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The Raggle Taggle Gypsy
"The Raggle Taggle Gypsy" (Roud 1, Child 200), is a traditional folk song that originated as a Scottish border ballad, and has been popular throughout Britain, Ireland and North America. It concerns a rich lady who runs off to join the gypsies (or one gypsy). Common alternative names are "Gypsy Davy", "Gypsum Davy", "The Raggle Taggle Gypsies O", "The Gypsy Laddie(s)", "Black Jack David" (or "Davy") and "Seven Yellow Gypsies".
In the folk tradition the song was extremely popular, spread all over the English-speaking world by broadsheets and oral tradition.
The core of the song's story is that a lady forsakes a life of luxury to run off with a band of gypsies. In some versions there is one individual, named Johnny Faa or Black Jack Davy, whereas in others there is one leader and his six brothers. In some versions the lady is identified as Margaret Kennedy, the wife of the Scottish Earl of Cassilis.
In a typical version, the lord comes home to find his lady "gone with the gypsy laddie". Sometimes this is because the gypsies have charmed her with their singing or even cast a spell over her.
He saddles his fastest horse to follow her. He finds her and bids her come home, asking "Would you forsake your husband and child?" She refuses to return, in many versions, preferring the cold ground, stating, "What care I for your goose feather bed?", and the gypsy's company to her lord's wealth and comfortable life.
At the end of some versions, the husband kills the gypsies. In the local Cassilis tradition, they are hanged on the Cassilis Dule Tree.
The earliest text may be "The Gypsy Loddy", published in the Roxburghe Ballads with an assigned date of 1720. The first two verses of this version are as follows:
There was seven gypsies all in a gang,
They were brisk and bonny, O;
They rode till they came to the Earl of Casstle's house,
And there they sang most sweetly, O.
The Earl of Castle's lady came down,
With the waiting-maid beside her;
As soon as her fair face they saw,
They called their grandmother over.
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The Raggle Taggle Gypsy
"The Raggle Taggle Gypsy" (Roud 1, Child 200), is a traditional folk song that originated as a Scottish border ballad, and has been popular throughout Britain, Ireland and North America. It concerns a rich lady who runs off to join the gypsies (or one gypsy). Common alternative names are "Gypsy Davy", "Gypsum Davy", "The Raggle Taggle Gypsies O", "The Gypsy Laddie(s)", "Black Jack David" (or "Davy") and "Seven Yellow Gypsies".
In the folk tradition the song was extremely popular, spread all over the English-speaking world by broadsheets and oral tradition.
The core of the song's story is that a lady forsakes a life of luxury to run off with a band of gypsies. In some versions there is one individual, named Johnny Faa or Black Jack Davy, whereas in others there is one leader and his six brothers. In some versions the lady is identified as Margaret Kennedy, the wife of the Scottish Earl of Cassilis.
In a typical version, the lord comes home to find his lady "gone with the gypsy laddie". Sometimes this is because the gypsies have charmed her with their singing or even cast a spell over her.
He saddles his fastest horse to follow her. He finds her and bids her come home, asking "Would you forsake your husband and child?" She refuses to return, in many versions, preferring the cold ground, stating, "What care I for your goose feather bed?", and the gypsy's company to her lord's wealth and comfortable life.
At the end of some versions, the husband kills the gypsies. In the local Cassilis tradition, they are hanged on the Cassilis Dule Tree.
The earliest text may be "The Gypsy Loddy", published in the Roxburghe Ballads with an assigned date of 1720. The first two verses of this version are as follows:
There was seven gypsies all in a gang,
They were brisk and bonny, O;
They rode till they came to the Earl of Casstle's house,
And there they sang most sweetly, O.
The Earl of Castle's lady came down,
With the waiting-maid beside her;
As soon as her fair face they saw,
They called their grandmother over.
