Miscellany 77

MISCELLANY No 77

 

CLASSIC SCOTTISH POETRY: II

Although Dorothy and William Wordsworth (and Coleridge) may be home safe in Grasmere, we continue to think Scottish this week, with a (short) Scottish epic poem that became famous.  In order to appreciate it, you need to read it out loud, preferably in a Scots accent, and even better in the style of Private Frazer (John Laurie in Dad’s Army).  More discussion at the end...

Ye Highlands, and ye lawlands,

Oh where have ye been?

They have slain the Earl of Murray,

And layd him on the green.

"Now wae be to thee, Huntly!

And wherefore did you see?

I bade you bring him wi' you,

But forbade you him to slay."

He was a braw gallant,

And he rid at the ring;

And the bonny Earl of Murray,  

Oh he might have been a king!

 He was a braw gallant,

And he play'd at the ba';

And the bonny Earl of Murray

Was the flower among them a'.

He was a braw gallant,

And he play'd at the glove;

And the bonny Earl of Murray,

Oh he was the Queen's love!

Oh lang will his lady

Look o'er the castle Down,

Eer she see the Earl of Murray 

Come sounding thro the town!

This poem gave rise to the invention of the term ‘mondegreen’, a misinterpretation of a phrase as a result of near-homophony, with the ear and the brain combining to try to make sense of an ambiguous group of sounds, especially in a poem or a song. The story goes that an American journalist,  Sylvia Wright, coined the term in 1954, writing about how as a girl she had mis-heard the end of the first verse of this poem, "...and laid him on the green" as "...and Lady Mondegreen", thus:

They have slain the Earl of Murray,

And Lady Mondegreen.

 and had had felt sympathy for Lady Mondegreen who seemed not to have done anything to deserve being slain alongside the Earl of Murray.  

  

 

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