Glenlogie
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OR:

Glenlogie or Bonnie Jeannie o
Bethelnie Oldmeldrum (commonly known as Meldrum) is a village and parish in the Formartine area of Aberdeenshire, not far from Inverurie in North East Scotland. With a population of around 2,187, Oldmeldrum falls within Scotland's top 300 centres of popu ...
is
Child ballad The Child Ballads are 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century. Their lyrics and Child's studies of them were published as '' ...
number 238 (
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 ...
101).


Synopsis

Jeannie, fifteen, sixteen or seventeen depending on which variant is counting, but clearly the “flower o’ them all”, sees Glenlogie (aka John Gordon) at a banquet (inevitable since he has been prancing around town showing off all weekend) and falls in love. He politely declines the offer and rides away to some battlefield. Various attempts to persuade her that he's unsuitable for her, either by offering another match or by pointing out the disparity of their stations, are unavailing. She takes to her bed in distress. Her father's literate chaplain writes a pointed letter to Glenlogie scolding him for causing the young woman's (apparently severe to the point of medical danger) distress. After a bit of posturing for his mates (“Huh. Women!”) Glenlogie has a conscience attack and rides back to see Jeannie at Banchory. He pretends he's there to provide medical expertise but she's not having it, explaining that he is a dolt and the pain is in her heart. He agrees to marry her and does, the cradle robber (but reasonable for the times, and it was after all her idea).


External links


''Glenlogie''
with several variants

with history

Recordings since 1955. Dick Gaughan credits Strachan (1955) as his source; Gaughan's 1978 version is probably the source for most performers since then. Child Ballads Year of song unknown Songwriter unknown {{Folk-song-stub