Gay Girl Marie [Laws M23]

DESCRIPTION: The singer sends a love letter to his "gay girl Marie." The courier, however, delivers it to her father, who is outraged, and sends her into exile. The singer searches at great length, and is almost in despair when he hears a girl weeping and it is Marie
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1841 (broadside, Bodleian Harding B 25(768))
KEYWORDS: courting exile father reunion
FOUND IN: US(MW,NE,So) Australia Ireland Canada(Mar,Newf)
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Laws M23, "Gay Girl Marie"
Randolph 124, "Gay Girl Marie" (1 text)
Flanders/Ballard/Brown/Barry-NewGreenMountainSongster, pp. 34-36, "Sweet Gramachree" (1 text, 1 tune)
Meredith/Anderson-FolkSongsOfAustralia, p. 194, "Gargal Machree" (1 text, 1 tune)
Leach-FolkBalladsSongsOfLowerLabradorCoast 135, "Grogal McCree" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lehr/Best-ComeAndIWillSingYou 45, "Gra Geal Mo Chroi" (1 text, 1 tune)
MidwestFolklore, Ivan H. Watson, "Folk Singing on Beaver Island," Volume 2, Number 4 (Winter 1952), p. 248, "Gra Gal McCree" (reference only)
DT 583, GAYGIRLM
Roud #1020
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 25(768)[illegible lines], "Gragerel Macgre" ("I am a fond lover that sorely opprest"), J. Jennings (London), 1790-1840; also Harding B 17(117a), "Grageral Macgree"
NOTES [167 words]: Samuel P. Bayard conjectures that "Gay Girl Marie" is a corruption of Gaelic "mo gradh geal mo chroidhe," "bright heart's love." Meredith and Anderson make the same conjecture about their title, "Gargal Machree."
Sam Henry's has a title "Gragalmachree" which makes this certain, but it's not certain that it's the same song. Both obviously are built around the same Gaelic phrase, but they may be independent. That other song is indexed as "Gra Geal Mo Chroi (II -- Down by the Fair River)"; see the notes there. But note also that that song has many floating verses, one could easily confuse short versions. The editors of the Sam Henry collection, e.g., lumped a version of that song with this, and I followed that in early versions of the Index. Credit goes to Ben Schwartz for spotting the distinction.
Two other songs built on the phrase are in Hylands-Mammoth-Hibernian-Songster: p. 77, "My Gra Gal Machree" and p. 83, "Gra Gal Machree," but I have no evidence that either is traditional. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: LM23

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