Burns and His Highland Mary [Laws O34]

DESCRIPTION: (Robert) Burns meets Mary on the banks of the Ayr. Mary is returning to the Highlands to visit friends, but promises to return quickly. Both promise to be true. Mary departs, but soon falls sick and dies. Burns "ne'er did... love so fondly again."
AUTHOR: unknown (see notes)
EARLIEST DATE: before 1835 (broadside, Bodleian Firth b.26(512))
KEYWORDS: courting love death separation
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1759-1796 - Life of Robert Burns
1786 - Death of Mary Campbell while on a visit to the Highlands
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber)) Canada(Mar,Newf) US(NE) Ireland
REFERENCES (12 citations):
Laws O34, "Burns and His Highland Mary"
Ford-VagabondSongsAndBalladsOfScotland, pp. 112-114, "Burns and His Highland Mary" (1 text, 1 tune)
Greig-FolkSongInBuchan-FolkSongOfTheNorthEast #76, pp. 1-2, "Burns and His Highland Mary"; "#9, p. 2, ("In green Caledonia there ne'er were twa lovers"); Folk-Song in Buchan," p. 19, ("In green Caledonia there ne'er were twa lovers") (1 texts plus 2 fragments)
Greig/Duncan6 1249, "Burns and His Highland Mary" (4 texts, 2 tunes)
Doerflinger-SongsOfTheSailorAndLumberman, pp. 312-313, "Burns and His Highland Mary" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ord-BothySongsAndBallads, pp. 354-355, "The Parting of Burns and Highland Mary" (1 text, 1 tune)
Tunney-WhereSongsDoThunder, pp. 108-111, "The Clear, Winding Ayr" (1 text)
Creighton/Senior-TraditionalSongsOfNovaScotia, p. 159-161, "Burns and His Highland Mary" (1 text)
Creighton-MaritimeFolkSongs, pp. 88-89, "Burns and His Highland Mary" (1 text, 2 tunes)
Creighton-FolksongsFromSouthernNewBrunswick 56, "Burns and His Highland" (1 text, 1 tune)
Peacock, pp. 427-429, "The Banks of the Ayr" (1 text, 2 tunes)
DT 488, BURNMARY
Roud #820
RECORDINGS:
Frank Knox, "Highland Mary" (on MUNFLA/Leach)
Mrs. Clara Stevens, "The Banks of the Ayr" (on PeacockCDROM) [one verse only]
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Firth b.26(512), "Burns and Highland Mary," G. Walker (Durham), 1797-1834; also Harding B 15(37a), Harding B 11(3216), Harding B 11(496), Harding B 26(84)[some words illegible], Harding B 26(85), "Burns and Highland Mary"; 2806 c.14(5), 2806 c.14(4)[some words illegible], Johnson Ballads 3180[some words illegible], 2806 c.14(3)[some lines illegible], "Burns and His Highland Mary"
Murray, Mu23-y1:009, "Burns and Highland Mary," J. Bristow (Glasgow), 19C; also Mu23-y1:026, Mu23-y4:024, "Burns and Highland Mary"
NLScotland, RB.m.168(082), "Burns and His Highland Mary," unknown, c.1840; also APS.3.80.4, RB.m.143(030), L.C.Fol.70(10a), "Burns and His Highland Mary"
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Laurel Hill" (tune)
cf. "Highland Mary" (subject)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
In Green Caledonia
NOTES [611 words]: Ord-BothySongsAndBallads lists this as being by a "police constable named Thomson," c. 1865 -- but since the song is known to have been in print by no later than 1835, this can hardly be right, at least as regards the date.
"Highland" Mary Campbell (1763-1886) is widely regarded as the great love of Burns's life, but she died very young. Our information about her is very limited; most of what follows is from Lindsay, pp. 64-66. She was the eldest of four children of Archibald and Agnes Campbell, who lived first at Dunoon, then at Campbelltown, then at Greenock. Later descriptions of her she was tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed, not very pretty, but with a winning manner.
In the mid-1770s, she became a nursemaid in Ayrshire, then a dairymaid.
Burns, by the time he met her, was already involved with Jean Armour (the subject, e.g., of "Of A' the Airts the Wind Can Blaw"). But Armour's parents tried to separate Jean from Burns. He apparently wrote his song, "Highland Mary" (also known as "The Highland Lassie, O") in the spring of 1786. The little we know of their relationship seems to derive mostly from a note Burns wrote:
"My Highland lassie was a warm-hearted, charming your creature as ever blessed a man with generous love. After a pretty long tract of the most ardent reciprocal attachment, we met by appointment, on the second Sunday of May, in a sequestered spot by the Banks of Ayr, where we spend the day in taking farewell, before she should embark for the West Highlands to arrange matters among her friends for our projected change of life. At the close of autumn following she crossed the sea to meet me at Greenock, where she had scarce landed when she was seized with a malignant fever, which hurried my dear girl to the grave in a few days, before I could even hear of her illness" (Lindsay, pp. 64-65).
Our information does not permit us at this time to know what the "projected change of life" was, but best guess is that Burns intended to marry her and take her to Jamaica; this seems to be referred to in "Will Ye Go To the Indies, My Mary?"
In the aftermath, Burns would end up married to Jean Armour after all. But the idea of Burns pining away for the girl who died before he could join her was too romantic to pass up. Hence this song. And certainly it is possible that he loved Mary Campbell more than any other; it's just that we don't know.
We don't even know what she died of. Of course Burns says a "malignant fever" -- but there is another possibility. Mary was buried in the West Highland Churchyard in Greenock, but in 1920, this was redeveloped for industry and her grave was opened. In it was found what seems to have been the bottom board of an infant's coffin. Did Mary bear Burns a child? Or did she miscarry, and die of complications? We can't know, but it would explain Burns's plans to elope. This song, however, was written long before the grave was opened.
(Lindsay, p. 383, quotes a Dr. Robert S. Gilchrist as suspecting Mary died of typhus, which might have caused her to miscarry before she died. There is also a possibility that James Montgomerie, a friend of Burns's, might have been the father of her child rather than Burns himself; Lindsay, pp. 241, 383.)
Lindsay quotes some other tales -- "gossip" is perhaps the best word for it -- but the above seems to be the sum total of what is reliably known.
Lindsay, pp. 27-28, says that Highland Mary and Burns at one time exchanged Bibles; the one she gave him is lost, but the one he gave her has been preserved, although somewhat the worse for wear (including damage to the inscriptions); it is a two-volume Bible, and volume I contains a lock of her hair. - RBW
BibliographyLast updated in version 6.7
File: LO34

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