RATTLIN ROARIN WILLIE — CONCLUSION, REFERENCES, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

CONCLUSION

When I set out on the journey to find out about Rattlin Roarin WIllie I already knew that there was more to his tune than is commonly realised, but not that there were so many songs associated with it, nor that anything was known of the detail of his life. The Teviotdale connection, leading from the Opies to Sir Walter Scott and Sir Walter Elliot, took WIllie’s story further back in time, to Jeddart justice and the last days of the blood feuds of the Border reivers, but brought it closer in space, to familiar places along the road from Hawick to Teviothead.

The verses William Henderson wrote or inspired touch on the themes of love, death, and the archetype of the minstrel. His tune, whether he composed it or whether it was made in his honour, simply cannot be tied down: it is a song air, a fiddle tune and a pipe tune, a dance tune and a performance piece, with roots in the Borders and branches from Aberdeen to Ayr, Galloway to Gateshead. No two versions are the same, yet it is always recognizable. It was powerfully conceived. It has been rattling, roaring, ranting and roving for 380 or so years, and it shows no intention of stopping.

REFERENCES

1 - WEB

cradle string:

http://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiWALLFLW2.html

Lyra-viol:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyra-viol

FARNE (Folk Archive Resource North East):

http://www.asaplive.com/Farne/Home.cfm

For the Rattlin Roarin Willie article, click on “Learn” in the left-hand menu, then “Core tunes”, then the “Introduction” (for context) and “Rattlin Roarin Willie”.

Map of Teviotdale:

http://www.nls.uk/maps/early/blaeu/page.cfm?id=122

Nursery rhyme:

http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~mjoseph/mother_goose/Jacky_Come_Give_Me_Your_Fiddle.htm

2 - MANUSCRIPT

Atkinson, Henry: fiddle manuscript, Northumberland, 1694-5 (Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne, ref: Mu 207).

Blaikie, Andrew (owner of): Lyra-viol manuscript, partial copy by Andrew John Wighton, Wighton Collection, Dundee Central Library.

Bewick, Robert Elliot: Northumbrian smallpipe manuscripts, Gateshead Public Library; a selection was edited and published as Bewick’s Pipe Tunes by Matt Seattle, see below.

Buchan, Peter: British Museum (Additional MSS., 29408).

Dixon, William, bagpipe music manuscript, Northumberland (probably), 1733 (A K Bell Library, Perth); edited and published as The Master Piper by Matt Seattle, see below.

Gillespie, James: fiddle manuscript, Perth, 1768 (NLS MS 808).

Leyden, John (owner of): Lyra-viol manuscript, partial copy by George Farquhar Graham, NLS MS Adv.5.2.19; original in Robinson Library, University Newcastle upon Tyne.

Vickers, William: fiddle manuscript, Newcastle (probably), 1770, Society of Antiquaries, Newcastle upon Tyne, currently housed in the Northumberland County Record Office, Woodhorn, Ashington, reference SANT/GEN/Mus/1/2; edited and published as The Great Northern Tune Book by Matt Seattle, see below.

Young, David: “McFarlane” manuscript, vol. 2 , Edinburgh, 1740 (NLS MS 2084).

3 - PUBLISHED

Bruce, J Collingwood & Stokoe, John: Northumbrian Minstrelsy, Newcastle upon Tyne, 1882.

Campbell, Rory: Field of Bells, 1999.

Chambers, Robert: Songs of Scotland prior to Burns, Edinburgh, 1862.

Chappell, William: Popular Music of the Olden Time, London, 1855-9.

Child, Francis J: The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Boston, 1882-1898.

Cunningham, Allan: The Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern; with an Introduction and Notes, Historical and Critical, and Characters of the Lyric Poets, London, 1825.

Elliot, Sir Walter, K.S.C.I., etc., etc., of Wolfelee: Rattling, Roaring Willie, Berwickshire Naturalists’ Club, Transactions, Vol. 11, 1885-1886, with additional Notes by W. Eliott Lockhart.

Glen, David: Collection of Highland Bagpipe Music, Fifteenth Part (Second Thousand, p. 18), Edinburgh, c. 1900. Another Glen setting is on p. 22 of Second Part, Eighth Thousand, but absent from the earlier Fourth Thousand edition. For detailed information on editions of the 17 volumes of Glen's Collection see Roderick D Cannon: A Bibliography

of Bagpipe Music, Edinburgh, 1980.

Gow, Nathaniel: Third Collection of Niel Gow’s Reels, Edinburgh, 1792.

Gunn,William: The Caledonian Repository of Music Adapted for the Bagpipes, Glasgow, 1848.

Hensold, Dick: The Dixon Manuscript of 1733 and the Relationship between Art Music and Folk Music in the late Seventeenth Century, article in Out of the Flames, LBPS, 2004.

Johnson, David: Scottish Fiddle Music in the 18th Century, Edinburgh, 1984.

Johnson, James: The Scots Musical Museum, 6 vols., Edinburgh, 1787-1803; Scolar Press facsimile edition in 2 vols. with Introduction and Bibliography by Donald A Low, Aldershot, 1991.

Johnson, John: Two Hundred Country Dances, vol.1, London, no date.

Logan & Coy.: Logan’s collection of Highland bagpipe music, Book 5, Inverness, c. 1907.

MacDonald, Wm M: The Glencoe Collection of Bagpipe Music Book 2, Inverness, 1997.

Mooney, Gordon: A collection of the choicest Scots Tunes for the Lowland or Border Bagpipes, 2 vols., Linlithgow, 1982-3; included in Gordon Mooney’s Collections, LBPS, 2008.

Opie, Iona and Peter: The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes, Oxford, 1951.

Oswald, James: The Caledonian Pocket Companion, vol. 7, London, c. 1756; annotated CD ROM edition (2 CDs) by Nick Parkes, Barbara Purser & John Purser, Retford, 2006-7.

Peacock, John (attributed): A Favorite Collection of Tunes with Variations Adapted for the Northumberland Small Pipes Violin or Flute, Newcastle, c.1800; facsimile Northumbrian Pipers’ Society, 1980.

Ramsay, Allan: Tea Table Miscellany, Edinburgh, 1724 et seq.

Riddell, Robert: Scotch, Galwegian & Border Tunes, Edinburgh, 1794.

Scott, Sir Walter: The Lay of the Last Minstrel, Edinburgh & London, 1805 et seq.

Seattle, Matt: Bewick’s Pipe Tunes, Blyth, 1986; 2nd edition, revised and enlarged, Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, 1998.

Seattle, Matt: The Border Bagpipe Book, Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, 1993.

Seattle, Matt: The Great Northern Tune Book, 3 vols., Blyth, 1986-7; 2nd edition, revised in 1 vol., London, 2008.

Seattle, Matt: The Master Piper, Newbiggin-by-the Sea, 1995; revised Peebles, 2002 (NB currently out of print).

Stell, Dr Evelyn F: Sources of Scottish Instrumental Music 1603 - 1707, doctoral thesis, University of Glasgow, 2000.

Thompson, James: The Life of James Allan, Newcastle, 1828.

Veitch, John, LL.D.: The History and Poetry of the Scottish Border, 2 vols., 2nd edn., Edinburgh & London, 1893.

Walsh: Walsh’s Twenty Four Country Dances for the year 1736 (copy in Vaughan Williams Memorial Library).

Wright, Daniel: An Extraordinary Collection Of Pleasant & merry Humour’s, etc., London, c. 1713.

Wright: Wright’s Compleat Collection of Celebrated Country Dances etc., Voll. 1st, London, no date.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Grateful acknowledgement is due, for help in matters great and small in the writing of this article, to the following:

Dr Ross Anderson (Cambridge University)

Irene Beston (Artbeat Studios, Hawick)

Nigel Bridges

Dr Jim Buchanan

Jeannie Campbell (College of Piping, Glasgow)

Anita Evans

Peter Fry (Kelso Folk Club)

Julian Goodacre

Johnny Handle

Kathy Hobkirk (Heritage Hub, Hawick)

Poppy Holden (Newcastle University)

Donald Knox (Denholm Folk Club)

Anne Moore (Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum)

Dr Evelyn F Stell (Edinburgh University)

Pete Stewart

Malcolm Taylor (Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, Cecil Sharp House, London)

Staff at

Scottish Borders Libraries (Hawick and Duns branches, Selkirk Headquarters)

And for commissioning and hosting this article, the Committee of the Lowland & Border Pipers’ Society.

Matt Seattle

Hawick

1 June 2008

LOOSE ENDS

Mention is made above of two lyrics written to be sung to the tune of Rattlin Roarin Willie which are unrelated in content to the traditional song, Allan Ramsay’s To L. M. M and Thomas Whittle’s The Mitford Galloway’s Rambles (the full text of which is in John Bell’s Rhymes of Northern Bards, Newcastle, 1812). In discussing Thomson’s Select Melodies of Scotland WEL also mentions “a set of words written by W. Smyth for a smaller edition published in 1822; the music being arranged by Haydn.” This was also included in a folio edition published between 1831-8. WEL later gives the first lines of this lyric as well as another written in 1803 by Mrs Grant of Laggan on a then topical subject, a failed negotiation for bringing William Pitt into office.

Among four musical texts sent to WEL by his correspondent Mr Muir Wood is one, Wully’s gane to France, for which no source is given and which remains unidentified; similarly titled tunes have been found but they are unrelated to Rattlin Roarin Willie.

A curiosity which has not yet been investigated is a version “arranged, with variations, as a pianoforte piece by Daniel Ross, and published by J. Hamilton, 24 North Bridge, Edinburgh.” (WEL)

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