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From: Abby Sale <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: The Banks o Skene
Date: Sat, 16 Dec 2000 10:20:41 -0500
Organization: We'll get around to that tomorrow, for certain.
Reply-To: Abby Sale <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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It may be that it is not given unto us to know...but have any a good idea
just who gets married in "The Banks o Skene." The song is An Aberdeenshire
song (#164 in Greig~Duncan and a shortened version in Digital Tradition at
http://shorty.mudcat.org/!!-song99.cfm?stuff=fall99+D+838933 or filename[
BANKSKEN. I have it very well-sung by Stramash on _Folk Songs of North
East Scotland (Greig-Duncan Collection)_ available from Greentrax or here
from Camsco.
In short, it's one of the transvestite songs, so popular in the UK. The
16-year-old protagonist falls for a young flax dresser, a 'heckler.' In
Digitrad she seems to follow him but this is not so clearly the case in
other versions.
In any event she dresses as a boy and gets herself apprenticed to the
heckling trade. While she is 'discretely' baring her breast just to cool
off her 'maister' (the flax-dressing house owner) notices. She firmly
rejects him. At the next town dance he fails to get her drunk but rapes
her anyway. Her protest may only be that others will see.
In the 30th week she returns home and to her own clothes. On giving birth
she sends word to the heckler lad that he's a father and he comes running
and marries and they live marriedly ever after.
So, do you think, from the text, 'heckler lad' and 'maister' are the same
person. Both ways seem odd to me - that a maister-owner would be a lad.
Or that she would so firmly reject him if she's so besotted with him that
she changed her life & sex to follow him. Or, OTOH, that he would come
running to marry if her weren't the father.
Like I say, maybe it's just not clear - or maybe I'm missing the obvious.
For those unfamiliar with the era & genre - marriage to a successful
business owner is a very happy outcome for a young rambling girl silly
enough to get herself raped.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -
I am Abby Sale - in Orlando, Florida
Boycott South Carolina!
http://www.naacp.org/communications/press_releases/SCEconomic2.asp
