[1984:] Where the theme of the girl murdered by her
boy-friend appears in Western folk-song, it is generally
understood that she is pregnant, even when this is not
explicitly stated. Sheila Douglas regards this as a story
which ends in tragedy, and she shapes the song
accordingly. "It is the love that is doomed",
she says, and there is no anger or harshness in her
singing. She finds sexual symbolism in the second line of
v. 1 [...] "It seems to me to be about the way
all-consuming sexual passion can wreck people's lives and
bring about tragedy and death." Stanley Robertson of
Aberdeen, a nephew of Jeannie Robertson, treats the song
very differently. His fuller version of the words, and
Peter Shepheard's [see Fisher/Trezise version], makes it
clear that the murder was calculated. This is the fastest
account [...] He has since described it as "... a
horror ballad - if sung slow, it's too much; the tune is
euphemistic and puts it over in a digestible way."
He is very hard on the woman: "In the song, the girl
admits she is loose - 'Before I wad work [...]' She
obviously becomes pregnant and the young man feels
trapped. He could cope with fatherhood but not with her
constant nagging." The only reason he gave in
support of the "constant nagging" charge was
that she had interrupted her lover in the middle of the
tune he was playing for her, having always taken the
"tune-box" line literally. As for the
"sporting and playing" he evidently regards
this as all the woman's fault, and he says "wee
thing" can refer to an adult. [...]
"Many travellers used this song to teach their
daughters the dangers and perils in breaking their moral
standards, and that the aftermath could bring much
suffering and heartbreak." (It seems it was not used
as a warning to sons.) [...]
Dr. Peter Sheapard learned his version from Jane
[Turriff]'s uncle, old Davie Stewart, "and conflated
it with other versions". [...] His highly individual
conflation is sung [...] the whole effect being not only
relaxed but almost jolly, and with gusto. The tempo is
second only to Stanley's here. (But Stanley, although he
described the tune as "pleasant", and chooses a
fast pace, does not sound relaxed or jolly; his
fast-driven version has a certain grimness, probably
directed against the girl for causing the man to undergo
the terrible experience of murdering her!) [...]
One interpretation of this song is that the girl is not
really murdered at all but lying back exhausted after
vigorous lovemaking, the knife and the stabbing
"through and through" being another piece of
erotic imagery; and there are versions where this is
clearly indicated, including some from Ireland. This
underlines the fact that the same words are used [...] to
announce the start of lovemaking and to announce the
start of killing [...] Going a step further, the
connection between murder, and sexual love which is
doomed and hopeless, has been made before, perhaps
especially in fiction [...]
I was particularly interested to find that [...] the two
travellers, should ignore the sexual implications in
verse 1 [...] and wondered at first if this was common in
traveller versions generally. But the evidence does not
support this. [...] Betsy [Whyte of Montrose]'s childhood
was spent in the real travelling life; she often heard
the song and says that "You could see everyone
understood this meaning". She thought the symbolic
words were probably used partly to avoid being explicit
in front of the children, who were with the grown-ups all
the time. She also says she heard it sung, "He took
oot his grinding-box to play his love a tune":
"grinder" is a name for the penis. [...]
We may conclude that this is probably a very old song,
and that the symbolic meaning [...] was suppressed and
frowned on at certain times and in certain places. [...]
Betsy Whyte thinks "runaway" means a deserter,
a man who has run away from battle. [...]
Stanley Robertson offers an interesting theory about
roses [...] "Some travellers considered this song as
being unlucky because it contained the word 'roses'.
Roses many times are associated with superstition and ill
luck. For example: The butcher boy [...] The bonnie bunch
o' roses [...] Tamlin [...] Matty Grove [...] In each
case a woman was pregnant. [...] There are many examples.
... This of course was one of my mother's theories."
(Munro, Revival 288ff)