Fogan MacAleer

DESCRIPTION: "There lived in bonny Scotland a man named MacAleer ... he had the queerest notions ... don't you know what I mean?" He asks the blacksmith's help to buy Lauchlan Ban's mare. The blacksmith tricks MacAleer so that he marries Ban's daughter Mary instead.
AUTHOR: Lawrence Doyle
EARLIEST DATE: 1965 (Ives-DriveDullCareAway-PrinceEdwardIsland)
KEYWORDS: marriage bargaining trick humorous horse father derivative
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Ives-DriveDullCareAway-PrinceEdwardIsland, pp. 156-159, 245, "Fogan MacAleer" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #13989
RECORDINGS:
Joseph Walsh, "Fogan MacAleer" (on MREIves01)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Jolly Barber Lad" (see Notes)
NOTES [65 words]: Ives-DriveDullCareAway-PrinceEdwardIsland refers to "the Scottish custom of having a go-between approach the prospective bride's father to arrange for a marriage." Ives finds a manuscript of "a song called 'The Jolly Barber' which was clearly Doyle's model for this song." The key fragment here is "don't you know what I mean?"; the song is apparently indexed here as "The Jolly Barber Lad."- BS
File: IvDC156

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