The Scotsman Over The Border jig

This jig is very similar to Young Francis Mooney.
Maybe he is the young scotsman over the border.
I play Young Francis with The Catholic Boys. I really like the jump from the minor-sounding mix. key.

I think there maybe was more than one Scotsman who went over the border. I learned this tune from a book put out by Kevin Burke called “Twenty Irish Fiddle Tunes” with a CD. In his version, the tune starts with what is shown as part 2 in the version here and also in another book I have.

Does anyone have any ideas why that might be and has anyone else heard this tune in this configuration?

I’ve always heard this tune played as shown here.

Recorded by Noel Hill and Tony Lenane in their album (possibly called, imaginatively, “Noel Hill and Tony Lenane”). Jeez I hope the spelling’s right there…

The B part of this version is very, VERY close to the 4th part of ‘Blue Bonnets Over The Border’… hmmm… and the A part sounds like it could be a mix of the other parts… possibly an Irish rendition of ‘Blue Bonnets’?

A friend’s been trying to get me to play this for ages, and then I heard it several times at a fesitval last weekend, so I can’t ignore the signs any longer. I like the strong, simple melody of this, and didn’t want to jazz it up as much as, say, Brian Conway’s nice version on First Through the Gate, so the following is where it’s taking me lately on fiddle. Strikes me that a lot of the same triplets, rolls, and other variations would land well on flute as well (maybe cran the D the second time around on the A part).

X: 1
T: Scotsman Over The Border, The
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
K: D
DED FDF|AFA d2 A|~B3 BAB|dgf edB|
ADD ~F3|AFA d2 A|~B3 AFA|dAF EAF|
D E/E/D FDF|AFA dec|~B3 BAB|dg/f/e fdB|
ADD FD/E/F|AFA dcA|BdB AFA|dAF EFA||
dfa afa|bag fge|dfa afe|dcd ecA|
dfa afa|bag fge| fdB AFA|dAF EFA|
dfa a/f/g/a|bag fge|dfa afe|dB/c/d ecA|
dfa afa|bag fge|fdB Afe|dAF EAF||

Compare The Carraroe Jig: https://thesession.org/tunes/771

In 1977 I was working in Berwickshire, Scotland, not far from the English border. There was a pub in a nearby hamlet where sometimes an old chap would come in with a piano-accordion and play a few tunes. One was called “Blue Bonnets Over The Border”.

It had two parts in a one-octave scale of A major with a high G natural in the first part, and a third part in D major, again within the notes of an A major octave with a high G natural: in short, it was played as a Highland bagpipe tune. Oddly, it didn’t have a fourth part, not in this chap’s playing anyway: Scottish pipe marches, if they exceed two parts, usually have four, though I can think of one exception (“Farewell To The Creeks”).

The Irish “Scotsman Over The Border” jig, the version that is the subject of this column, is obviously based on this tune, or vice versa. The second parts of each tune are identical, though the Irish version goes up a register while the Scottish one does not; the first parts are obviously akin, the Irish version again being free to differ by soaring into an upper register. I assume the Irish have nicked this one from the Scots, but in their hands it’s effectively become a new tune, and a very beautiful one.

I think the Scottish tune goes with a song including the line, “All the Blue Bonnets are over the Border”, but I don’t know what the song is about or who the Blue Bonnets are or were.

I’ve found more about it. It’s a Highland pipes march with four parts, transcribed as far back as 1869 in a collection of pipe tunes made by a Mr, Ross. (I don’t know whether this was as a two-part or four-part tune.)

Sir Walter Scott wrote a song about blue bonnets going over the Border,
referring here to the fact that blue bonnets were, in fact, worn by the men of the 1745 Jacobite uprising (they were that army’s only common uniform). The song became popular, but I do not know if it had precedents/versions nearer to Jacobite times.

https://thesession.org/tunes/4795

Thanks for your above note, Kenny - I looked it up and found “Farewell To The Creeks” is a four-part tune after all.

Played here by Micheal O’Briain, Kevin Glackin and Paul McGratten

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VgdnddtazA

play video

X: 1
T: Scotsman Over The Border, The
M: 6/8
L: 1/8
R: jig
K: Dmix
|: DDD FDF | AFA d2A | BBB BAB | def edB |
ADD FDF | AFA d2A | BdB AFA | [1 dAF EEE :| [2 dAF EFD ||
|: dfa afa | bge edB | dfa afe | bge e2B |
dfa afa | bge edB | d2B AFA | [1 dAF EFD :| [2 dAF EEE ||

there’s no c in this tune in D hexatonic major, unless you’re taken by a sudden strange melow foundness and you play this;
DED FDF | AFA d2c | B3 BAB |dgf edB |
(it happens to me all the time!)

this is the same tune as the Carraroe
https://thesession.org/tunes/771
and both are versions of, or derived from
Blue Bonnets over the Border
https://thesession.org/tunes/2402

These settings, in their Irish incarnations, derive from separate 78 RPM recordings, Paddy Killoran recorded the Scotchman Over the Border, the Ballinakill Traditional Dance Players, who practiced in Carraroe House, home of their piano player, recorded the Carraroe Jig.

Version played by Cathal Hayden on his Hooked on Banjo CD and live here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs2b3paeBt0

play video

This is how we play the tune in the local sessions near me.

Part of the extensive Glen Collection held in the National Library of Scotland is a three-page sheet, printed in Edinburgh in about 1822 containing six tunes. There are many such publications from the mid-18th/early 29th centuries. This one is headed by the tune “The Scots Came O’er the Border”. I present it here for interest. I knew the relationship between “Scotsman Over the Border” and “Blue Bonnets” but I wondered about the differences; this setting may very well be the missing link between the two tunes as it’s so close to the Irish version.

I’m laughing at the thought of “early 29th” century music. That should have said “early 19th” century. Oops.