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Description: | Verse 1: 'The winter it is past, and the summers come at last, And the small birds sing on ev'ry tree. The hearts of these are glad but mine is very sad, For my Lover has parted from me.'
The 'Scots Musical Museum' is the most important of the numerous eighteenth- and nineteenth-century collections of Scottish song. When the engraver James Johnson started work on the second volume of his collection in 1787, he enlisted Robert Burns as contributor and editor. Burns enthusiastically collected songs from various sources, often expanding or revising them, whilst including much of his own work. The resulting combination of innovation and antiquarianism gives the work a feel of living tradition.
This song is also known by the name of 'The Curragh of Kildare'. The hero of this tune is thought to be the highwayman Johnson, who was hung during the 1750s for a string of robberies in County Kildare. There is, however, some doubt over the Irish origin of the song. This is based on the fact that the Irish woman, Betty Skillin, who remembers singing it, lived no earlier than 1850. This is still 60 years after the publication of the 'Museum'. | License: | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0 | Publisher: | National Library of Scotland | Temporal: | 1787-01-01 - 1803-12-31 | Source: | Burns Scotland | Identifier: | Volume II, song 200, page 208 - 'The Win | Go to resource |
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