Caledonia (III -- Jean and Caledonia)

DESCRIPTION: "Sair, sair was my heart, an' the tears stood in my een As I viewed my native hills an' I thought upon my Jean." Pressed by poverty (?), the two sadly part; he promises to be true, and wed no other, and someday to come back to marry her
AUTHOR: William Lockhart (source: Whitelaw, but see NOTES)
EARLIEST DATE: 1843 (Whitelaw-BookOfScottishSong)
KEYWORDS: love separation emigration poverty
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Ford-VagabondSongsAndBalladsOfScotland, pp. 237-239, "Jean and Caledonia" (1 text, 1 tune)
Greig/Duncan8 1522, "Farewell to Caledonia" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ord-BothySongsAndBallads, p. 116, "Jean and Caledonia" (1 text)
Whitelaw-BookOfScottishSong, p. 90, "Native Caledonia" (1 text)
Roud #3801
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Erin's Flowery Vale (The Irish Girl's Lament)" [Laws O29] (plot) and references there
cf. "Johnnie Doyle" (tune, per Greig/Duncan8)
cf. "The Dusky Glen" (tune, per Whitelaw)
NOTES [147 words]: Apparently broadside Bodleian, 2806 c.11(64), "Caledonia O" ("Sair, sair was my heart"), J. Lindsay (Glasgow), 1851-1910 is this song but I could not download and verify it.
Ford has seen two versions. "Whitelaw's book includes a song of two double stanzas bearing on the same theme, and with some lines nearly identical, but ours is a much more interesting, a fuller, and more individual performance." Whitelaw's text matches Ord-BothySongsAndBallads's -- with some spelling differences -- and, from what I could tell, broadside Bodleian, 2806 c.11(64). The two versions have almost the same two first verses; they share no other lines but the description above describes them both. Greig/Duncan8 is the Ford version.
Whitelaw: "This popular strain was written by William Lockhart." That leaves the origin of Ford's version in doubt, as well as the question of "which came first." - BS
Last updated in version 3.2
File: FVS237

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