Maggie Lauder

DESCRIPTION: Maggie meets a piper, Rab the Ranter, and encourages him to strike up a tune while she dances. He does, and she praises his work; he says, "It's worth my while to play indeed When I hae sic a dancer." She encourages him to ask for her if he comes again
AUTHOR: Francis Sempill? (c. 1616-1682)
EARLIEST DATE: 1794 (Ritson); reportedly written 1642
KEYWORDS: music dancing
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
MacColl-PersonalChoice, pp. 23-24, "Maggie Lauder" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ford-SongHistories, pp. 96-103, "Maggie Lauder" (1 text plus a silly sequel)
Roud #5625
BROADSIDES:
Murray, Mu23-y4:002, "Maggie Lauder," J. Pitts (London), 1819-1844
NLScotland, S.302.b.2(094), "Maggie Lauder," Simms and McIntyre (Belfast), probably 1825; also APS.3.84.2, "Maggy Lawder," Charles Pigott (London), after 1825 (with many distortions in the lyrics); also Crawford.EB.3390, "Maggie Lauder," George Walker (Durham), n.d.
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Northumberland Bagpipes" (theme)
cf. "Cripple Kirsty" (parody)
SAME TUNE:
Cripple Kirsty (File: GrD3556)
Cornwallis Burgoyned (broadside of 1781, "When British troops first landed here with Howe commander o'er them") (Rabson-SongbookOfTheAmericanRevolution, p. 76; cf. Spaeth, _A History of Popular Music in America_, p. 25; Harry Dichter and Elliott Shapiro, _Early American Sheet Music: Its Lure and Its Lore, 1768-1889_, R. R. Bowker, 1941, p. xxii)
The Joyful Widower (Scots Musical Museum, #98)
A Brand Fire New Whaling Song Right from the Pacific Ocean (File: HGam002)
NOTES [383 words]: One can only suspect that more than piping and dancing lies behind this song. This, indeed, may explain its rarity in the older collections; it sounds like a hidden story of something extremely indelicate. (The National Library of Scotland site, in fact, claims that Maggie ended up pregnant. The NLScotland broadsides do not show this, however.)
Absolute proof that Francis Sempill wrote this seems to be lacking, but Ford-SongHistories seems convinced, and it certainly seems to match the style of his other poems. The melody is thought to predate Sempill, but there is no agreement about its origin.
Habbie Simpson, to whom Rab the Ranter is compared, was a historical person, living in Kilbarchan (near Paisley) in the late sixteenth century (the site paisly.is gives his dates as 1550-1620); it may be significant that the father of Francis Sempill, Robert Sempill (c. 1595-c. 1665; not to be confused with another Scots poet named Robert Sempill, 1530?-1595), composed Simpson's elegy, The Life and Death of the Piper of Kilbarchan, or the Epitaph of Habbie Simpson (c. 1640), now most often known as the "Lament for Habbie Simpson." This poem was well enough known that its stanza format became known as a "Habbie" or a "Standard Habbie" (Maurice Lindsay, The Burns Encyclopedia, 1959, 1970; third edition, revised and enlarged, St. Martin's Press, 1980, pp. 340-341).
There is a broadside text (not a song) about Simpson at NLScotland L.C.1270(019), "Habbie Simpson and his Wife," unknown, c. 1845.
I don't know if Maggie and Rab are historical. Ford-SongHistories lists various attempts to identify Maggie. None are at all convincing, and some place her in a time before Habbie Simpson.
Burns, in his poem "The Ordination" (1786), refers to a Maggie Lauder: "Curst Common Sense, that imp o' hell, Cam' in wi' Maggie Lauder." But according to Lindsay, p. 210, this is not the Maggie Lauder of this song; rather it is one Margaret Lauder, later the wife of the Rev. William Lindsay (died 1817). I do not know how reliable this attribution is; the song is long and its meaning not very obvious at this distance.
"Anster Fair" is Anstruther Fair ("Anstruther" is often pronounced "Anster" by the locals), which is also the subject of a more recent poem by William Tennant, "Anster Fair." - RBW
Last updated in version 6.7
File: NSMagLau

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