Seven Years O'er Young

DESCRIPTION: "'Twas in between twa bonnie woods and valleys Where I and my love aye met so rare" that the man asks the singer if she will wed. She says she is "seven years o'er young to wed." But he finally lures her into his arms, then says he has another love
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1816-1818 (Alexander Campbell's _Albyn's Anthology_, according to Greig-FolkSongInBuchan-FolkSongOfTheNorthEast #131)
KEYWORDS: courting sex abandonment
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Greig-FolkSongInBuchan-FolkSongOfTheNorthEast #131, pp. 1-2, "Two Years Owre Young"; #135, p. 2, "Touch Not the Nettle" (2 texts plus 2 fragments)
Greig/Duncan6 1187, "Two Years Owre Young" (4 texts, 1 tune)
Ord-BothySongsAndBallads, pp. 170-171, "Seven Years O'er Young" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #380
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Pretty Little Miss" [Laws P18] (plot)
NOTES [123 words]: This is a bit of a problem song. Roud lumps it with "Pretty Little Miss" [Laws P18]. I have to wonder if MacColl and Seeger's "Too Young" might not also be this. This song has effectively the same plot as Laws P18, but no similarity in lyrics. Laws, however, admits that P18 is textually unstable.
The only additional point is that Laws does not cite this song with P18 (or anything else, e.g. P19, "Tripping o'er the Lea," which also has some contact with this song). On that basis, I split them -- but it's a very uncertain question, and readers probably need to study the matter carefully. - RBW
Greig: "As regards the age of the original song, it has to be noted that, nearly a hundred years ago, Hogg considered it to be very old." - BS
Last updated in version 2.6
File: Ord170

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