"Broom of the Cowdenknowes", also known as "Bonny May", is a traditional Scottish love ballad, (Child 217, Roud 92). It has been traced to the seventeenth century, but its exact origin is unknown. [1]
The title of the song references the Scotch Broom (Cytisus scoparius) flower, a vibrant yellow flower found throughout Scotland, including Cowdenknowes, a Scottish barony east of the Leader Water (River Leader), 32 miles southeast of Edinburgh in Berwickshire. [2]
The original and extended ballad was the story of a young shepherdess who falls in love with a stranger on horseback, who rides by her pasture every day. The song became popular across Scotland and England towards the end of the reign of James Vl & I, and the earliest publication date found is 1651. [3] The melody was also published as a dance tune, during the same year, in John Playford's first edition of The English Dancing Master . [4]
Throughout the many versions of the popular folksong, there are many lyrical variations, but the plot remain consistent. The shepherdess and stranger fall in love and have an affair. When she becomes pregnant, she is banished from her country. She seeks out her lover, finding him to now be a wealthy lord. They marry, but she is never truly happy away from her own country, and she pines for "the bonnie bonnie broom".
Traditionally, the song is sung from the perspective of the shepherdess. The broom, a tall shrub which blooms with spikes of small golden flowers, once grew abundantly on hillsides of the Scottish Borders.
"Broom O' the Cowdenknowes" was recorded by Scottish folk singer Jean Redpath on her 1987 release A Fine Song for Singing. [5] Other artists who recorded the song under either this title or its variants include Silly Wizard, Alexander James Adams, Baltimore Consort, John Allan Cameron, Cherish the Ladies, The City Waites, Liam Clancy, Meg Davis, Frankie Gavin, Ian Giles, Dave Gunning, The Highwaymen, Michal Hromek, Jimmy MacBeath, Ed Miller, North Sea Gas, Kim Robertson, Lucie Skeaping, The Watersons, and Robin Williamson. [6]
The ballad was recorded under its alternate title "Bonny May" by English folk singer June Tabor on her first solo album, Airs and Graces, in 1976. [7] It was also released under this title by the group 10,000 Maniacs on its 2015 album Twice Told Tales [8] and by Offa Rex, a group featuring the American indie rock band Decemberists and British folk singer Olivia Chaney, on its 2017 debut The Queen of Hearts. [9]
"Barbara Allen" is a traditional folk song that is popular throughout the English-speaking world and beyond. It tells of how the eponymous character denies a dying man's love, then dies of grief soon after his untimely death.
The Child Ballads are 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, anthologized by Francis James Child during the second half of the 19th century. Their lyrics and Child's studies of them were published as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads. The tunes of most of the ballads were collected and published by Bertrand Harris Bronson in and around the 1960s.
June Tabor is an English folk singer known for her solo work and her earlier collaborations with Maddy Prior and with Oysterband.
Jean Redpath MBE was a Scottish folk singer.
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Mr. Motherwell gives a version under the title of Babylon; or, the Bonny Banks o' Fordie; and Mr. Kinloch gives another under the title of The Duke of Perth's Three Daughters. Previous editors have attempted to find a local habitation for this tradition, and have associated it with the family of Drummond, of Perth. As a legend exactly similar is current in Denmark, this appears a bootless quest.
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A Collection of Old Ballads is an anonymous book published 1723–1725 in three volumes in London by Roberts and Leach. It was the second major collection of British folksongs to be published, following Wit and Mirth, or Pills to Purge Melancholy. Ambrose Philips was once credited as the editor, but this has since been challenged.
The (Bonnie) Rantin' Laddie or Lord Aboyne is a traditional Scottish folk ballad telling of the valiant rescue of his lover by a noble Highland lord.
Charlotte Olivia Milligan Fox was an Irish composer, folk music collector and writer.
