Bogie's Bonnie Belle: A Song History
“Bogie’s Bonnie Belle” is a bothy ballad from Aberdeenshire in north-east Scotland, numbered 2155 in the Roud Folk Song Index; the Traditional Ballad Index dates its earliest known version to 1906, in the Greig–Duncan collection, which holds thirteen texts and eleven tunes.[1][2] Its narrator, bound for Huntly, is taken on by Bogie to drive his horses, courts his daughter Isabel, and fathers her son; his offer of marriage is refused as beneath her, and she marries a tinsmith instead, though the endings differ from version to version.[1][3] In a note in volume 7 of Greig–Duncan, Peter Hall identifies the heroine with a real woman: Isabel Morison, daughter of Alexander Morison, was born at Boghead in the parish of Cairnie in 1823 and in June 1843 gave birth to a son whose father was James Stephen of the parish of Glass.[2] Sources differ on the hero, however: a note in Gavin Greig’s manuscript names him as John Geddes, and Tobar an Dualchais’s notes suggest that Geddes, a grieve (farm overseer) at Boghead, may have written the song in 1865.[2][3]
Father and son (highland cattle), photochrom print, ca. 1890. Library of Congress. No known restrictions on publication. Scottish cattle shown for the song’s farm setting; it has no connection to the song.
The ballad was a particular favourite of Scottish Traveller singers.[2] Jimmy McBeath sang it for Alan Lomax in London in 1953, Belle Stewart of Blairgowrie recorded it for Maurice Fleming in 1955, and Davie Stewart’s version appeared on the anthology Songs of Courtship (Caedmon, 1961).[1][2] Ewan MacColl recorded it the same year on Bothy Ballads of Scotland for Folkways, from the singing of Jimmy Gray of Macduff, and A. L. Lloyd later praised its “noble hexatonic tune and hard scornful words.”[2] Sleeve notes by Peter Hall and Arthur Argo, and by Ian Campbell, observe that its closing verse reflects a prejudice against Travellers that they found still present in the north-east.[2]
In the folk revival the ballad was taken up by Dick Gaughan, Robin and Barry Dransfield, Andy M. Stewart, June Tabor, Richard Thompson and, in 2019, Kate Rusby, among many others.[2] Dulcimer players have a precedent of their own: Jake Walton sang it on Times and Traditions for Dulcimer, his 1976 Trailer album with Roger Nicholson and Andrew Cronshaw.[2]
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