Volume IV, song 389, page 403 - 'The Gallant Weaver' -...
Volume IV, song 389, page 403 - 'The Gallant Weaver' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)
Verse 1: 'Where Cart rins rowin to the sea, By mony a flow'r and spreading tree, There lives a lad, the lad for me, He is a gallant Weaver. Oh I had wooers aught or nine, They gied me rings and ribbons fine; And I was fear'd my heart would tine, And I gied it to the Weaver.'
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, thought to have been written by Burns in 1791, is accompanied by a much older melody entitled, 'The Weaver's March or, The 21st August'. Also known under the title 'Frisky Jenny or, The Tenth of June', the tune appeared as early as 1728, in volume two of Henry Playford's 'Dancing Master'. Prior to the 'Museum', it also featured in James Aird's 'Selection of Scotch, English, Irish, and Foreign Airs, adapted for the Fife, Violin or German Flute', which was published in 1782.
Volume IV, song 389, page 403 - 'The Gallant Weaver' - Scanned from the 1853 edition of the 'Scots Musical Museum', James Johnson and Robert Burns (Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1853)