Mill o' Tifty's Annie (Child 233) (1982) - Sheila Stewart Sings A Traditional Scottish Folk Ballad

Mill o Tifty's Annie / Mill o' Tifties Annie / The Trumpeter of Fyvie / Bonnie Annie / Andrew Lammie (Child No. 233) (1982) - Sung by Sheila Stewart of the Travelling Stewart family of Blair. Sheila was the daughter of Belle Stewart (Isobella McGregor). From the documentary "Gypsies Sing Long Ballads" (1982). Filmed and recorded by John Cohen in Blairgowrie, Perthshire, Scotland. The complete movie can be watched here: https://www.folkstreams.net/films/gyp... I extracted the songs and used my knowledge on video editing to share them on Youtube in the highest possible quality, I used manual video upscaling (no AI was used!) for this, to further document variants of traditional ballads and songs which has been my hobby for many years. I claim no ownership of the video, all the rights belong with John Cohen. Note about the film: Scotland’s Travellers have lived outside mainstream society for more than 500 years. Although some of the Travelling People still live by the sides of roads, most live today in houses and are under pressure to abandon their culture. This film celebrates their traditional music, especially the long unaccompanied ballads that date back hundreds of years and have been handed down by memory through the generations. Note by Kevin W.: I was delighted to discover this video documentation of Scotland's greatest tradition bearers. The often poorly treated Scottish Travellers honor the memories of their ancestors through songs, music and storytelling. They are proud of their culture and kept old traditions alive for hundreds of years. Many of our most gifted traditional singers and storytellers are Travellers. Scottish Travellers are an indigenous ethnic minority in Scotland who live or traditionally lived a nomadic lifestyle and for centuries were unfairly shunned by the settled population. For that reason the singing culture of the Travelling people had not been well documented before the 20th century when non-Travellers with an interest in folklore visited and befriended Travellers and started recording their songs, music and stories. Song transcription: At the Mill o' Tifty's lived a man, In the neighbourhood of Fyvie: For he had a lovely daughter fair An' they ca'ed her Bonnie Annie. Noo her hair was fair and her eyes were blue, And her cheeks as red as roses; And her countenance was fair tae view, An' they ca'ed her Bonnie Annie. [Belle Stewart] Several people could sing the same song but, we had a something that we called a coniach and a coniach in a ballad is a feeling. You could sit listening to several people maybe singing the same ballad and it didn't do a thing to you and suddenly someone with a coniach would get up and sing the same ballad and, God, you were just living it. I mean, it was something entirely different altogether. “The first time me and my love met “It was in the woods o' Fyvie An' he ca'd me "Mistress", I said "No I'm just Tifty’s Bonnie Annie." "My love I go tae Edinburgh town, An' for a while main leave you." "Oh but I'll be deid afore ye come back In the green kirkyard o' Fyvie." Noo her faither struck her wondrous sore, An' also did her mother; And her sisters also took their score, But woe be tae her brother. Her brother struck her wondrous sore Wi' cruel strokes and-a many, And he broke her back owre the temple-stane, Aye, the temple-stane o' Fyvie. "Oh mother dear, please make my bed, And lay my face tae Fyvie, For I will lie and I will die For my dear Andra Lammie." Noo when Andra hame fae Edinburgh came Wi' muckle grief and-a sorrow: "Oh my love she died for me last night, So I'll die for her tomorrow." [Sheila Stewart] It would be a terrible thing if the travellers was moved into houses because they lose their culture, they lose their identity. Maybe not to begin with because there's still older travellers, but I think it's terrible for the younger ones. They'll lose everything. They'll even lose their language, their way of life, their freedom, and I think that is the biggest tragedy of all when the traveller's put in houses. This place here is gonna be the traveller site for the travelling people that's on the homages know, Perthshire site. All these houses in the background is where nearly all the travelers have lived at one time or other and this is why they object to this site so much because it's in a very bad area. It's a ghetto. Dump the travellers right in the middle of centers of Perth I think it's just terrible. I think it'll never work. (Coniach is a word of Gaelic origin translated by Dr John MacInnes as "an intensity of melody".)