Annotation:Will ye go to the Ew-Bughts Marion?
X:1 T:Ew-Bughts Marion M:C L:1/8 R:Air B: William Thomson - Orpheus Caledonius, vol. 2 (1733, No. 15, p. 53) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:G D E|G2 A B d2 GF|TE2D2 z2 DE|G2 A B d2 GF|(E2e2) z2 {ef}g2| G2 AB d2 GF|E2 e>f g2f e |dB AG E>G D2|EG {e}d4|| e2|d<e B<d e2 GF|E2D2 z2 B c|d>e B>d g<e d<B|{A}G6 ze| d>e d>d e2 GF|E2 e>f g2 fe|eB AG E>G D2|D<e d4||
WILL YE GO TO THE EW-BUGHTS MARION? AKA - "Ew-bughts Marion (The)," "Go to the Ew-bughts, Marion." Scottish, English; Air (2/4 time). E Minor. Standard tuning (fiddle). One part. "Will ye go to the Ew-Bughts, Marrion?" is a song from the writer and cleric Thomas Percy (1729–1811), published in his Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1791). While visiting a friend Percy noticed a neglected folio whose pages were being used by the maids to light the fire. He rescued them for examination, and found the song on one of them. Ew-bught is a Scots word for sheep-pens or the place where the ewes are milked. The first stanza goes of Percy's dialect version goes:
Will ze gae to the ew-bughts, Marion,
And wear in the sheip wi' mee?
The sun shines sweit, my Marion,
But nae half sae sweit as thee.
O Marion's a bonnie lass,
And the blyth blinks in her ee;
And fain wad I marrie Marion,
Gin Marion wad marrie mee.
The song was hardly unknown, however, for it had been printed a few years earlier in the first volume of Johnson's Scots Musical Museum (1787), where it was considered an old song (Percy also noted its antiquity). The Museum version begins:
'Will ye go to the ew-bughts, Marion,
and wear in the sheep wi' me;
the sun shines sweet, my Marion,
but nae half sae sweet as thee,
the sun shines sweet, my Marion.
but nae half as sweet as thee.
O Marion’s a bonny lass,
And the blythe blinks in her eye;
And fain wad I marry Marion,
Gin Marion wad marry me.
I’ve nine milk ewes my Marion;
A cow and a brawny quey,
I’ll gie them a’ to my Marion,
Just on her bridle day;
The earliest version of the song was printed in London by poet Allan Ramsay in his Tea-Table Miscellany (1733, p. 88) and by William Thomson in Orpheus Caledoneus, 2nd Edition, vol 2 (1733, No. 15). Ramsay's version ("Ew-bughts Marion") begins:
Will ye go to the ew-bughts, Marion,
And wear in the sheep wi' me;
The sun shines sweet, my Marion,
But nae haff sae sweet as thee.
O Marion's a bonny lass,
And the blyth blinks in her eye;
And fain wad I marry Marion,
Gin Marion wad marry me.
See note for "Sligo Tune."
