Wednesday, January 28, 2009

old tongues



"the ladies' lament from the ballad of sir patrick spens".
elizabeth eleanor siddal, 1856.

"In the reign of Alexander III of Scotland, his daughter Margaret was escorted by a large party of nobles to Norway for her marriage to King Eric; on the return journey many of them were drowned. Twenty years later, after Alexander's death, his grand-daughter Margaret, the Maid of Norway, was heiress to the Scottish throne, and on the voyage to Scotland she died."

To reiterate. From Wiki:

"Born in 1950 into a Romany (Roma) family, Jackie Leven spent his childhood and teenage years clearly marked out as an outsider in the clannish, insular world that was Fife, Scotland at that time. Although Scottish himself, neither of his parents were from the area - his father was an Irish Cockney
, his mother was from a large Northumberland (Geordie) family, and adapting to existing cultural norms was a hard, if not formidable task for such incomers."


A traditional Scots lament.

JACKIE LEVEN: SIR PATRICK SPENS from "Fairytales For Hard Men" LP (Cooking Vinyl) 1997 (UK)

JACKIE LEVEN @ COOKING VINYL

3 comments:

ib said...

Of course, nobody speaks like that these days, with the exceptions of:

(a) A Roger Waters piss-taking piece of Python on "Ummagumma".

(b) The Simpsons.

(c) TV ads for Maynards Wine Gums.

(d) Any Scottish Tourist Board advertisment, or - equally - an SNP piece of "homecoming" hokum.

(e) Toffs at Burns' Suppers.

(f) Schoolteachers at The Royal National Mod (sadly nothing to do with the late Steve Marriott).

(g) Englishmen or foreigners in character.

(h) Stanley Baxter.

(i) The criminally out of touch.

Please feel free to make your own addition(s).

Löst Jimmy said...

Toffs at Burns' Suppers - an astute observation, some of these 'gatherings' have the stink of class snobbery about them which would fly in the face of Burns' own views methinks

The Maid of Norway perished very near my neck of the woods, The Orkneys

ib said...

The Orkneys: beautiful beaches, I've heard, although I've sadly never ventured that far north.

Yes. Burns has been hijacked by the straight and narrow-minded.