Blow Away ye Morning Breezes

DESCRIPTION: The singer curses her competitor: "thou shalt rue the very hour That e'er thou knewest the man." The singer will have the good (wheaten flour, crystal clear water, purple pall); her adversary the bad (bran, puddle foul, sorry clout).
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1891 (Baring-Gould/Sheppard-SongsOfTheWest first edition)
KEYWORDS: infidelity love curse
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South,West))
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Baring-Gould/Sheppard-SongsOfTheWest2ndEd, #25, "Blow Away Ye Morning Breezes" (1 modified text, 1 tune)
Reeves-TheEverlastingCircle 9, "Blow Away ye Morning Breezes" (1 fragment)
ADDITIONAL: S Baring Gould and H Fleetwood Sheppard, Songs and Ballads of the West (London, 1891? ("Digitized by Google")), #25 pp. 52-53, xxi-xxii, "Blow Away, Ye Morning Breezes" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #1025
NOTES [299 words]: In Songs and Ballads of the West Baring-Gould cites the same source as for the Baring-Gould manuscript Reeves-TheEverlastingCircle 9. Since Songs and Ballads of the West includes all of the Reeves-TheEverlastingCircle text, completes verses three and four, and adds a fifth verse, I assume the additions are Baring-Gould's. The changes do not change the description. How much of the following statement by Baring-Gould in Songs and Ballads of the West is to be credited: "This very curious song is sung as a duet; that is to say, the first voice taunts the other, and the second replies to the taunt, then both unite in the chorus. We have omitted the retort, which is simply an application of the same words to the first singer." The retort is not in the Reeves-TheEverlastingCircle manuscript either.
Baring-Gould notes that some lines of this song occur also in Percy's text of "The Knight and the Shepherd's Daughter' [Child 110]: "Would I had drunk the water cleare When I had drunk the wine, Rather than any shepherd's brat Should be a lady of mine. Would I had drunk the puddle foule When I did drink the ale." The similar verses in Reeves-TheEverlastingCircle are: "Thou shalt drink the puddle foul And I the crystal clear.... For thou shalt wear the sorry clout And I the purple pall." Reeves concludes, "These are evidently a confused fragment from a ballad called "The Knight and Shepherd's Daughter (Child, No. 110)." I think Reeves takes Baring-Gould's observation too far.
Reeves-TheEverlastingCircle and Baring-Gould both observe the similarity of this song's chorus -- "Blow away ye morning breezes, Blow ye winds, heigh-ho! Blow away the morning kisses, Blow, blow, blow!" -- to "a refrain usually associated with a different ballad, The Baffled Knight [Child 112]." - BS
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File: ReCi009

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