> Folk Music > Songs > Caroline of Edinburgh Town

Caroline of Edinburgh Town

[ Roud 398 ; Master title: Caroline of Edinburgh Town ; Laws P27 ; G/D 6:1151 ; Henry H148 ; Ballad Index LP27 ; Wiltshire 273 ; DT CAROEDIN , CAROEDN2 ; Mudcat 30249 ; trad.]

Gavin Greig: Folk-Song of the North-East Gale Huntington, Lani Herrmann, John Moulden: Sam Henry’s Songs of the People Gale Huntington: Songs the Whalemen Sang Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger: Travellers’ Songs From England and Scotland John Ord: Bothy Songs and Ballads Frank Purslow: The Foggy Dew Cecil J. Sharp: English Folk Songs From the Southern Appalachians

Jean Elvin sang Blooming Caroline to Séamus Ennis at Turriff, Aberdeenshire on 16 July 1952. This recording was included in 2012 on the Topic anthology of ballads sung by British and Irish traditional singers, Good People, Take Warning. (The Voice of the People Volume 23). Steve Roud noted:

Blooming Caroline was extremely popular across Britain, especially in Scotland, and was also regularly collected in North America. It was also very widely available on broadsides from at least the 1820s onwards. The storyline is interesting because it is a rare example of the girl’s parents being justified in opposing the match, in contrast to the many songs where the parents’ objections prove unfounded.

Comparing traditional texts like Jean Elvin’s with the many broadside printings, there are numerous verbal differences, and it must be said, in this case, that the traditional singers have made many small but significant improvements to the song. The language of the broadsides is more stilted, but the most significant aesthetic change is the introduction of the evocative phrase ‘blooming Caroline’ which does not appear in the printed texts. There was also an answer song, The Fate of Young Henry, which must have appeared on broadsides soon after the original, but which does not seem to have survived in the tradition. The reader will be pleased to know that Henry’s fate was not a happy one. His career at sea was singularly unsuccessful, and “Everything seem’d to fail him, because he’d acted wrong”. He became depressed, and wherever he went people frowned on him because of his cruel treatment of Caroline, and he is eventually drowned in a shipwreck—”So Henry is dead and gone, and none his fate do mourn”.

Belle Stewart sang Caroline of Edinburgh Town on the Stewart Family’s 1965 Topic album The Stewarts of Blair, And she sang Blooming Caroline o’ Edinburgh Town on her 1977 Topic album of Scots traditional songs and Ballads, Queen Among the Heather. Hamish Henderson noted on the first album:

Another song whose widespread popularity depends to a large extent on print, the ‘blooming Caroline’ is a favourite of folk singers up and down Scotland, and in many other parts of the English-speaking world. Belle first heard it in Ireland from a singer called Mary Douglas. Greig published a version in his Buchan Observer column (Folk-Song of the North-East LXX), observing that “the tragic element is managed with very considerable skill”. The rather lush sentimentality of the language points to broadside origin, but the better variants, such as Belle’s have shed some of the stilted diction of the printed versions. Her fine tune lends the song an added elegance and dignity.

… and Geordie McIntyre noted on the second:

This is one of the most widespread and popular songs of the broadside variety which has entered the oral tradition. A measure of its popularity can be gleaned from the proud announcement on a penny sheet published by the famous ‘Poets’ Box’ of 6 St Andrew’s Lane, Glasgow where, on 11 May 1861, it declared its third issue of 10,000 copies since July 1857. Belle learned this song from an Irish girl at a campsite near Strabane, Co Tyrone. The tune is an obvious variant of Tramps and Hawkers, but very close to the tune used to ‘carry’ a popular traditional song in Donegal called Loch Fakanside. Belle’s way of the text, as might be expected, is less rigid in form than the many printed versions.

Packie Byrne sang Blooming Caroline in 1969 on his eponymous EFDSS album Packie Byrne. Tony Foxworthy noted:

This is a fine version of a song better known as Caroline of Edinburgh Town. Gavin Greig in Folk-Song of the North-East says: “This is a favourite ballad with the folk singer. Tragedy seems to make special appeal to the popular mind; and it must be admitted that in Caroline of Edinburgh Town, the tragic clement is managed with considerable skill.”

The tragedy is of a young girl who is enticed from her native town by a young man, who takes her to London, There he seems to grow tired of her and he goes to sea. The girl goes to a wood for poisonous berries, leaving a note that she is going to kill herself.

Cecil Sharp collected a version in the Southern Appalachians. and printed it in one of the Appalachian collections, but with only one verse. It is also to be found in Ballads and Songs of Nova Scotia and the Sam Henry Collection.

Sarah Makem of Co. Armagh, Ben Baxter and Brian Gales of Norfolk, Mrs. Eileen Sheridan of Co. Kerry and Mrs. Lily Cook of Sussex have all recorded versions of this song for the B.B.C.

Nimrod Workman sang Caroline of Edinborough Town to Mark Wilson and Ken Irwin in Chattaroy, West Virginia on 3 January 1976. This recording was included in 2007 on the Musical Traditions anthology of folk songs of the Upper South, Meeting’s a Pleasure Volume 2. Mark Wilson noted:

In America, the dissemination of this old broadside was undoubtedly abetted by its frequent printing in pamphlets like the many editions of The Forget-Me-Not Songster. The ballad is confusing enough even in its amplified forms and Nimrod’s text is both truncated and garbled. Usually Charlotte’s foraging for fruits occurs after Henry has abandoned her to go to sea. Cox gives the penultimate line as: “She gave three shrieks for her Henry and plunged her body down”; Nimrod didn’t reply when I asked him what the song meant. Tom Lenihan provides a nice version on MT 331.

Jean Redpath sang Caroline of Edinburgh Town in 1976 on her Trailer album There Were Minstrels. She noted:

I have to thank Ellen Cohn at Wesleyan for teaching me this song. She learned it from Gale Huntington’s Songs the Whalemen Sang in which he quotes his source as the log of the ‘Elizabeth’, 1845. He also indicates several other versions, one of which is the log of the ‘Sharon’ (1845); Mackenzie Ballads and Sea Songs From Nova Scotia, Sharp English Folk Songs From the Southern Appalachians, and Creighton Maritime Folksongs. It is also included in Greig’s Folk-Song of the North-East but seems to have been particularly popular on the other side of the Atlantic.

Tom Lenihan of Knockbrack, Miltown Malbay sang Caroline of Edinburgh Town to Jim Carroll and Pat Mackenzie in September 1977. This recording was included in 2004 on the An Goílín / Musical Traditions anthology of songs from the Carroll and Mackenzie Collection, Around the Hills of Clare. The collectors noted:

In spite of the enormous popularity enjoyed by this song among traditional singers, it has come in for a great deal of criticism from collectors and scholars. Malcolm J. Laws described such pieces as “cheap, vulgar and journalistic” and, in a somewhat patronising note to the Dorset version, Frank Purslow compared it to the melodramas “which tatty little theatrical troupes performed in makeshift theatres at the village fairs”. He suggested that it was so common that “few collectors bothered with it”. Gavin Greig treated it more kindly in stating, “This is a favourite ballad with the folk-singer”, and had the insight to admit that “the tragic element is managed with very considerable skill”.

Geordie Hanna of Derrytresk, Co Tyrone sang Caroline From Edinburgh Town on his 1978 album Geordie Hanna Sings and on his posthumous 2002 album The Fisher’s Cot. Séan O Boyle noted on the first album:

The amorous adventures and misadventures of the lovely Caroline are well known to lovers of folk-song. Cecil Sharp had published one verse of it with a tune he heard in Kentucky (English Folk Songs From the Southern Appalachians Vol. 1 No. 69). Gavin Greig gives the whole text without a tune in Folk-Song of the North-East and so also does W.R. Mackenzie in his Ballads and Sea Songs From Nova Scotia. Sarah Makem of Keady, Armagh, has recorded it for the BBC, and here Geordie Hanna gives us his version from Tyrone.

The Outside Track sang Caroline of Edinburgh Town in 2010 on their Lorimer album Curious Things Given Wings.

Battlefield Band sang Blooming Caroline From Edinburgh Town in 2015 on their Temple album Beg & Borrow…. They noted:

Again a song that would have been spread orally and on a ballad sheet. This version comes from Roslea singer John Maguire. John learned it from the same Highlander who gave him the Blantyre Explosion. You will find longer versions of this song, but the only verse of import missing here is a final verse, where young lovers and parents are warned never to frown on suitors, or sorrow will surely be the result. It could be argued that the song is just as good without the moral at the end.

Lyrics

Jean Elvin sings Blooming Caroline

Come all ye men and maidens, and listen to my rhyme.
’Tis of a lovely damsel just hastening in her prime.
Her cheeks were like the roses red; her hair was deep dark brown.
She was called the blooming Caroline o’ Edinburgh town.

Young Henry being a roving lad a-courting to her came,
And when her parents came to know they were angry at the same.
Young Henry being offended, these words to her did say,
“Arise, my dearest Caroline, and we will run away.

“Oh, we will go to London and there we’ll wed with speed,
And then, my dearest Caroline, there’ll be happiness indeed.”
She came tripping down the stairs; her hair was hanging down,
And away went the blooming Caroline o’ Edinburgh town.

O’er hills and lofty mountains this couple they did go,
Till they arrived in London far from their native home.
She said, “My dearest Henry, if you ever on me frown.
You’ll break the heart of Caroline o’ Edinburgh town.”

They had not been in London but passing half a year,
When cruel-hearted Henry proved unto her severe.
He said, “I’m bound for the sea, my love, since your parents on me frown,
So peg your way without delay to Edinburgh town.”

O’er hills and lofty mountains this fair maid she did go,
And to the wood to eat that’s good as on the bushes grow.
Some strangers they did pity her, and some did on her frown,
And some did say, “What made you stray frae Edinburgh town?”

Beneath the lofty spreading oak this maid began to cry,
And, watching all the gallant ships as they went sailing by,
She gave three shrieks for Henry, then plunged her body down,
And away went the blooming Caroline o’ Edinburgh town.

A note, likewise her bonnet, she left upon the shore,
And in the note a lock of hair with the words “I am no more.
Full fast asleep in the ocean deep, with the fish watching all around.
I was once called the blooming Caroline o’ Edinburgh town.”

Now all ye tender parents ne’er try to part true love,
Or else you’ll see in some degree the ruin it will prove too.
Likewise young men and maidens, ne’er on your lover frown.
Think on the fate of Caroline o’ Edinburgh town.

Nimrod Workman sings Caroline of Edinborough Town

Went to see his own true love out in Edinborough Town
“Come and take a stroll with me, we’ll see the ocean ’round.”
Over hills and lofty mountains this couple they did go
To eat such fruit as they could find upon the bushes grow.

They had not been together but about a couple of years
“I’ve been to see your parents, upon me they did frown
Now beat your way, without delay, to Edinborough Town.”

Down by yonder spreaded oak where she sat down to cry
Watching of the gallant ship as they went passing by
She gave the ship her Henry while the fish were watching ’round
For the body of young Caroline who plunged her body down.

Tom Lenihan sings Caroline of Edinburgh Town

Now gentlemen and maidens, come listen to my rhyme,
’Tis of a lovely maiden who is scarcely in her prime.
She beat the blooming roses, she was admired by one and all,
She being once a lovely Caroline from Edinburgh Town.

Young Henry being a Highlander, sure, courting her he came.
Her parents came to hear of it, they did not like that same.
Young Henry being a Highlander, he stole her finest gown,
So away goes lovely Caroline from Edinburgh Town.

They being no longer in London Town, scarcely one half year,
When Henry proved to his true love, unkind and most severe.
He says one day, “You must go and see, for your friends, they did on me frown,
So be on your way without delay to Edinburgh Town.”

Oppressed with grief, without relief, this fair one had to go
Into the woods to pick some fruit that on the branches grew.
’Tis there some friends would welcome her and more would on her frown,
And some would say, “Why did you stray from Edinburgh Town?”

It was on a stone she wrote a note saying, “Alas, I am no more.”
A lock of her hair she did leave there to grieve him more and more.
She gave three screams for Henry and threw her body down,
And that was the last of Caroline from Edinburgh Town.