Western Rangers, The

DESCRIPTION: Singer's sweetheart asks him to stay and marry. He leaves her in Labrador to join a troop fighting in Flanders. "Many a brave man" and "German crowds" are killed in the bayonet fighting. "With medals now I will return to the girl I love so well"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1951 (MUNFLA-Leach)
KEYWORDS: courting marriage battle army fight violence war death derivative lover soldier
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
RECORDINGS:
Frank Knox, "The Western Rangers" (on MUNFLA-Leach)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Texas Rangers" (derivative, see Notes)
NOTES [140 words]: MUNFLA/Leach text is a derivative of "Texas Rangers" [Laws A8]. Leach collected another "Western Rangers" in Labrador (see Leach-FolkBalladsSongsOfLowerLabradorCoast 105) that Leach considered -- I believe correctly -- to be a localization of Laws A8. That text begins like this one -- "Come all ye western rangers bound to a foreign land" -- but the ranger fights Indians after "we marched from Manitoba down to the Rio Grande." The localization that Leach points out is the substitution of Manitoba for San Antonio. The MUNFLA/Leach text is more than a localization. For example, in this case the singer "sailed from bonny Scotland ... for Flanders." While "you could see those Indians" -- misspoken in this context, since the singer fought "where German crowds were killed" -- soldiers were wounded by a "glimmering glance of bayonet." - BS
Last updated in version 4.2
File: MunLWeRa

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