> Louis Killen > Songs > The Verdant Braes of Skreen
> The Watersons > Songs > T Stands for Thomas
> June Tabor > Songs > The Old Garden Gate

The Verdant Braes of Skreen / T Stands for Thomas / The Old Garden Gate

[ Roud 419 ; Ballad Index FJ166 ; trad.]

The McPeake Family sang The Verdant Braes of Skreen in a 1962 recording by Bill Leader. It was published in 1963 on their eponymous Topic album The McPeake Family. This LP was reissued in 2009 on their Topic CD Wild Mountain Thyme. They also sang this song live during a concert presented by the English Folk, Dance and Song Society at the Royal Festival Hall, London on June 4, 1965. This concert was released in 1965 on the HMV LP Folksound of Britain. The note of the 2009 CD commented:

One of the best-loved of Co. Derry ballads. Herbert Hughes liked it so well, he made it No. 1 in the first volume of his Irish Country Songs. It also appears in Hayward's Ulster Songs and Ballads (London, 1925). Francis [McPeake] senior learnt his version from his father, and of it he said: “Though I'm Belfast born, my heart is in Derry.”

Louis Killen sang The Verdant Braes of Skreen live at the 1963 Edinburgh Folk Festival and recorded it between 1991 and 1993 in San Francisco for his 1995 CD A Bonny Bunch. He commented in his liner notes:

Determination in the face of rejection is presented in The Verdant Braes of Skreen (source: Shirley Collins) which comes from the repertory of the McPeake family.

Planxty sang this song as “P” Stands for Paddy, I Suppose on their 1974 album Cold Blow and the Rainy Night. The sleeve notes commented:

We first heard “P” Stands for Paddy a long time ago from Joe Heaney but we didn't get the words until recently. These came from a recording of Colm Keene of Glinsk Co. Galway. The verses are a strange mixture as if made up from different songs and it has a fine air.

Lal and Norma Waterson sang this story with an additional chorus as T Stands for Thomas on the Watersons' 1975 album, For Pence and Spicy Ale, Norma Waterson sang it on the Holme Valley Tradition cassette Will's Barn, and Waterson:Carthy sang it live at the Beverley Folk Club in June 1992. The latter recording was published in 2004 on the Watersons' 4CD anthology Mighty River of Song. A.L. Lloyd commented in the Watersons' original album's sleeve notes:

These B for Barney, P for Paddy, J for Jack songs are usually Irish in origin though common enough in the English countryside. Often the verses are just a string of floaters drifting in from other lyrical songs. So it is with this piece, which derives partly from a version collected by Cecil Sharp from a Gloucestershire gipsy, Kathleen Williams. Some of the verses are familiar from an As I walked out song sung to Vaughan Williams by an Essex woodcutter, Mr Broomfield (Folk Song Journal No. 8). The verses about robbing the bird's nest recall The Verdant Braes of Skreen.

Swan Arcade sang The Verdant Braes of Skreen in 1990 on their CD Full Circle.

John Renbourn, Maggie Boyle and Steve Tilston sang The Verdant Braes of Skreen in 1988 on their album John Renbourn's Ship of Fools. This video shows Steve Tilston and Maggie Boyle sing it live at The Albert Hole, Bristol on October 5, 1990:

June Tabor sang The Old Garden Gate on her 2007 Topic CD Apples. She commented in her sleeve notes:

Collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams from Mr Broomfield, a woodcutter of West Horndon, Essex, on December 4, 1903, with additional verses from other variants of The False Young Man. The telling imagery of the English love lyric is in all its glory here.

Jon Boden sang The Verdant Braes of Skreen as the May 4, 2011 entry of his project A Folk Song a Day and P Stands for Paddy on May 17. He notes about the latter song:

Possibly the first folk song I ever ‘performed’—in a campfire scene in a school play. Basically a version of Verdant Braes of Skreen and as before learnt from Planxty.

Lyrics

Louis Killen sings The Verdant Braes of Skreen

As I walked out on a May morning
By the verdant braes of Skreen,
I set my back against a mossy tree
To view the dew on the far county,
The dew on the forest green.

A lad I spied near our burn side
Wi' a lass beneath an alder tree.
Her cheeks were like the berry brown red
And she all wae and wan to see
And she all wan to see.

“Come sit you down on the grass,” he said,
“On the dewy grass so green.
For the wee birds they have come and gone
Since I my love have seen,” he said,
“Since I my love have seen.”

“Oh I'll not sit with you,” she said,
“No lover I'll be of thine.
For I hear you love a Connaught maid
And your heart's no longer mine,” she said,
”Your heart's no longer mine.”

“Then I will climb the high, high tree
And I'll rob the wild bird's nest.
And back I'll bring what I find there
To the arms that I love the best,” he said,
“To the arms that I love the best.”

Lal and Norma Waterson sing T Stands for Thomas

Oh, as I was a-walking on a May morning
And sat down by an old lofty tree,
All for to hear two lovers talk, to hear what they'd got to say
And to find out something more about courting.

Chorus (after each verse):

And it's T stands for Thomas, I suppose,
J O N stands for John.
W E and N stand for my sweet William
Because he is a clever young man.

“Come and sit down with me together on the grass,
Sit down on the grass so very green.
T'is a long three quarters of the year, darling dear,
Since together you and I have been seen.”

“No, I won't sit with you together on the grass
Not now nor at any other time.
For I heard you were in love with another pretty girl
And your heart wasn't any longer mine.”

“Oh, then I'll go and climb a lofty, lofty tree
And I'll rob a poor bird of his nest.
And if ever I should then come down without having a fall
I'll get married to the lass I love best.”

“Oh, then I'll go and climb a higher tree than that
And I'll harry a far richer nest.
And if ever I should then come down without having a fall
I'll get married to the lad I love best.”

June Tabor sings The Old Garden Gate

As I walked out one May morning
So early in the spring,
I placed my back against the old garden gate
For to hear my true love sing.

“Come now my love and sit down by me,
Where the leaves are springing green.
It's now very near three quarters of a year
Since you and I together have been.”

“I will not come and sit down by you
Nor yet no other man,
Since you have been courting another young girl
Your heart is no longer mine.”

There is a flower I've heard them say,
I wish I could that flower find;
It's called harts-ease by night and by day—
Would it ease my troubled mind?

I cast my anchor in the sea
And it sank down into the sand.
So did my heart all in my body
When I took my false love by the hand.

I'll never believe a man any more,
be his hair yellow, white, or brown,
Unless he was high on the gallows tree
and swearing that he wanted to come down.

So girls, beware of a false lover true,
never mind what a young man might say;
He's like a star on a foggy, foggy morning:
You think he's near, he's far, far away.

Jon Boden sings P Stands for Paddy

As I walked out one mid-May morning
To take a pleasant walk,
I sat myself down upon an old stone wall
For to hear two lovers talk.
    To hear what they might say, my dear,
    To hear what they might say
    That I might know a little more about love
    Before I go away.

P stands for Paddy, I suppose
J for my love John,
And W stands for false Willy O
But Johnny is the fairest man,
    Johnny is the fairest man, my love,
    Johnny is the fairest man.
    And I don't care what anybody says
    For Johnny is the fairest man.

“Oh sit you down beside myself,
Together on the green,
For it's a long three quarters of a year and more
Since together we have been.”

“Oh, I'll not sit by you,” she says,
“Now nor at any other time!
For I hear you love another little girl,
And your heart's no longer mine.
    Your heart's no longer mine,” she says,
    “Your heart's no longer mine,
    It's just three quarters of a year and no more
    And your heart's no longer mine.”

P stands for Paddy, I suppose
J for my love John,
And W stands for false Willam
But Johnny is the fairest man.

Oh, I'll go climb a tall, tall tree
And I'll rob the wild bird's nest.
And when I'll come down I'll go straight home
To the girl that I love best.
    The girl that I love best, my dear,
    The girl that I love best.
    And down I'll come and I'll go straight home
    To the girl that I love best.

P stands for Paddy, I suppose
J for my love John,
And W stands for false Willam
But Johnny is the fairest man.

Links and Acknowledgements

See also the Mudcat Café threads Origin: The Verdant Braes of Skreen and Lyr Req: P Stands for Paddy.