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> June Tabor > Songs > Silly Sisters: Burning of Auchidoon

Burning of Auchidoon

[ Roud 4010 ; Child 183 ; Ballad Index C183 ; trad.]

Ewan MacColl sang The Burning o' Auchendoun in 1956 on volume 4 of The English and Scottish Popular Ballads (The Child Ballads).

Maddy Prior and June Tabor sang Burning of Auchidoon unaccompanied in 1976 on their album Silly Sisters.

Lyrics

As I came in by Fiddich side on a May morning,
I spied Willie MacIntosh an hour before the dawning.

“Turn again, him again, turn again I bid ye.
If ye burn Auchidoon, Huntly he will head ye.”

“Head me or hang me that will never fear me.
I will burn Auchidoon ere the life leaves me.”

As I came in by Fiddich side on a May morning,
Auchidoon was in a blaze an hour before the dawning.

Crawing, crawing, for all your crowse crawing,
You've burnt your crops and tint your wings
An hour before the dawning.