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The Brisk Young Lad

[ Roud 6139 ; G/D 4:892 ; Ballad Index FVS294 ; trad.]

Battlefield Band sang The Brisk Young Lad in 1977 on their eponymous Topic album, Battlefield Band. The liner notes commented:

This lively song, also known as The Cauldrife Wooer, first appeared in David Herd’s collection in 1776. It is usuall sung to the air Bung Your Eye in the Morning, but here we sing it to the tune of a bothy ballad. It tells of a young man who, hungry and thirsty, pretends to woo the girl in the song and gets her to feed him; needless to say, he finally gets his just deserts!

Palaver sang The Brisk Young Lad on the 1995 Greentrax CD of songs from the Greig-Duncan Collection as performed at the Edinburgh International Festival, Folk Songs of North-East Scotland.

Fiona Hunter sang The Brisk Young Lad in 2015 on Malinky’s CD Far Better Days. They noted:

This song appears in Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, published in 1776 by David Herd of Laurencekirk.

Also known as The Cauldrife Wooer, the woman in this song is distinctly unimpressed by her prospective lover’s greater interest in eating her scones than in wooing her. She tells him to sling his hook, and laughs heartily when he tumbles into a deuk dub (duck pond) on his way.

Lyrics

Malinky sing The Brisk Young Lad

There cam a young man tae ma daddie’s door,
My daddie’s door, ma daddie’s door,
There cam a young man tae ma daddie’s door,
Cam seeking me tae woo, 0.

Chorus (after each verse):
Wow! but he was a bonnie young lad,
A brisk young lad and a braw young lad!
Wow! but he was a bonnie young lad,
Cam seeking me tae woo, o.

I was baking when he cam,
When he cam, when he cam,
I took him in and gied him a scone,
To thaw his frozen mou, o.

I set him in aside the bink;
I gaed him bread and ale tae drink;
Ne’er a blythe styme wid he blink
Until his wame was fu, o.

“Gae, get ye gone, ye cauldrife wooer;
Ye soor-lookin cauldrife wooer!”
I straight-way showed him tae the door,
Saying, “Cam nae mair tae woo, o!”

There lay a deuk dub afore the door,
Afore the door, afore the door,
There lay a deuk dub afore the door,
And there fell he, I trow, o!

Out cam I and sneered and smiled,
“Ye cam tae woo and ye’re aa beguiled;
Ye’ve faan in the dirt and ye’re aa befiled;
We’ll hae nae mair o you, o!”