“Auld Robin Gray ”

Description

Jamie leaves Jenny to earn enough to be married. Her family has bad luck. Robin Gray supports them and asks Jenny to marry. Jamie's ship is wrecked and Jennie assumes he is dead. She marries Robin. Jamie returns too late.

Supplemental text

Auld Robin Gray 
  Partial text(s)

          *** A ***

Old Robin Gray

From Kenneth Peacock, Songs of the Newfoundland Outports, Volume II,
pp. 482-483. Sung by Phillip Foley, Tilting, July 1952.

My Jimmy loved me well and he sought me for his bride,
By saving a crown there was nothing else denied,
To make the crown a pound my Jimmy went to see,
And the crown and the pound they were both saved for me.

(6 additional stanzas)

Notes

Original text is on Bartleby.com with the attribution. The date is 1794 per site for Early American Secular Music and Its European Sources, 1589-1839.

Per site for The First Hypertext Edition of The Dictionary of Phrase and Fable [this] was written to an old Scotch tune called "The bridegroom grat when the sun gaed down." - BS

Broadside Bodleian, Firth b.25(24), "The Death of Auld Robin Gray," J. T. Burdett (London), c. 1855, seems to be some sort of a by-blow of this, since the characters are Robin Gray, Jamie, and Jenny, but it manages a happy ending by having Robiin die so that Jamie and Jenny are still available for each other. - RBW

Broadsides

• Bodleian, Harding B 14(4), "Auld Robin Gray", Fowler (Salisbury), 1770-1800; also Harding B 25(88), Firth b.27(516), Harding B 11(7), Harding B 11(162), Firth b.26(412), "Auld Robin Gray"
• Murray, Mu23-y4:029, "Auld Robin Gray", John Ross (Newcastle), 19C

References

1. Peacock, pp. 482-483, "Old Robin Gray" (1 text, 1 tune)
2. ADDITIONAL: Walter de la Mare, _Come Hither_, revised edition, 1928; #376, "Auld Robin Gray" (1 text)
3. ST Pea482 (Partial)
4. Roud #2652
5. BI, Pea482