She's But My Auld Sheen When You've Gotten Her

DESCRIPTION: "She's but my auld sheen when you've gotten her."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1909 (Greig-FolkSongInBuchan-FolkSongOfTheNorthEast)
KEYWORDS: courting
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Greig-FolkSongInBuchan-FolkSongOfTheNorthEast #88, p. 2, ("She's but my auld sheen when you've gotten her") (1 fragment)
NOTES [337 words]: The current description is all of the Greig fragment.
.".. the same parish of Keith Hall disputes Galston, in Airshire, the honour of having given birth to the "Lass of Patie's [or Peaty's] Mill" [about 1550]. In the Statistical Account of this parish, it is said that her maiden name was Anderson. A great-grandson of her's [sic], aged eighty-nine, [born in 1703, and living in 1791] and a number of her descendants, reside in this district, and its parishes of Kinnellar and Dyce. Her father was prioretor of Patie's Mill in Keith Hall, of Tullikearie in try, and Standing Stones in the parish of Dyce. In ... her beauty or fortune, or from both causes, she had many admirers, and she was an only child. One Sangster, of Boddom, in New Machar parish, wished to carry her off, but was interrupted by a dog, and very roughly handled by her father, who was called Black John Anderson. In revenge, he wrote an ill-natured song, of which her great-grandson remembers these words, "Ye'll tell the gowk that gets her, He gets but my auld sheen" (source: The Beauties of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1806 ("Digitized by Google")), Vol. IV, p. 422; inserted notes are from John Glen, Early Scottish Melodies (Edinburgh, 1900 ("Digitized by Google")), p. 65).
In eight versions of "The False Bride," Greig/Duncan6 1198, the jilted suitor "went up to the bridegroom, says I'll tell ye a guise I've lien wi' your bonnie bride aftener than thrice And she daurna deny in the bed where she lies, And she's but my auld sheen when ye've gotten her."
The old shoe metaphor is given a slightly different twist in "The Days Are Awa That I Have Seen," Greig/Duncan6 1136A ("But if she think's she's deen me muckle ill, she is fair misteen, For she is only dancin' in my auld sheen") and 1136B ("... begone bonnie laddie for I carena. Ye think that I'm carin' but I'm nae nane, For ye're only wearin' my auld sheen").
While Greig's fragment could easily just be folded into "The False Bride," Greig's story leads me to give it its own entry. - BS
Last updated in version 2.6
File: Grg088a

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