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The Bonny Birdy is Child ballad 82 (
The ballad was written only once, in 1783 (or shortly before), from Anna Brown, by her nephew, Robert Eden Scott, and in the same year was sent by her father, prof. Thomas Gordon, to
''The Bonny Birdy''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bonny Birdy Child Ballads Scottish folk songs Year of song unknown Songwriter unknown
Roud
The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud (born 1949), a former librarian in the London ...
3972).
Synopsis
A knight is riding when a bird asks him why he is about so late and tells him his wife is with her lover. It had been a wild bird until the lover caught it and gave it to his love. She did not feed it well, so it is telling her story. It flew with the knight to her bower, and sang of how the lover should be away. The lady asks what reason there is for him to leave, and the bird sings that a man in bed with another man's wife should always leave quickly. The knight enters the bower and kills the lover.Sources and recordings
The ballad was written only once, in 1783 (or shortly before), from Anna Brown, by her nephew, Robert Eden Scott, and in the same year was sent by her father, prof. Thomas Gordon, to William Tytler
William Tytler WS FRSE (1711–1792) was a Scottish lawyer, known as a historical writer. He wrote ''An Inquiry into the Evidence against Mary Queen of Scots'', against the views of William Robertson. He discovered the manuscript the ''"Kingis Q ...
with other 14 recorded songs (so-called ''Tytler-Brown MS''). At least one author points out that the song "is not represented in England" and considers it as a "Scottish version" of the well-known English ballad "Little Musgrave". (seSee also
*Old Robin of Portingale
Old Robin of Portingale is a Child balladFrancis James Child
Francis James Child (February 1, 1825 – September 11, 1896) was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, best known today for his collection of English and Scottish ballads ...
* Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard
References
External links
''The Bonny Birdy''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bonny Birdy Child Ballads Scottish folk songs Year of song unknown Songwriter unknown