Mount and Go
[
Roud 3860
; G/D 7:1361
; Ballad Index GrD71361
; trad.]
Norman Buchan and Peter Hall: The Scottish Folksinger Emily B. Lyle: Andrew Crawfurd’s Collection of Ballads and Songs
The Clutha sang Mount and Go in 1975 on their Topic album Scots Ballads, Songs & Dance Tunes. They noted:
: This excellent song was collected by Gavin Greig from the singing of Mrs. Grieve of New Deer, Aberdeenshire. The misfortunes and subsequent militancy of young maidens married to sexually incompetent old men constitute a frequent theme in Scottish folk song, as doubtless throughout the world (even among Eskimos).
Archie Fisher sang Mount and Go in 1976 on his Folk-Legacy album The Man With a Rhyme. He noted:
The Greig manuscript gave us one of the few songs where the woman comes off the better. In this case, she escapes from a fixed marriage with a rich sea captain, apparently taking his ship as well as his gold.
Lyrics
Archie Fisher sings Mount and Go
My parents married me ower young
To an auld carle baith bald and dumb.
His love was done and mine new sprung,
So I’ll fly the plains wi’ my laddie O.
Chorus:
Come, bonnie laddie, mount and go,
Hey, bonnie laddie, mount and go,
Come, bonnie laddie, mount and go,
Mount and I’ll gang wi’ ye O.
But I would leave my good peat stack,
And so would I my good kailyard,
So would I my auld bald laird
To fly the plains wi’ my laddie O.
And when the auld carte lay fast asleep,
Out of his arms she did quickly creep,
And the keys o’ the cabin she did keep,
And she’s flown the plains wi’ her laddie O.
The auld carte wakened in the ha’;
The sheets were cold and she was awa’.
Wi’ the weight o’ herself in goud and a’
She’s flown the plains wi’ her laddie O.
“It’s ye’ll gang doon tae yon seashore,
And ye’ll see a ship where she was afore;
Ye’ll speir at the skipper if she’s been there,
Or if any of his sailors saw her O.”
And as she sailed out ower yon lea,
She drank a toast right merrily.
She’s thrown the wine glass intae the sea,
For joy she has found wi’ her /addie O.
When she landed ower yon lea,
She was lady o’ fifty ploughs and three,
Lady o’ fifty ploughs and three
And she dearly lo’es her laddie O.