Stone and Lime

DESCRIPTION: The singer, a stranger, falls in love with Molly. They court "at the foot of yon mountain [where] there runs a clear stream." They marry in spite of her angry parents though he insists "it's not for her money it's her I adore"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1905 (Greig/Duncan6)
KEYWORDS: courting marriage money floatingverses father mother
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Greig-FolkSongInBuchan-FolkSongOfTheNorthEast #149, p. 2, "Thou Hast Been My Ruin"; #147, p. 2, ("Thou hast been my ruin") (1 text plus 2 fragments)
Greig/Duncan6 1216, "Stone and Lime" (11 texts, 8 tunes)
Roud #1081
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Gra Geal Mo Chroi" (II -- "Down By the Fair River") (lyrics)
cf. "Green Grows the Laurel" ("change the green and yellow for the orange and blue) and references there
ALTERNATE TITLES:
She Has My Heart Enclosed
Pretty Polly
NOTES [236 words]: The song is a patchwork of fragments and it's not clear, in spite of my description, that it ends happily. The fragments recall "Gra Geal Mo Chroi (II -- Down By the Fair River), sharing lines "Like a sheet of white paper is her neck and breast" and "At the foot of yon mountain there runs a clear stream," and coming close with "She's a pattern for Venus" instead of "She's a pattern of virtue." The one verse, sometimes chorus, that separates the songs, is "For she's aye been my ruin, my sad, sad downfall: She has got my heart enclosed, like a stone and lime wall."
A final verse recalls "Green Grows the Laurels": "It's at our next meeting Our love we'll renew And we'll change the green and yellow To the orange and blue."
Regarding "we'll change the green and yellow To the orange and blue" line, see my rant at "Green Grows the Laurel" about Willaim Studwell's statement in The American Song Reader. I posted a query to the BALLAD-L list [@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU]: is "she's changed the green and yellow for the orange and blue ... from an Orange political song?" The most conclusive response was from Dr John Moulden, who wrote "I have inspected almost all the songs in Orange song books in the libraries in Belfast and Dublin, and some in Britain (including the Library of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland) and I have no knowledge of any Orange song from which this might derive." [quoted with permission] - BS
Last updated in version 2.6
File: GrD61216

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