Sauchen Tree, The

DESCRIPTION: He asks her to remember their good times and go again with him "to yon saughen tree." She won't: her mother flytes [argues] against it and her father frowns. He proposes. She accepts. They marry and "jog on through life and think o' lang syne"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1905 (Greig/Duncan5)
KEYWORDS: love marriage father mother
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Greig-FolkSongInBuchan-FolkSongOfTheNorthEast #29, pp. 1-2, "The Saughen Tree" (1 text)
Greig/Duncan5 984, "The Sauchen Tree" (3 texts, 2 tunes)
Roud #5636
NOTES [121 words]: The "sauch" or "saugh" seems likely to be "sallow" or willow, as I understand Webster's Third New International Dictionary. - BS
This is also the meaning supplied by Alexander Warrack, The Scots Dialext Dictionary, Waverly Books, 2000, p. 469 -- although "sauchen-toup" means a fool or one who is easy to trick (analogous to "blockhead," perhaps?), and there are secondary senses of "flexible" (like a willow wand) and a murmuring sound.
Douglas Kynoch, Scottish [Doric]-English/English-Scottish [Doric] Concise Dictionary, 1996 (I use the 1998 Hippocrene paperback), p. 77, gives "unsociable" as the only meaning for "sauchen," but allows that "saugh" (which presumably would be pronounced "sauch") means a willow. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD5984

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