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Description: | Verse 1: 'Auld Rob the laird o' muckle land, to woo me was nae very blate, But spite o' a' his gear he fand, he came to woo, a day o'er late. A lad sae blyth, sae full o' glee, My heart did never never ken, And nane can gie sic joy to me, as Jamie o' the glen.' 'Muckle' is large, 'blate' is 'shy' or 'timid', 'gear' in this instance refers to wealth or property and 'fand' is 'found'.
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.
Although very few of the songs and melodies in the 'Museum' are written by women, a large number of the songs included are written from the female perspective. Burns was considered particularly adept at writing from the viewpoint of the opposite sex. Unfortunately, the author of 'Jamie o' the Glen' is not known. As to the tune, John Glen (1900) noted that 'This tune is of a trifling and mongrel description'. According to Glen, its first appearance was under the title 'Auld Rab the Laird' in Volume Four of James Aird's 'Selection of Scotch, English, Irish, and Foreign Airs' (1794). | 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 V, song 408, page 420 - 'Jamie o' | Go to resource |
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