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The Bonny Hind
The Bonny Hind
[
Roud 205
; Child 50
; Ballad Index C050
; trad.]
June Tabor learned The Bonny Hind from Peta Webb and recorded it in 1983 for her album Abyssinians. Both Tony Rose and Martin Carthy learned this song from June Tabor. Tony Rose recorded it in 1976—a few years before June—for his LP On Banks of Green Willow. His words are very similar to June Tabor's shown below. He commented in his album notes:
The incest motif is abundant in mythology and literature. In The Bonny Hind […], the tragedy is Æschylean—a brother meets his sister, from whom he has been separated, and has his will on her before they discover their relationship.
Ewan MacColl sang The Bonny Hind on his and Peggy Seeger's 1986 album Blood & Roses Volume 4. They noted:
Scots ballad makers seem to have been fascinated by the theme of incest. Lizie Wan (Child 51), The King’s Dochter Lady Jean (Child 52) and Sheath and Knife (Child 16), all bear witness to this preoccupation. The Bonny Hind has none of the grandeur of Lizie Wan or Sheath and Knife: the tragedy is muted and pathos substitutes for the wild anguish of those ballads. Nevertheless, the pathos is never allowed to descend into mawkishness. That part of the story which describes a young man discovering a sister in the girl he has just ravished is also found in a Faroese ballad, and Finnish and Icelandic versions have been collected.
Martin Carthy sang The Bonny Hind on his 1998 album Signs of Life. He commented in the album notes:
Speaking of heartbreak, I got The Bonny Hind from June Tabor, who is not in the least close-fisted with her songs, about 25 years ago, but decided to try a different tune. This one is more usually sung to the Duke of Marlborough, and it sits with the song easily and feelingly, I think. A huge tragedy told in such matter-of-fact terms as to make you ache all over.
Joe Rae learned The Bonny Hind from Ned Robertson and sang it on his 2001 Musical Traditions anthology of ballads, songs and stories from Ayrshire, The Broom Blooms Bonny.
Norman Stewart sang The Bonnie Hind at the Fife Traditional Singing Festival, Collessie, Fife in May 2003 or 2004. This recording was included in 2005 on the festival anthology Here's a Health to the Company (Old Songs & Bothy Ballads Volume 1). The liner notes commented:
A ballad that has only been discovered once in the English language—by David Herd, a native of St Cyrus in Kincardineshire, who was supplied with the text “as copied from the mouth of a milkmaid in 1771”. The story—one of unintentional incest—is closely related to that of the Scandinavian ballad Margaret found in Faroe and in Iceland. No traditional tune is known but several singers have recently given new life to the ballad. Norman’s version came from hearing Martin Carthy sing the ballad some years ago and putting this together with the text as in Francis J Child’s The English and Scottish Popular Ballads.
Wendy Weatherby sang The Bonny Hind in 2010 on her Fellside CD A Shirt of Silk or Snow.
Debra Cowan sang The Bonny Hind in 2015 on John Roberts' and her CD Ballads Long & Short. They commented in their liner notes:
Deb learned The Bonny Hind from the singing of the late Tony Rose. It's a ballad that seems to have all the ingredients: siblings separated at birth, incest, suicide, riddles and an interesting metaphor towards the end.
Diana Collier sang The Bonny Hind unaccompanied on her 2020 album Ode to Riddley Walker.
Lyrics
June Tabor sings The Bonny Hind | Martin Carthy sings The Bonny Hind |
---|---|
It's May she comes and May she goes |
May she comes and May she goes |
It's May she comes and May she goes |
May she comes and May she goes |
“Come give to me your green mantle, |
“Give to me your mantle darling, |
He's taken her by the milk-white hand |
Ta'en her by her hand, her hand, |
“Perhaps there my be bairns, kind sir, |
“Oh maybe there will be babies so |
“Oh I am no courtier,” he says, |
“No I am no gentleman |
They call me Jack when I'm abroad, |
Sometimes they call me Jack,” he said, |
“You lie, you lie, you bonny lad, |
“Now you lie you false young man, |
“You lie, you lie, you bonny lass, |
“Ah you lie, you foolish girl, |
She's put her hand down by her side |
Oh she reached down below her waist |
And he's taken his young sister |
And he's picked up his young sister |
It's soon he's hired him o'er the dales, |
Then it's up the hill and it's down the hill, |
“What care you for your bonny hind, |
“What care you for your bonny hind, |
Four score of them are silver shod, |
Four score of these are silver shod, |
“What care you for your bonny hind, |
“What care you for your bonny hind, |
“I care not for your hinds, kind sir, |
“Oh I care not for your hinds, father, |
“Oh were you your your sister's bower, |
𝄆 “Son get you to your sister's bower, |
Acknowledgements
Transcribed by Garry Gillard.