# The Book of Scottish Song/Auld Robin Gray

Auld Robin Gray.
[There is an old tune, called "The Bridegroom greits when the sun gaes down," united to old words of a somewhat indelicate character. About the end of 1771 or beginning of 1772, a young lady in Fifeshire, the daughter of a noble family there, and then only in her twenty-first year, being very fond of the tune, but scrupulous about the words, thought she would try her hand at making new words to it. She accordingly set to work, and produced a simple ballad of some eight or nine verses, which, on becoming known, was received with rapture wherever it spread—was translated into almost every European language—and was made the subject of dramas and of paintings innumerable. This little ballad, which records a tragedy in domestic life unhappily of no uncommon occurrence and yet of heart-rending pathos, was called "Auld Robin Gray," and the name of its authoress was Lady Ann Lindsay, daughter of the Earl of Balcarras, by his countess, Ann Dalrymple, daughter of Sir Robert Dalrymple of Castletoun, Bart. She was born on the 8th Dec. 1750, and was married in 1793 to Sir Andrew Barnard, a son of the bishop of Limerick, and Colonial Secretary at the Cape of Good Hope. Her husband died in 1807 without issue; her own death did not take place till the 6th of May, 1825, at Berkley Square, London, where she had long resided. "Lady Ann Barnard's face," says Mr. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, "was pretty, and replete with vivacity; her figure light and elegant; her conversation lively; and, like the rest of her family, peculiarly agreeable. Though she had wit, she never said ill-natured things to show it; she gave herself no airs either as a woman of rank or as the authoress of Auld Robin Gray."—Shortly before her death, she made a communication to Sir Walter Scott, containing a revised copy of Auld Robin Gray, with two verses of a continuation or second part. These were printed in a thin 4to volume for the Bannatyne Club. In the preface is inserted a letter from the authoress, from which we make the following extract.—"Robin Gray, so called from its being the name of the old herd at Balcarras, was born [written] soon after the close of the year 1771. My sister Margaret had married, and accompanied her husband to London; I was melancholy, and endeavoured to amuse myself by attempting a few poetical trifles. There was an ancient Scotch melody, of which I was passionately fond. ——— ———, who lived before your day, used to sing it to us at Balcarras. She did not object to its having improper words, though I did. I longed to sing old Sophy's air to different words, and give to its plaintive tones some little history of virtuous distress in humble life, such as might suit it. While attempting to effect this in my closet, I called to my little sister, now Lady Hardwicke, who was the only person near me, 'I have been writing a ballad, my dear; I am oppressing my heroine with many misfortunes. I have already sent her Jamie to sea—and broken her father's arm—and made her mother fall sick—and given her Auld Robin Gray for her lover; but I wish to load her with a fifth sorrow within the four lines, poor thing! Help me to one.'—'Steal the cow, sister Anne,' said the little Elizabeth. The cow was immediately lifted by me, and the song completed. At our fireside, and amongst our neighbours, 'Auld Robin Gray' was always called for. I was pleased in secret with the approbation it met with; but such was my dread of being suspected of writing anything, perceiving the shyness it created in those who could write nothing, that I carefully kept my own secret. . . . Meantime, little as this matter seems to have been worthy of a dispute, it afterwards became a party question between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. 'Robin Gray' was either a very ancient ballad, composed perhaps by David Rizzio, and a great curiosity, or a very modern matter, and no curiosity at all. I was persecuted to avow whether I had written it or not,—where I had got it. Old Sophy kept my counsel, and I kept my own, in spite of the gratification of seeing a reward of twenty guineas offered in the newspapers to the person who should ascertain the point past a doubt, and the still more flattering circumstance of a visit from Mr. Jerningham, secretary to the Antiquarian Society, who endeavoured to entrap the truth from me in a manner I took amiss. Had he asked me the question obligingly, I should have told him the fact distinctly and confidentially. The annoyance, however, of this important ambassador from the Antiquaries, was amply repaid to me by the noble exhibition of the 'Ballat of Auld Robin Gray's Courtship,' as performed by dancing-dogs under my window. It proved its popularity from the highest to the lowest, and gave me pleasure while I ​hugged myself in my obscurity." It remains to be added, that although "Auld Robin Gray" was originally written to the old tune of "The Bridegroom greits when the sun gaes down," it is now, with the exception of the first verse, which retains the old air, universally sung to a beautiful modern tune, composed by the Rev. William Leeves, rector of Wrington, who died in 1828, aged 80. We do not here give the continuation or second part of "Auld Robin Gray," in which the old gentleman is made to die, and "young Jamie" to marry the widow, as it is admitted on all hands to be a failure, and to destroy totally the beauty of the original story. In the present version we follow chiefly the old reading, which differs somewhat from that given by the authoress when late in life, as the alterations she then made do not appear to us to be improvements.]
When the sheep are in the fauld, and the kye a' at hame, When a' the weary world to sleep are gane, The waes o' my heart fa' in showers frae my e'e, While my gudeman lies sound by me.
Young Jamie lo'ed me weel, and sought me for his bride; But saving a crown he had naething else beside. To make the crown a pound, my Jamie gaed to sea; And the crown and the pound, they were baith for me!
He hadna been awa' a week but only twa, When my mither she fell sick, and the cow was stown awa; My father brak his arm—my Jamie at the sea— And Auld Robin Gray came a-courting me.
My father couldna work—my mither couldna spin; I toil'd day and night, but their bread I couldna win; Auld Rob maintain'd them baith, and, wi' tears in his e'e, Said, "Jenny, for their sakes, will you marry me?"
My heart it said na, and I look'd for Jamie back; But hard blew the winds, and his ship was a wrack: His ship it was a wrack! Why didna Jenny dee? And wherefore was I spar'd to cry, Wae is me!
My father argued sair—my mither didna speak, But she look'd in my face till my heart was like to break; They gied him my hand, but my heart was in the sea; And so Auld Robin Gray, he was gudeman to me.
I hadna been his wife, a week but only four, When mournfu' as I sat on the stane at the door, I saw my Jamie's ghaist—I couldna think it he, Till he said, "I'm come hame, my love, to marry thee!"
O sair, sair did we greet, and mickle did we say: Ae kiss we took—nae mair—I bad him gang away. I wish that I were dead, but I'm no like to dee; And why do I live to say, Wae is me!
I gang like a ghaist, and I carena to spin; I darena think o' Jamie, for that wad be a sin. But I will do my best a gude wife aye to be, For Auld Robin Gray, he is kind to me.