The Mains o Foggieloan

Original Track ID

SA1956.48.A2

Original Tape ID

SA1956.048

Summary

In this bothy ballad, the singer tells how he was hired at Turra Market [Porter Fair in Turriff] to work at the Mains of Foggieloan as an orra loon [odd job man]. He names some of the workforce at the farm, including the foreman, the second horseman and the kitchen maid. He looks forward to the next fair in Turriff, and lists the people who he will see there, including fiddlers, grieves [foremen] from Cairnie, and cheap-johns [peddlars of cheap goods]. He closes by bidding the listeners farewell until the next term day.

John MacDonald first heard song from an old man, 'Whistlin Willie'. John's uncle Angus used to take in travelling people, and that was how he got the start of the song, then got the other verses from other various people and put it all together

Item Notes

9 couplets with a refrain of 2 lines. 'Foggieloan' is the local name for Aberchirder, Aberdeenshire (previously in Banffshire until 1974). The term days were the days to which farmservants' six-monthly contracts ran.

Mr MacDonald mentions learning the song at "the Kerra at the Dava", which was his uncle's leased farm at Kerrow, a little north of Mr MacDonald's own father's farm at Dava.

Item Location

Language

Scots

Genre

Song Information

Collection

SoSS

Classification

R5148

Source Type

Reel to reel

Audio Quality

Good