 'from the recitation of Eppie Fraser, daughter of a tramp, and unable to read, about 1840', is the closest to that of Bell Duncan.[48] In Eppie Fraser's and Bell Duncan's versions, the men are identified as soldiers and there are similarities in the wording in the initial stanzas in particular. In Bell Duncan's version, however, the portion of narrative in which the 'lass' questions t he man as to his name is omitted, so that the narrative m oves straight into the lass's crying and cursing o f the treacherous 'auld wife'. To judge from the dashes in Carpenter's transcription, Bell Duncan had apparentlyf orgotten the next part of the ballad in which, in Eppie Fraser's version, it is revealed that the soldier becomes a captain and returns to marry the lass. The two versions end similarly with the lass now singing and blessing the auld wife.
A comparison of the full text of the song as transcribed by Carpenter and the corresponding stanza in the tune transcription shows that they are not exactly the same. This is probably because the latter was transcribed from the cylinder recording of the singer's performance whilst the full text was taken down at the singer's dictation. It is not clear why Carpenter has chosen to transcribe the words and music of the fourth stanza of the song; perhaps Bell Duncan only recollected other parts of the text later, after some prompting from Carpenter. Although he does not note it on the music transcription, the tune is hexatonic, lacking the sixth degree, and, according to his method of modal classification, would be designated Dorian/Aeolian.
The sojers a' sat drinking wine,
. . . .
. . . .
. . . .
'I'd gie ony ane a pint of wine
. . . .
An' sae wid I the ostler's wife
An she would entice yon lassie in.'
The ostler's wife gaed doon the stairs,
An' aye she say, 'Good morrow, dame.
An' gin ye would my favor win,
Come in an' tak a glass o wine.'
The lassie she's gane up the stair,
An' the ostler's wife gaed her ahin,
An' ilka door that the lassie opened,
The auld wife lockit her behind,
Until she cam enti the room
Where a' the merry young men sat in.
He's taen the lassie in his airms;
Sae gently as he set her doon.
In spite o tears an' lamentations,
He keepit her till late at noon.
An' noo the lassie sits an' greents [sic-JCB],
An' files she says a word atween;
An' hoo the lassie sits an' greets
An curses the auld wife that fesh her in.
. . . . [verse missing]
. . . .
. . . .
. . . .
An' noo the lassie sits an' sings,
An' file she says a word atween;
An' noo the lassie sits an' sings
An' blesses the auld wife that fesh her in.
Music- Figure 1 (see the attached pages: English & Other and also Sheet Music).
'The Wylie Wife', as sung by Bell Duncan, and recorded and transcribed by James M. Carpenter
Courtesy of the James Madison Carpenter Collection, Archive of Folk Culture, American Folklfe Center, Library of Congress
Footnotes:
44 See 'Forty Thousand Miles in Quest of Ballads', unpublished typescript, AFC 1972/001, Folder 161 (Box 7, Packet 2E); on Microfilm Reel 9. It should be noted that Duncan is a common surname in Scotland and that Bell Duncan was apparently no relation to Reverend James B. Duncan.
45 Interview, and 'Forty Thousand Miles in Quest of Ballads'.
46 'British and American Traditional Ballads'.
47 The text is from AFC 1972/001, Folder 98 (Box 4R); on Microfilm Reel 6, the tune from Folder 120 (Box 5, Packet 1U); o n Microfilm Reel 7, and there is a recording on AFS Disc 14,971 (Carpenter Disc No. 282).
48 Child, The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, IV , 155.