Scots Songs

The Highland Games are over, but I'm still in the mood. A couple of these are sung by Irishmen, but they're Scots songs. One for T99, who identified it rightly:



"...ere the king's crown go down, there are crowns to be broke. So for each cavalier who loves honor and me, let him follow the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee."

And another, for every good-hearted brawler.



And one more, for true lovers. It's an odd piece of advice, but not a bad one: Go and ask your father, and you know he'll set you right.



UPDATE: See JW's suggestions in the comments; but here are two more.



This one especially is a fine song:



And of course there's American Scots.

2 comments:

Joseph W. said...

Can't get enough of 'em! A few that I like --

The Old Blind Dogs' rendition of Harlaw.

The Corries' rendition of The Bloody Sarks (on the Battle of Glen Fruin)

And Gaberlunzie's version of Twa Recruiting Sergeants.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

I wouldn't worry much about who is singing the song or where it comes from. They change over time, and I'm sure that in every age there was some pedant in the back complaining "Nah, nah, tha's not a Scots song, tha's fra Orkney and cam doon fra the Vickings" or the Picts, or one of the Isles, or whatever. Tavern performers are thieves anyway.

You need critical mass to hold the culture. The Scots-Irish settled here (the Merrimack Valley in NH) before the South, but they were fewer. The old Presbyterian churches still function, and the towns have names like Derry, Antrim, Dunbarton, but they all went native - Puritan - and the music fell away. We needed the Quebecois to bring the fiddles back.

They assimilated about the time of the split into Unitarians and Congregationalists. The Scots-Irish joined some of each.