Down By the Green Bushes

Sung by Jane Turriff:

This Irish song has a wide currency, ranging from the North East to Australia and America and several points between. Jane learned it from her mother, who may have picked it up from a 78 by John MacCormack or
Sidney MacEwen (the latter sings ‘lamkins’, as does Jane).

It appeared in chapbook form in the mid-19th century, as well as in Petrie’s collection. (Ord 147, Peter Kennedy, Folksongs of Britain and Ireland, no. 156).

Down by the Green Bushes

1: As I was a-walking one moming in May,
To hear the birds whistle, to see lamkins play,
I spied a young damsel, so sweetly sung she,
Down by the green bushes where she vowed to meet me.

2: “O where are you lowtrin my pretty fair maid?” [why
“I’m waiting for my true love,” softly she said.
“An will I be your true love, an will you agree,
For to leave your own true love an follow with me?”

3: “I will buy you fine beavers, an fine silken gowns.
I'll buy you silk petticoats, flounced to the ground.
I'll buy you fine jewels, an I'll live but for thee,
If you leave your own true love and follow with me.”

4: “I want none of your beavers, nor fine silken gowns,
I’m not so poor as to marry for clothes,
But if you'll be constantly true untae me,
I will leave my own true love an marry with thee.”

5: “O quick let us be going, kind sir, if you please,
For yonder’s my true love under these trees,
And yonder’s my true love, an he thinks to meet me,
Down by the green bushes where he vowed to meet me.”

6: And when he went there and he found she wis gone,
He looked very sheepish and felt all forlorn,
“For she’s gone with another an forsaken me,
Down by the green bushes where she vowed to meet me.”

Recorded by Ailie Munro and Tom Atkinson, 1975.
School of Scottish Studies, Edinburgh.