If you have a Standard Grade in music, you might know this song already.
I first heard this Aberdeenshire bothy ballad in music class at school. The recording was of Jimmy Taylor from near Peterhead singing Mistress Greig, dated May 1960. This was the first really traditional piece of music I'd heard and I'd never heard an Aberdeenshire accent that thick before; it was hilarious. Whenever the recording was played in practice exams for the listening test I found it really difficult to hold in my laughter.
It was only in 2015 when Mistress Greig was played in the last ever Ceol Mor Big Band gig that I realised how funny the story itself is: (from Tobar an Dualchais) "A comic bothy song in which the servant girls at a farm play a trick on Mrs Greig, the strict mistress of the house, who always inspects their room at night in case they have a man hidden under the bed. The girls make a straw man for her to find one night, and thinking it to be a real man, Mrs Greig has it taken out and cudgelled by her husband. When the trick is revealed, the girls are reprimanded, while Mrs Greig and her husband are left to clean up the mess."
"Peter Hall has identified Isabella Greig, wife of Alexander Greig of South Sandlaw farm in Alvah, as the character in this song (Greig-Duncan vol. 2, p. 573)."
lyrics
Mistress Greig (traditional)
'Twas at a certain ferm toun
on the windin' Deveron-Plaidy border
There was an auld wifey caad Mistress Greig
The servant girlies she kept in order
(Chorus)
Tow row row row te fal de diddle di dee
Te fal de diddle di dee te tow row row
Ilka nicht afore she gaed tae bed
She did search the hoose all over
In fearin' a villain micht be there
And amongst them prove a rover
The weemin bein' o' this sae tired
A suit o' men's clothes they procured
And they hae made a man o' straa
And in anaith the bed he was buried
When Mistress Greig was jawin' her rouns
'Twas in anaith the bed she spied him
"Come oot o' that, ye villain!" she cried
"An dinna think yer frae me hidin'
The weemin they were pitten up
To tak him frae whaur he was lyin'
And the auld man placed at the fit o' the stairs
To cudgel him when from them flyin'
They've taen him oot and they've lain him doon
The auld man he was for him ready
And when he laid on his stick sae hard
Baith his legs fell from his body
The weemin they were pitten awa
For this ill deeds that they'd been deein'
And Mistress Greig and her auld man
Were left to gaither his body thegither
Mistress Greig and her auld man
Puir auld bodies they need'na bother
And when he lays on his stick sae hard
Perhaps he'll maybe slay some ither!
credits
from This Ill Deeds,
released October 30, 2020
Arranged by C.R. McIlroy, M. MacDonald and R. Gollan
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