> Waterson:Carthy > Songs > May Morning

The Shady Green Tree / The Bonny Green Tree / May Morning / As I Roamed Out

[ Roud 2512 ; Master title: The Shady Green Tree ; Laws P19 ; Henry H794 ; Ballad Index LP19 ; VWML RVW2/12/3/255 ; GlosTrad Roud 2512 ; Mudcat 59070 ; trad.]

The Wanton Seed Sam Henry’s Songs of the People The Ploughboy’s Glory Travellers’ Songs From England and Scotland

John Reilly sang The Bonny Green Tree in a recording made by Tom Munnelly in his own home in Dublin in winter 1967. It was publishd in 1977 as the title track of his Topic album The Bonny Green Tree: Songs of an Irish Traveller.

Eliza Carthy sang this song as May Morning in 2002 on Waterson:Carthy’s fourth album A Dark Light. She accompanied herself on violin and Barnaby Stradling played a Fylde acoustic bass guitar. Martin Carthy noted:

Liza learned May Morning from the Cecil Sharp collection, also Crystal Spring, where she played with a rhythm of the tune, changing it from a straight three-four time to a kind of twelve-eight, filled with shifting accents. People sometimes get nervous about country idylls. The exist a-plenty in England, and, superficially I suppose, such reluctance can be seen as understandable. But, going even the teeniest bit deeper, isn’t it surely true that people have always dreamed about having it better? And why not? When one lives a life as hard and unrelenting as the people who made these songs then dreamworlds such as The Big Rock Candy Mountain or, indeed, The Land of Cockaigny (as the European variants are known) can be seen in a clearer light and with a proper perspective.

Eliza Carthy also sang May Morning on her 2024 album No Wasted Joy where she noted:

First recorded with parents and Tim Van Eyken, plus special guest Barnaby Stradling on Fylde acoustic bass on Waterson:Carthy’s album A Dark Light (Topic Records, 2002). I thought I had learned it from a Cecil Sharp collection, but it turns out my young brain may have misremembered as this version was probably collected from Mrs Whiting by George Butterworth in 1908. Thanks Mainly Norfolk!

Andy Turner sang this song as As I Roamed Out on 18 October 2011 as the week 8 entry of his project A Folk Song a Week. He noted that this song was collected by George Butterworth in 1908 from a Mrs Whiting of Broseley in Shropshire (or possibly Newport in Monmouthshire) and was printed in Michael Dawney (ed.): The Ploughboy’s Glory (EFDSS 1977), a collection of previously unpublished songs from the George Butterworth collection. As Eliza sings nearly exactly Mrs Whiting’s words it is quite possible that Martin Carthy had misremembered her source and she got the song from this one, too.

Eamon O’Leary and Nuala Kennedy sang The Bonny Green Tree on their 2024 album Hydra. They noted:

Based on the version in Sam Henry’s Songs of the People with an added chorus.

Lyrics

Mrs Whiting sings As I Roamed Out

As I roam’d out one May morning, one May morning so early,
’Twas down by the side of a shady green tree;
O there I beheld a most beautiful damsel,
She sat there a-sighing all underneath a tree.

I stepped up to this fair maid, I wished her good morning,
She was the very first girl that ever wounded me:
“You never shall want for gold or bright silver,
If you will only place your reflections on me.”

“I thank you, kind sir, but I think you are a-joking,
I think you are fitting for a higher girl than me;
Besides your own friends, they will always be a-frowning,
They’ll always be a-frowning and scolding of me.”

Come all you pretty fair maids, that go now a-courting,
Never trust a young man of any higher degree;
For when they’ve enjoyed all the flowers of your garden,
Then they will go and leave you, as my love left me.

Eliza Carthy sings May Morning

As I walked out one May morning, one May morning so early,
’Twas down by the side of a shady green tree
Oh there I beheld a most beautiful damsel,
She sat there a-sighing all underneath the tree.

I stepped up to this fair maid, I wished a good morning,
She was the very first girl that ever wounded me.
“You never shall want for gold or bright silver
If you will only place your reflections on me.”

“I thank you, kind sir, but I think you are a-joking,
You think you are more fitting for higher girls than me.
Besides your own friends they will always be a-frowning,
They’ll always be a-frowning and scolding of me.”

Come all you pretty fair maids that go now a-courting,
Never trust a young man of any higher degree:
For when they’ve enjoyed all the flowers of your garden,
Then they will go and leave you, as my love left me.

(Repeat first verse)

Eamon O’Leary and Nuala Kennedy sing The Bonny Green Tree

As I was a-walking one fine summer’s morning,
A fine summers morning it happened to be,
I spied a fair maid she appeared like an angel
Under the shade of a bonny green tree.

I stepped up to her and I gently saluted,
I said, “My fair lassie if you will agree
I’ll make you a lady of high rank and honor,
If you’ll let me share in your bonny green tree.”

Chorus (twice after every other verse):
Come my love and we’ll sit down together
Under the shade of a bonny green tree

“Well, I am no lady of high rank and honor,
I am a poor girl of lower degree,
Your friends and your parents would all frown upon me
If you were to marry a poor girl like me.”

“What do I care for my friends and my parents=
My friends and my parents care nothing for me.
But I am a young man and you a young woman
If we wish to marry it’s married we shall be.”

This young man sat down and she sat down beside him,
He vowed and he swore that married they would be.
But when he arose his mind it was altered,
He said, “If I marry it won’t be to thee.”

So now I may go I may go broken hearted,
I’ll rue the day that I sat on his knee.
My first and my last was a false-hearted lover
Under the shade of a bonny green tree.

Acknowledgements

Eliza Carthy posted her own verses in the Mudcat Café thread Lyr Req: May Morning / Shady Green Tree.