Lamachree and Megrum

DESCRIPTION: Each verse describes a farm hand experience. For example, "I there got buttered bread and cheese An oil to keep my shoon in grease." or "Betty Barbour was fu' keen, She had twa bonnie blinkin' e'en"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1907 (Greig/Duncan3)
KEYWORDS: farming work nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Greig-FolkSongInBuchan-FolkSongOfTheNorthEast #4, p. 1, "Lamachree and Megrum"; #6, p. 2, "Lamachree and Megrum"; #8, p. 2, "Lamachree and Megrum"; "Folk-Song in Buchan," pp. 71-72, "Lamachree and Megrum" (2 texts plus 2 fragments, 1 tune)
Greig/Duncan3 398, "Lamachree and Megrum" (5 texts, 2 tunes)
Roud #2873
NOTES [225 words]: Greig notes that "Mains o' Culsh" is sung to the tune of "Lamachree and Megrum"; on the other hand, Greig/Duncan3 398C includes three verses that belong to, or at least are central to, "Mains o' Culsh." The MacColl version - "learned from print (Miscellanea of the Rymour Club of Edinburgh)" -- is very close to Greig/Duncan 398C minus these three verses (on Ewan MacColl with Peggy Seeger and Alf Edwards, "Bothy Ballads of Scotland," Folkways Records FW 8759 LP (1961)).
Greig/Duncan3's five versions of "Lamachree and Megrum" include twenty-five verses, rhymed couplets, only one verse is repeated, and that only once: "I gaed up to Aberdour, I got lasses three or four." Greig #4 states that "Sometimes a ploughman song deals with a series of places at which the singer is understood to have served. 'Lamachree and Megrum' may be given as an example." "Lamachree and Megrum" seems a disconnected set of verses in the nature of a military cadence call.
Greig/Duncan3 has a map on p. xxxv, of "places mentioned in songs in volume 3" showing the song number as well as place name; Auchtydure (398) is at coordinate (h4-5,v0-1) on that map [roughly 25 miles N of Aberdeen].
Greig #6 is a four verse set dealing mildly with the singer's time with the lasses at Tyrie School. Greig #8 is a four verse set about a fight over cards at Saut Wards. - BS
Last updated in version 2.6
File: GrD3398

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