Songs of Angus: Busk, Busk, Bonnie Lassie

 There's an understandable mystery concerning many traditional folk songs. Who wrote them and why? And what age are they? If they are relatively modern, can they still qualify as traditional? Musicologists and folkie gurus could possibly answer these questions, but not myself. Some songs too have a weird tendency to 'borrow' tunes from older songs, and the 'borrowing' does not even have to be from the same country. More than a few songs too have multiple names to throw enquirers off the scent and add to their inherent mystery.

The greatest mystery in this beautiful song is the identity of the male and female protagonists.

The subject of this piece is one such. It's primary (and best) name is 'Busk, Busk, Bonnie Lassie'. It is not an exhortation to send a poor girl onto the streets and play dodgy tunes for hard cash. The word busk, in this context, seems to signify 'prepare' or 'dress (yourself) up'. An alternative title for the song is 'Bonnie Glenshee,' which seems blatantly wrong (and not because I am an Angus bigot) since the song primarily focusses on the Angus glen of Isla and not the neighbouring Perthshire Glenshee, as can be seen from the lyrics below. 

   There seems little trace of the song, whatever we call it, until the 1950s, when it appeared on an album by the Aberdeen singer Jeannie Robertson. Hamish Henderson sagely pinpointed the song's appeal at the time: 'With the last song, the mood changes. Busk, Busk, Bonnie Lassie is a previously unrecorded love song from the Eastern Highlands; its strange nostalgic words and its superb melody combine to evoke most powerfully the atmosphere of the lonely Angus braes.' It is undoubtedly a haunting evocation of place that richly deserves a wider audience, and indeed it has been recorded quite a few times over the years. 

The Stewarts of Blaigrowrie new the tune and may have been instrumental in shaping and preserving it, and many in the 1960s heard their version of the song. The redoubtable Corries covered the song on their 'Live' A Live O set from 1968. It is slightly surprising that they do not seem to have included this lovely yearning tune very much in their later reportoire. 

   The late Dundonian musician Jim Reid also included a version of the song on his 1984 album I Saw the Wild Geese Fly. (The second set of lyrics below were favoured by him.) Another local singer who recorded it was Joe Aitken from Kirriemuir who recorded it on a 2007 live album. A wonderful, unaccompanied version sung by Iona Fyfe can be found on You Tube. A version collected by Hamish Henderson and performed by Charlotte Higgins can be found on the Tobar an Dualchais wesbite: here

Jim Reid

Some Versions of the Lyrics

There is no definitive version of the lyrics to the song, so several versions are given below.

1

Oh do you see yon high hills

All covered with snow

They hae parted many a true love

And they'll soon part us twa

Chorus ; Busk, busk, bonnie lassie

And come along wi' me

And I'll take ye tae Glen Isla

Near Bonnie Glen Shee

Oh, do you see yon shepherd,

As he walks along

With his plaidie pulled aroond him

As his sheep they graze on

Chorus

Oh do you see yon soldiers

As they all march along

Wi' their muskets on their shoulders

And their broadswords hanging down

Chorus

Oh do you see yon high hills

All covered with snow

They hae parted many a true love

And they'll soon part us twa

2

Dae ye see yon high hills,

Aa covered ower wi snaw?

They hae pairted mony the true love,

And they'll soon pairt us twa.

Busk, busk bonnie lassie and come awa wi me,

And I'll tak ye tae Glen Isla near bonnie Glen Shee.

Dae ye see yon shepherd,

As he gaes alang,

Wi his plaidie roun aboot him,

And his sheep they graze on?"

Busk, busk bonnie lassie and come awa wi me,

And I'll tak ye tae Glen Isla near bonnie Glen Shee.

Dae ye see yon soldiers,

As they march alang,

Wi their muskets on their shoulders,

And their broadswords hingin doun?"

Busk, busk bonnie lassie and come awa wi me,

And I'll tak ye tae Glen Isla near bonnie Glen Shee

Dae ye see yon high hills,

Aa covered ower wi snaw?

They hae pairted mony the true love,

And they'll soon pairt us twa.

Busk, busk bonnie lassie and come awa wi me,

And I'll tak ye tae Glen Isla near bonnie Glen Shee

3

Oh, do you see yon shepherds,
As they walk along
With their plaidies pulled aboot them
And their sheep they graze on

Busk, busk, bonnie lassie
And come along wi' me
And I'll take ye tae Glen Isla
Near Bonnie Glen Shee

Oh do you see yon soldiers
As they all march along
Wi' their guns on their shoulders
And their broadswords hanging down

Oh do you see yon high hills
All covered with snow
They hae parted many a true love
And they'll soon part us twa

Some Previous Posts About Ballads and Songs

Dundee Songs - Baffling Meanings

Is Angus Part of "Ballad Land"?

The Banks of Sweet Dundee

A Few More Songs About Dundee and District

The Fields Have Names

   This post, like many others, might be categorised as a provisional piece, based as it is on a limited amount of information in my possession. I have considered place-names before of course, in past articles such as The Musical Magic of Place-Names. I have also lamented (or moaned) about the dearth of academic studies of place-names in Angus compared with other areas better served in this way. I will doubtless moan about this again in the future, as the mood takes me.

I hope to enlarge this current article when evidence more on the subject eventually arrives. Many parts of Scotland have a substrata of place-names given over to fields, and it is possible that these are understudied. What definitely seems to be true is that there has been no systematic study of field names in Angus. Much of what follows (piecemeal as it is) has been gleaned from Colin Gibson's long-running 'Nature Diary' in the Dundee Courier.

    Landscape Features, Monetary Value

 

   Many, perhaps most, field-names would have been named after prominent local landscape features, which could be as simple as haugh, ley, rig, park, flat, butt, rig. One of these is Whiteleys Park, Airlie. Otherwise, the names could reference other simple features. These names might easily identify specific fields for those called on to work there. Examples of this include Crippleshade (in Carmyllie area, referencing a cripple-gap placed in a wall to allow sheep to pass through), Paterscrede in Lunan (apparently signifying a low, turfy field). The Harey (Arbirlot or Carmyllie) took its designation from a boundary stone. Glutty signified a flood-prone field, as did another field called Fluthers. Merklands obviously relates to price, as does Twenty Pennies. Other fields may have been named after long-gone tenants or owners

                                                       Animal Names

  A few of these can be noted straight off. Teuchat's Wood was another Angus field name, from the south of the county, named of course after the habitat of the lapwing. Fawn's Castle was a field at Drumbertnot, Lunan, and there may be many more field-names of this sort (as well as other topographical features) named after birds and beasts. There is Sheep's Haugh, near Kirriemuir, a name which is almost certainly not unique.

                                             Vanished Buildings

Judging from the field names which have survived, none of them qualify as being genuinely ancient. Some may represent original Gaelic names but none (that I know of) might be called Pictish. Despite that, they are valuable in some instances in showing where there was once a croft, a doocot, or some other ediface perhaps. The College at Kellyfield, Arbirlot, is sometimes cited as the site of an ecclesiastical building associated with Arbroath Abbey or its Celtic predecessor. Kirk Shade at The Gask, Letham, is also reckoned to recall a vanished ecclesiastic building. 

                                               Stranger Names

   Many of the following names many be readily decipherable to some people (and I welcome suggestions), though other meanings may have been lost in the haar of time. There was a field named The Zeppelin which remembered an incident when a German dirigible dropped bombs harmlessly on that plot of land during World War One. I do not know the details behind this incident unfortunately. At Invergowrie, on the Perthshire border, there was Hole Field on Home Farm, named after the alarming and sudden appearance of a great chasm in the ground there. 

A field named Blue Breeks was surmised by Colin Gibson to have originally been called Bare Breeks, a sly commentary on the infertility of that place. There is a field named Paradise in Arbirlot; why it was called this is a mystery. Other unexplained names include The Dourie, The Brogie, The Milner, Moor o' Scare (at Courthill), and the magnificent Gruggle o' the Wad at Carmyllie. The farm of Balcalk at Tealing had the following named fields: Paisline, Crapodale, Hatton Well, Knockmarumple, Tilliehaggleton, Crap Angry. Scroggie and Cannon Den were at Lunan. A field near Forfar was called The Gowpens, signifying two handfuls of corn. The Deil's Knap at Lunan possibly recalls the old Goodman's Crofts, a parcel of land set aside as an insurance policy to the Devil as an insurance for the fertility of the rest of the farm. 

Strathmartine, looking towards the Tay

This post has used (among other sources) material from Colin Gibson's articles in The Courier on Saturday 15 July 1989, Saturday 12 June 1993, Saturday 15 October 1994.