ANDREW LAMMIE_The English and Scottish popular ballads, volume 4 (of 5)

#A.# ‘The Trumpeter of Fyvie,’ Jamieson’s Popular Ballads, I, 126,

1806.

#B#. ‘Tifty’s Nanny,’ Jamieson’s Popular Ballads, II, 382, from a

stall-copy.

#C. a.# ‘Andrew Lammie,’ Buchan’s Gleanings, p. 98, 1825 ; Laing’s

Thistle of Scotland, p. 55, 1823. #b.# Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, p.

239.

Jamieson, in his preface, 1806, says that this ballad was current in the

Border counties within a few years, and that #A# was taken down by

Leyden from the recitation of a young lady who learned it in Teviotdale.

Writing to Scott, in November, 1804, of such ballads as he had already

prepared for the press, he says, “Trumpeter of Fyvie, from tradition,

furnished by Mr Leyden, and collated with a stall-copy” (probably #B#):

Letters addressed to Sir Walter Scott, Abbotsford, I, No. 117.

Buchan, in the notes to his Gleanings, 1825, p. 197, says of #C a#:

“This is one of the greatest favorites of the people in Aberdeenshire

that I know. I took it first down from the memory of a very old woman,

and afterwards published thirty thousand copies of it. There are two

versions, an old and a new; but, although I have both, I prefer this

one, the younger of the two, having been composed and acted in the year

1674.” Laing, who reprints #A# in his Thistle of Scotland, p. 63, calls

that the “old way of Andrew Lammie.” Motherwell, 1827, reprints “a

stall-copy published at Glasgow several years ago, collated with a

recited copy which has furnished one or two verbal improvements:” #C b#.

There are a great many variations from #C a#, of which precisely one or

two are verbal improvements. But Motherwell also gives six stanzas which

are not in #a#. His copy is repeated in The Ballad Minstrelsy of

Scotland, Glasgow, 1871, and there the editor says that in a chap-book

printed by J. and M. Robertson, Saltmarket, Glasgow, 1808, “Andrew

Lammie is given with only a few slight verbal differences between it and

the copy here printed.” Such stall-copies as I have seen are late, and

are reprints of #C a# or of #C b#. Motherwell assures us that the ballad

as he has given it “agrees with any recited copy which the Editor has

hitherto met with in the West Country.”

A professed edition, “most carefully collated with all previous

editions,” was published at Peterhead, 1872: “Mill o Tifty’s Annie, A

Buchan Ballad, with Introduction,” etc. This is attributed to the Rev.

Dr John Muir of Aberdeen. ‘Mill o Tiftie’s Annie’ in Christie, I, 48 “is

epitomized from traditional copies;” that is to say, it is taken from

Motherwell, with a trifling change here and there. A copy given in

Smith’s New History of Aberdeenshire is compounded of #A#, #B#, and a

couple of lines from #C b#.

Annie, daughter to a well-to-do miller, loses her heart to a handsome

trumpeter in the service of Lord Fyvie. Her father will not hear of such

a match. (Annie has five thousand marks, and the man not a penny, #A#

11.) The trumpeter is obliged to go to Edinburgh for a time, and Annie

appoints him a tryst at a bridge. He will buy her her wedding-gear while

he is away, and marry her when he comes back. Annie knows that she shall

be dead ere he returns, and bids him an everlasting adieu.[130] The

trumpeter goes to the top of the castle and blows a blast which is heard

at his love’s house. Her father beats her, her mother beats her; her

brother beats her and breaks her back. Lord Fyvie is passing on one of

these occasions, comes in, and urges Mill of Tiftie to yield to his

daughter’s inclinations. The father is immovable; she must marry higher

than with a trumpeter. Annie is put to bed, with her face towards Fyvie,

and dies of a broken heart and of the cruel treatment which she has

undergone.

This is a homely ditty,[131] but the gentleness and fidelity of Annie

under the brutal behavior of her family are genuinely pathetic, and

justify the remarkable popularity which the ballad has enjoyed in the

north of Scotland. In those parts the story has been played as well as

sung. “The ballad used in former times to be presented in a dramatic

shape at rustic meetings in Aberdeenshire,” says Chambers (Scottish

Ballads, p. 143); perhaps misinterpreting and expanding the enunciation

made by Buchan and in the title of some stall-copies that “this tragedy

was acted in the year 1674,” which may rather refer to the date of the

story. But however it may have been in former times, two rival companies

in Aberdeenshire were performing plays founded on the ballad in

1887–8.[132]

“Bonny Andrew Lammie” was a well-known personage at the beginning of the

last century, for, as Jamieson has pointed out, he is mentioned in a way

that implies this by Allan Ramsay, in the second of his two cantos in

continuation of Christ’s Kirk on the Green, written, as Ramsay says, in

1718. (Poems, London, 1731, I, 76, v. 70.)

Mill of Tiftie is, or was, a farm-house on the side of a glen about half

a mile northeast of the castle of Fyvie, and in view of its turrets (on

one of which there now stands a figure of the Trumpeter sounding towards

Tiftie). The mill proper, now a ruin, was in the bottom of the glen, and

gave its name to the house. The bridge of Sleugh, otherwise Skeugh,

etc., was in the hollow between Tiftie and the castle.[133]

Annie was Agnes Smith, Nannie being among her people an affectionate

form for Agnes. There is reason to believe that she may have been

daughter of a William Smith who is known to have been a brother or near

kinsman of the laird of Inveramsay, a person of some local

consequence.[134] An inscription on her gravestone makes Agnes Smith to

have died January 19, 1673.[135]

“Some years subsequent to the melancholy fate of poor Tifty’s Nanny,”

says Jamieson, II, 387, citing the current tradition of Fyvie, “her sad

story being mentioned and the ballad sung in a company in Edinburgh when

[Andrew Lammie] was present, he remained silent and motionless, till he

was discovered by a groan suddenly bursting from him and _several of the

buttons flying from his waistcoat_.” The peasants of Fyvie, Jamieson

continues, “borrowed this striking characteristic of excessive grief”

neither from the Laocoön group nor from Shakspere’s King Lear, but from

nature. The anecdote, and the comment too, is apt to be repeated by

editors of ‘Andrew Lammie.’ That “affecting image of overpowering

grief,” as Chambers calls it, the flying off of the buttons (or the

bursting of a waistcoat), we have had several times already, though in

no ballad (or version) of much note: see II, 118, #D# 17, 186, #C# 15,

308, 4; IV, 101, I 15, 185, 11. It must be owned to be a stroke that

does not well bear iteration. Mrs. Littlewit in ‘Bartholomew Fair’ has a

tedious life with her Puritan, she says: “he breaks his buttons and

cracks seams at every saying he sobs out.” Ben Jonson has taken out one

of the best things in our tragedy and put it into his comedy.

The air to which this ballad was usually sung, Jamieson informs us, was

“of that class which in Teviotdale they term a northern drawl; and a

Perthshire set of it, but two notes lower than it is commonly sung, is

to be found in Johnson’s Scots Musical Museum [No. 175, p. 183], to the

song ‘How long and dreary is the night.’”

#C b# is translated by Wolff, Hausschatz, p. 199, Halle der Völker, I,

65.

* * * * *

Jamieson’s Popular Ballads, I, 126; “taken down by Dr Leyden from

the recitation of a young lady, Miss Robson, of Edinburgh, who

learned it in Teviotdale.”

‘At Fyvie’s yetts there grows a flower,

It grows baith braid and bonny;

There’s a daisie in the midst o it,

And it’s ca’d by Andrew Lammie.

‘O gin that flower war in my breast,

For the love I bear the laddie!

I wad kiss it, and I wad clap it,

And daut it for Andrew Lammie.

‘The first time me and my love met

Was in the woods of Fyvie;

He kissed my lips five thousand times,

And ay he ca’d me bonny,

And a’ the answer he gat frae me,

Was, My bonny Andrew Lammie!’

‘Love, I maun gang to Edinburgh;

Love, I maun gang and leave thee!’

‘I sighed right sair, and said nae mair

But, O gin I were wi ye!’

‘But true and trusty will I be,

As I am Andrew Lammie;

I’ll never kiss a woman’s mouth

Till I come back and see thee.’

‘And true and trusty will I be,

As I am Tiftie’s Annie;

I’ll never kiss a man again

Till ye come back and see me.’

Syne he’s come back frae Edinburgh

To the bonny hows o Fyvie,

And ay his face to the nor-east,

To look for Tiftie’s Annie.

‘I hae a love in Edinburgh,

Sae hae I intill Leith, man;

I hae a love intill Montrose,

Sae hae I in Dalkeith, man.

‘And east and west, whereer I go,

My love she’s always wi me;

For east and west, whereer I go,

My love she dwells in Fyvie.

‘My love possesses a’ my heart,

Nae pen can eer indite her;

She’s ay sae stately as she goes

That I see nae mae like her.

‘But Tiftie winna gie consent

His dochter me to marry,

Because she has five thousand marks,

And I have not a penny.

‘Love pines away, love dwines away,

Love, love decays the body;

For love o thee, oh I must die;

Adieu, my bonny Annie!’

Her mither raise out o her bed,

And ca’d on baith her women:

‘What ails ye, Annie, my dochter dear?

O Annie, was ye dreamin?

‘What dule disturbd my dochter’s sleep?

O tell to me, my Annie!’

She sighed right sair, and said nae mair

But, O for Andrew Lammie!

Her father beat her cruellie,

Sae also did her mother;

Her sisters sair did scoff at her;

But wae betide her brother!

Her brother beat her cruellie,

Till his straiks they werena canny;

He brak her back, and he beat her sides,

For the sake o Andrew Lammie.

‘O fie, O fie, my brother dear!

The gentlemen’ll shame ye;

The Laird o Fyvie he’s gaun by,

And he’ll come in and see me.

‘And he’ll kiss me, and he’ll clap me,

And he will speer what ails me;

And I will answer him again,

It’s a’ for Andrew Lammie.’

Her sisters they stood in the door,

Sair grievd her wi their folly:

‘O sister dear, come to the door,

Your cow is lowin on you.’

‘O fie, O fie, my sister dear!

Grieve me not wi your folly;

I’d rather hear the trumpet sound

Than a’ the kye o Fyvie.

‘Love pines away, love dwines away,

Love, love decays the body;

For love o thee now I maun die;

Adieu to Andrew Lammie!’

But Tiftie’s wrote a braid letter,

And sent it into Fyvie,

Saying his daughter was bewitchd

By bonny Andrew Lammie.

‘Now, Tiftie, ye maun gie consent,

And lat the lassie marry;’

‘I’ll never, never gie consent

To the trumpeter of Fyvie.’

When Fyvie looked the letter on,

He was baith sad and sorry:

Says, The bonniest lass o the country-side

Has died for Andrew Lammie.

O Andrew’s gane to the house-top

O the bonny house o Fyvie,

He’s blawn his horn baith loud and shill

Oer the lawland leas o Fyvie.

‘Mony a time hae I walkd a’ night,

And never yet was weary;

But now I may walk wae my lane,

For I’ll never see my deary.

‘Love pines away, love dwines away,

Love, love decays the body;

For the love o thee now I maun die;

I come, my bonny Annie!’

* * * * *

Jamieson’s Popular Ballads, II, 382; “from a stall copy, procured

from Scotland.”

‘There springs a rose in Fyvie’s yard,

And O but it springs bonny!

There’s a daisy in the middle of it,

Its name is Andrew Lammie.

‘I wish the rose were in my breast,

For the love I bear the daisy;

So blyth and merry as I would be,

And kiss my Andrew Lammie.

‘The first time I and my love met

Was in the wood of Fyvie;

He kissëd and he dawted me,

Calld me his bonny Annie.

‘Wi apples sweet he did me treat,

Which stole my heart so canny,

And ay sinsyne himself was kind,

My bonny Andrew Lammie.’

‘But I am going to Edinburgh,

My love, I’m going to leave thee;’

She sighd full sore, and said no more,

‘I wish I were but wi you.’

‘I will buy thee a wedding-gown,

My love, I’ll buy it bonny;’

‘But I’ll be dead or ye come back,

My bonny Andrew Lammie.’

‘I will buy you brave bridal shoes,

My love, I’ll buy them bonny;’

‘But I’ll be dead or ye come back,

My bonny Andrew Lammie.’

‘If you’ll be true and trusty too,

As I am Andrew Lammie,

That you will neer kiss lad nor lown

Till I return to Fyvie.’

‘I shall be true and trusty too,

As my name’s Tifty’s Nanny,

That I’ll kiss neither lad nor lown

Till you return to Fyvie.’—

‘Love pines awa, love dwines awa,

Love pines awa my body;

And love’s crept in at my bed-foot,

And taen possession o me.

‘My father drags me by the hair,

My mother sore does scold me;

And they would give one hundred merks

To any one to wed me.

‘My sister stands at her bower-door,

And she full sore does mock me,

And when she hears the trumpet sound,—

“Your cow is lowing, Nanny!”

‘O be still, my sister Jane,

And leave off all your folly;

For I’d rather hear that cow low

Than all the kye in Fyvie.

‘My father locks the door at night,

Lays up the keys fu canny,

And when he hears the trumpet sound,—

“Your cow is lowing, Nanny!”

‘O hold your tongue, my father dear,

And let be a’ your folly;

For I would rather hear that cow

Than all the kye in Fyvie.’

* * * * * *

‘If you ding me, I will greet,

And gentlemen will hear me;

Laird Fyvie will be coming by,

And he’ll come in and see me.’

‘Yea, I will ding you though ye greet

And gentlemen should hear you;

Though Laird Fyvie were coming by,

And did come in and see you.’

So they dang her, and she grat,

And gentlemen did hear her,

And Fyvie he was coming by,

And did come in to see her.

‘Mill of Tifty, give consent,

And let your daughter marry;

If she were full of as high blood

As she is full of beauty,

I would take her to myself,

And make her my own lady.’

‘Fyvie lands ly broad and wide,

And O but they ly bonny!

But I would not give my own true-love

For all the lands in Fyvie.

‘But make my bed, and lay me down,

And turn my face to Fyvie,

That I may see before I die

My bonny Andrew Lammie.’

They made her bed, and laid her down,

And turnd her face to Fyvie;

She gave a groan, and died or morn,

So neer saw Andrew Lammie.

Her father sorely did lament

The loss of his dear Nannie,

And wishd that he had gien consent

To wed with Andrew Lammie.

But ah! alas! it was too late,

For he could not recall her;

Through time unhappy is his fate,

Because he did controul her.

You parents grave who children have,

In crushing them be canny,

Lest for their part they break their heart,

As did young Tifty’s Nanny.

* * * * *

#a.# Buchan’s Gleanings, p. 98; taken down “from the memory of a

very old woman” (p. 197). #b.# Motherwell’s Minstrelsy, p. 239; a

stall copy collated with a recited copy.

At Mill of Tifty lived a man,

In the neighbourhood of Fyvie;

He had a luvely daughter fair,

Was callëd bonny Annie.

Her bloom was like the springing flower

That hails the rosy morning,

With innocence and graceful mein

Her beautous form adorning.

Lord Fyvie had a trumpeter

Whose name was Andrew Lammie;

He had the art to gain the heart

Of Mill of Tifty’s Annie.

Proper he was, both young and gay,

His like was not in Fyvie,

Nor was ane there that could compare

With this same Andrew Lammie.

Lord Fyvie he rode by the door

Where livëd Tifty’s Annie;

His trumpeter rode him before,

Even this same Andrew Lammie.

Her mother called her to the door:

‘Come here to me, my Annie:

Did eer you see a prettier man

Than the trumpeter of Fyvie?’

Nothing she said, but sighing sore,

Alas for bonnie Annie!

She durst not own her heart was won

By the trumpeter of Fyvie.

At night when all went to their bed,

All slept full soon but Annie;

Love so oppresst her tender breast,

Thinking on Andrew Lammie.

‘Love comes in at my bed-side,

And love lies down beyond me;

Love has possest my tender breast,

And love will waste my body.

‘The first time me and my love met

Was in the woods of Fyvie;

His lovely form and speech so soft

Soon gaind the heart of Annie.

‘He called me mistress; I said, No,

I’m Tifty’s bonny Annie;

With apples sweet he did me treat,

And kisses soft and mony.

‘It’s up and down in Tifty’s den,

Where the burn runs clear and bonny,

I’ve often gane to meet my love,

My bonny Andrew Lammie.’

But now alas! her father heard

That the trumpeter of Fyvie

Had had the art to gain the heart

Of Mill of Tifty’s Annie.

Her father soon a letter wrote,

And sent it on to Fyvie,

To tell his daughter was bewitchd

By his servant, Andrew Lammie.

Then up the stair his trumpeter

He callëd soon and shortly:

‘Pray tell me soon what’s this you’ve done

To Tifty’s bonny Annie.’

‘Woe be to Mill of Tifty’s pride,

For it has ruined many;

They’ll not have’t said that she should wed

The trumpeter of Fyvie.

‘In wicked art I had no part,

Nor therein am I canny;

True love alone the heart has won

Of Tifty’s bonny Annie.

‘Where will I find a boy so kind

That will carry a letter canny,

Who will run to Tifty’s town,

Give it to my love Annie?

‘Tifty he has daughters three

Who all are wonderous bonny;

But ye’ll ken her oer a’ the rest;

Give that to bonny Annie.

‘It’s up and down in Tifty’s den,

Where the burn runs clear and bonny,

There wilt thou come and I’ll attend;

My love, I long to see thee.

‘Thou mayst come to the brig of Slugh,

And there I’ll come and meet thee;

It’s there we will renew our love,

Before I go and leave you.

‘My love, I go to Edinburgh town,

And for a while must leave thee;’

She sighëd sore, and said no more

But ‘I wish that I were with you!’

‘I’ll buy to thee a bridal gown,

My love, I’ll buy it bonny;’

‘But I’ll be dead ere ye come back

To see your bonny Annie.’

‘If ye’ll be true and constant too,

As I am Andrew Lammie,

I shall thee wed when I come back

To see the lands of Fyvie.’

‘I will be true and constant too

To thee, my Andrew Lammie,

But my bridal bed or then’ll be made

In the green church-yard of Fyvie.’

‘The time is gone, and now comes on

My dear, that I must leave thee;

If longer here I should appear,

Mill of Tifty he would see me.’

‘I now for ever bid adieu

To thee, my Andrew Lammie;

Or ye come back I will be laid

In the green church-yard of Fyvie.’

He hied him to the head of the house,

To the house-top of Fyvie,

He blew his trumpet loud and shrill,

It was heard at Mill of Tifty.

Her father lockd the door at night,

Laid by the keys fu canny,

And when he heard the trumpet sound

Said, Your cow is lowing, Annie.

‘My father dear, I pray forbear,

And reproach not your Annie;

I’d rather hear that cow to low

Than all the kye in Fyvie.

‘I would not for my braw new gown,

And all your gifts so many,

That it was told in Fyvie land

How cruel ye are to Annie.

‘But if ye strike me I will cry,

And gentlemen will hear me;

Lord Fyvie will be riding by,

And he’ll come in and see me.’

At the same time the lord came in;

He said, What ails thee Annie?

‘It’s all for love now I must die,

For bonny Andrew Lammie.’

‘Pray, Mill of Tifty, give consent,

And let your daughter marry;’

‘It will be with some higher match

Than the trumpeter of Fyvie.’

‘If she were come of as high a kind

As she’s advanced in beauty,

I would take her unto myself,

And make her my own lady.’

‘Fyvie lands are far and wide,

And they are wonderous bonny;

But I would not leave my own true-love

For all the lands in Fyvie.’

Her father struck her wonderous sore,

As also did her mother;

Her sisters also did her scorn,

But woe be to her brother!

Her brother struck her wonderous sore,

With cruel strokes and many;

He broke her back in the hall-door,

For liking Andrew Lammie.

‘Alas! my father and my mother dear,

Why so cruel to your Annie?

My heart was broken first by love,

My brother has broke my body.

‘O mother dear, make me my bed,

And lay my face to Fyvie;

Thus will I lie, and thus will die

For my dear Andrew Lammie.

‘Ye neighbours hear, baith far and near,

And pity Tifty’s Annie,

Who dies for love of one poor lad,

For bonny Andrew Lammie.

‘No kind of vice eer staind my life,

Or hurt my virgin honour;

My youthful heart was won by love,

But death will me exoner.’

Her mother than she made her bed,

And laid her face to Fyvie;

Her tender heart it soon did break,

And never saw Andrew Lammie.

Lord Fyvie he did wring his hands,

Said, Alas for Tifty’s Annie!

The fairest flower’s cut down by love

That ever sprang in Fyvie.

‘Woe be to Mill of Tifty’s pride!

He might have let them marry;

I should have given them both to live

Into the lands of Fyvie.’

Her father sorely now laments

The loss of his dear Annie,

And wishes he had given consent

To wed with Andrew Lammie.

When Andrew home frae Edinburgh came,

With muckle grief and sorrow,

‘My love is dead for me to-day,

I’ll die for her to-morrow.

‘Now I will run to Tifty’s den,

Where the burn runs clear and bonny;

With tears I’ll view the brig of Slugh,

Where I parted from my Annie.

‘Then will I speed to the green kirk-yard,

To the green kirk-yard of Fyvie,

With tears I’ll water my love’s grave,

Till I follow Tifty’s Annie.’

* * * * *

#C. a.#

9^3. Love so oppressd: #b#, has possessd.

11^4. mony: #b#, many.

44^3. flower: #b#, flower’s.

47^1. home: #b#, hame.

48^2. For _perhaps Aberdonian for_ Where: #b#, Where.

#b.#

_Insignificant variations will not be noted._

7^1. She sighed sore, but said no more.

8^2. Sound _for_ soon (soun?).

9^3. Love has possessd.

11^4. many.

13^4. Of Tiftie’s bonny Annie. _After 14_:

When Lord Fyvie had this letter read,

O dear! but he was sorry:

‘The bonniest lass in Fyvie’s land

Is bewitched by Andrew Lammie.’

16, 17 _are_ 17, 16.

16^1. Woe betide Mill.

16^3. He’ll no hae’t. _After 18_:

‘Here you shall find a boy so kind

Who’ll carry a letter canny,

Who will run on to Tiftie’s town,

And gie’t to thy love Annie.’

19^3. a’ the lave.

20^{3,4}. and meet thy love, Thy bonny Andrew Lammie.

21.

‘When wilt thou come, and I’ll attend?

My love, I long to see thee:’

‘Thou mayst come to the bridge of Sleugh,

And there I’ll come and meet thee.’

24^2. As my name’s.

26^1. Our time.

28^3. schill.

30^4. Than hae a’ the kine.

35^2. she’s adorned with.

36^1. are fair.

_After 43_:

But the word soon went up and down,

Through all the lands of Fyvie,

That she was dead and buried,

Even Tiftie’s bonny Annie.

44^3. flower’s.

45^1. O woe betide Mill.

_After 46_:

Her mother grieves both air and late,

Her sisters, cause they scornd her;

Surely her brother doth mourn and grieve

For the cruel usage he’d givn her.

But now alas! it was too late,

For they could not recal her;

Through life unhappy is their fate

Because they did controul her.

47^1. hame.

47^3. love has died.

48^2. Where.

48^4. parted last with Annie. _After 49_:

Ye parents grave who children have,

In crushing them be canny,

Lest when too late you do repent;

Remember Tiftie’s Annie.

234