Annotation:O the Oak and the Ash and the Bonny Ivy Tree

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O THE OAK AND THE ASH AND THE BONNY IVY TREE. AKA and see "Goddesses (1)," "Quodling’s Delight." English, Air (4/4 time). England, Northumberland. G Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. "There is a black-letter copy of this ballad in the Roxburgh Collection, vol. ii., p. 367, and the many instances amongst the old writers where the quaint refrain of the ballad are met with, all evidence its great popularity. Sir Walter Scott, in his novel of 'Rob Roy', makes the narrator of the tale (Francis Osbaldiston), in recounting the recollections of his childhood, tell how his Northumbrian nurse (old Mabel) amused him by singing the ditties of her native countrie, and specially names 'O! the Oak and Ash and the bonny Ivy Tree' as a Northumbrian ballad. The tune is older than the ballad, and is in Sir James Hawkins' Transcripts of Music for the Virginals, and also The Dancing Master 1650, under the title of 'Godesses'" (Bruce & Stokoe).

A North-countrie lass up to London did pass,
Although with her nature it did not agree
Which made her repent, and so often lament,
still wishing again in the North for to be.
O! the oak and the ash, and the bonny ivy tree,
Do flourish at home in my ain countrie. .... (Bruce & Stokoe)

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Bruce & Stokoe (Northumbrian Minstrelsy), 1882; pp. 86-87.

Recorded sources:

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