“An Binnsin Luchra (The Little Bench [or Bunch] of Rushes)”

Description

Irish Gaelic: Singer, going to the water-meadow, meets a girl who has cut rushes. He bids her join him in the forest. She reproaches him; he'd promised a home and fine clothing, "all in payment for the bench of roses and the trouble I had over it"

Supplemental text

An Binnsin Luchra (The Little Bench [or Bunch] of Rushes)
  Complete text(s)

          *** A ***

From Helen Creighton, Folksongs from Southern New Brunswick,
#22, p. 54. Collected from Angelo Dornan, Elgin, N. B. A fragment
of a song probably originally Gaelic.

"I'll deck you out in splendour
With costly jewels my Arabian queen,
I mean my charming Mary Ann
With your bonny bunch of rushes green."

"'Tis hard for to refuse you
Although you have led me astray
I'll go with you although I know
My days I'll spend in mourning."

Notes

Fowke/MacMillan notes to 64: "This is an English version of the widely known Irish Gaelic song ... In JFSS III 17 Lucy Broadwood gives a version from Waterford, Ireland, with alternate English and Gaelic stanzas." Fowke/MacMillan includes the "Arabian Queen" reference that ties it to Creighton-SNewBrunswick.

Broadside Bodleian Harding B 11(393), which is in English, is -- like Fowke/MacMillan -- just about seduction; it refers to "any queen" rather than "Arabian queen" and shares the reference to hunting dogs and singing birds with Fowke/MacMillan. -BS

Broadsides

• Bodleian, Harding B 11(393), "Rushes Green," W. Armstrong (Liverpool), 1820-1824; also Harding B 11(3369), 2806 c.17(371), "Rushes Green"

Recordings

• Philip McDermott, "The Reaping of the Rushes Green" (on Voice18, IRHardySons)
• Maire O'Sullivan, "An Binnsin Luchra (The Little Bench [or Bunch] of Rushes)" [fragment] (on Lomax42, LomaxCD1742)

References

1. Fowke/MacMillan 64, "The Bonny Bunch of Rushes Green" (1 text, 1 tune)
2. Creighton-SNewBrunswick 22, "Bonny Bunch of Rushes Green" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
3. ST RcABLtlb (Full)
4. Roud #3380
5. BI, RcABLtlb