Flowers of the Forest

Does anyone know of a good recording of the song Flowers of the Forest? I only have the music to it; it is so beautiful, I would like to hear it played. Thank you.

Barbara Dickson, before she was famous, sang a nice version at the end of “The Fate O’Chairlie” on the Leader or Trailer labels, I can’t remember which.

Best version you’ll get - but you’ll be lucky to find it - is by Dick Gaughan, on an LP he made in Germany with Andy Irvine, called “Parallel Lines”. Failing that, Fairport Convention recorded it, but Swarbrick was always a better fiddler than singer.

Kathryn Tickell recorded a great version of the tune on one of her Northumbrian piping recordings. I was compelled to learn the tune on the spot. Sorry, I can’t remember which recording it was and it’s an instrumental and not a vocal on this recording.

Kathryn Tickell’s version is on “Borderlands”. My preference is for the instrumental version. I only know the words by Miss Jane Elliot and find them mawkish. I believe there are other words, though.

The music I have of this is only the melody; I wasn’t aware the song had lyrics. What is it about?

I like the parallel lines version. Dick Gaughan sings it really beautifully and I love the sound of the hurdy gurdy. But oh, it really is the most dreadful electric guitar solo ever. Never mind how hidious the notes, that vibrato really does make me vom

“The Floo‘ers o’the Forest ”

I’ve heard them lilting, at our yowe-milking,
Lasses a-lilting afore the dawn o’ day;
Noo they are moaning on ilka green loaning;
"The Floo‘ers o’ the Forest are a’ wede away.

As buchts, in the morning, nae blythe lads are scorning;
The lasses are lonely and dowie and wae.
Nae daffin‘, nae gabbin’, but sighing and sobbing,
Ilk ane lifts her leglen, and hies her away.

In hairst, at the shearing, nae youths now are jeering,
The bandsters are lyart, and runkled and grey.
At fair or at preaching, nae wooing, nae fleeching,
The Floo‘ers o’ the Forest are a’ wede away.

At e’en, in the gloaming, nae stossies are roaming,
‘Bout stacks wi’ the lasses at bogle to play.
But ilk ane sits drearie, lamenting her dearie,
The Floo‘ers o’ the Forest are a’ wede away.

Dule and wae for the order sent our lads to the border;
The English, for ance, by guile wan the day:
The Floo’ers of the Forest, that foucht aye the foremost,
The prime o’ our land are cauld in the clay.

We’ll hae nae mair lilting, at the yowe-milking,
Women and bairns are dowie and wae.
Sighing and moaning, on ilka green loaning,
The Floo’ers of the forest are all wede away.

Written as a lament for the Scots killed at the Battle of Flodden. The tune is usually only played by a solo piper at funerals, and because of this, I have heard of Scots who regard it as bad luck to play this tune on any other occasion. The above is the complete words, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone sing the full version.
Dick Gaughan has apparently also recorded this on a recently released CD entitled “Prentice Piece”, a compilation of the songs he has recorded over his 30+ year career. You could get it from Greentrax record website, I’m sure.

Ah, I needed a good cry today. All the more beautiful the melody now. In the past I taught this song to a student who coveted my violin. I told him if he played Flowers of the Forest on it at my funeral he could have it (from the gleam that appeared in his eye I had to amend the statement to “I need to die of natural causes….”). Thank you everyone.

I love the stuff you’re all saying. It’s a beautiful song. But how about this for the most unlikely setting for first being stirred by its beauty…

I was at a Fools and Animals Unconvention (see a previous post somewhere) when we’d reached that point of the middle-of-the-night when most people were snoring in sleeping-bags on the pub floor and there were only four of us at the bar. The lights were off, apart from the fridges behind the bar. It was nearly time to crash out. The landlord was getting tired.

Then an eerie sound started up…a lone woman’s voice singing The Flowers Of The Forest, ringing with echo and lamentation. It finished. Only a few of us had heard it. The rest were asleep. It was the landlady singing in the Gents. Best acoustics, apparently.

The Flowers Of The Forest. Wath-upon-Dearne. Yorkshire. Red Lion. The Gents.

Fairport Convention on their album “Full House”

Funny enough, the very first version I ever heard of the song was by Fairport Convention, on “Full House.” Quite a different sound for them, though: just electric dulcimer and a spare, restrained drum accompaniment, and Swarbrick, Nicol and Thompson (maybe Peggy, too?) with some quite lovely harmonies. But they only did two verses, so it wasn’t until I heard Archie Fisher sing it (sorry, can’t recall the album) that I realized how much more there was to it.

Oh, greenman, that is a great story! It’s going to make me laugh when I’m lying in my coffin watching my student playing my fiddle and trying to look sad. Did you all think you were hearing haunts? I would love to have been there.

I heard it played at a Highland Gatehring which my Pipe band was competing in.

I seem to recall aparticularly beautiful version played by Paddy Keenan; it would have been early 80s.

Was there not a version played at the end of the Furey’s Willie McBride c.1979?

I agree with Kenny’s comments regarding the appropriate occasion for playing it, but I did hear it sung most beautifully at Newcastleton, ‘82, and at a party in Hawick ’83. And on Remembrance Sunday Service in Somerset ’93, unknown piper.

Brianx

If you can lay your hand on a copy of “A Scots Quair” by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, there is the sheet music for a particular ornamentation of Flowers of the Forest which the author found moving enough to include in his narrative. But I can’t remember which volume of the trilogy it is in. The book is well worth a read. The sheet music is at the end of one volume and should be easy to spot.

Glad you liked the story, dmarie! Yes, the spine was tingling and I broke out in a cold sweat. But that could have been the pint of Pernod I’d just finished.

\())

dmarie,
Is the version you have, the one on here? My grandfather gave me a mouldy old book of pipe tunes last year and it has a very different and in my opinion much better version. I will put it on here once i work out how to do it! Thank you for those words Kenny. Always great to get the words to a beautiful tune. I’ve been looking for the words to “The Coolin” for ages. Can anybody help me with that?