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The Maid of Norway
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This is the song normally known as Sir Patrick Spens, but substantially updated and shortened, with a chorus based on one of the Walter Scott verses
singer songwriter acoustic folk british guitarist song celtic traditional fingerstyle scottish scotland guitar kelso
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Solo singer-songwriter and tunesmith playing British fingerstyle steel and nylon string guitar, and historic instruments. Scots and Irish influences.
I've been writing and playing songs and tunes since teenage years in folk clubs and pubs. I co-organise the Kelso Friday night live music sessions at the Cross Keys (hosted singaround 7.45-10pm) and Cobbles Inn (10-12pm open mic with The Cobbles Band) with the help of many friends. All welcome! Visit us at kelsofolkandlive co uk. It is worth clicking on the tab because the sound quality of my tracks is far higher than the auto player on this page. Many can be streamed or downloaded at 320KBps and the enhancement for solo guitar/voice far exceeds the benefit you get for highly compressed band recordings. My recordings are full dynamic, not compressed. Just select Hi-Fi for the first song, and an MP3 high bitrate window will open - you will still get a sequence of songs. Most of my downloads are free, but some 320KBps tracks are paid-for. These are selected because they make up my main instrumental album. I now have a YouTube page and have started doing some video recordings for fun: @daviddkilpatrick I have mainly played Lowden guitars since 1999. I current play a 1985 S5FN (nylon string), 1986 S22 (jumbo O-size mahogany/cedar), and 1995 S32 (small body rosewood/spruce). I also play my own 1997-built Martin 'kit' Grand Auditorium rosewood/spruce, a Sigma OM-T, Furch Little Jane, Tacoma Papoose, Guild 8-string baritone, Vintage V880 parlour guitar and Gordon Giltrap signature model, a Troubadour mahogany/spruce classical and an Adam Black 12-string. And that's just the guitars... also viola, mandolin, mandola, waldzither, bouzouki, Appalachian dulcimer, low D whistle, keyboards.
Song Info
Genre
Acoustic • Acoustic Folk
Charts
Peak #14
Peak in subgenre #2
Author
David Kilpatrick
Rights
David Kilpatrick 2007
Uploaded
January 27, 2007
Track Files
MP3
MP3 4.5 MB • 320 kbps • 4:54
Story behind the song
This is one of the first Scots songs I learned to sing and play, in its original version. My daughter Ailsa, six years old in 1988, was asked if she knew any songs when she went to primary school for the first time after moving to Scotland. She knew this because I had been playing it. It haunted her entire school career, as to know anything like this was considered eccentric and unforgivable. The Scots, in general, hate old Scots songs and prefer modern American or Brit-pop (or country and western, especially); they don't identify with the songs of the Border Minstrelsy. My folk club friends are exceptions, but even then it's left to me to do this stuff. The majority is like the majority in any place! A visitor to the Kelso club asked me for this song a couple of weeks ago, and I had not performed it for ten years. I could remember my version, which is quite a major revision compared to the 'trad' set. So, with new Lamaq GAL5190 small jumbo guitar in hand, I set about this recording to test my conversion of my Roland VS880 (1997) to record on to CompactFlash cards. It works! The recording has been re-encoded at 320kpbs for maximum quality (Jan 27) Recently I heard another version, with another variant of the ballad words and a much dreeched-down tune, from Kris Drever. This is well worth hunting down. 'Sir Patrick Spens' is still the song which many Scots folk-club regulars joking refer to when taking the mickey out of long ballad dirges; it doesn't deserve that reputation. I have shortened it to less than half the original number of verses and made an amended 'To Norroway, to Norroway' verse into a chorus because the words of that verse have all the hallmarks of being taken from a chorus to start with.
Lyrics
The king sits in Dumfermline town drinkin' the bluid-red wine Saying, whaur can ah get a skipper skilled Tae sail this ship o' mine? It's up there spake an eldern knight Sat at the king's right knee 'Sir Patrick Spens is the bravest man that ever sailed the sea!' (chorus) Tae Norroway, tae Norroway, tae Norroway oer the fame The king's dochter o' Norroway, it's we must bring her hame Be it wind or weet, be it snaw or sleet Come weather as it may We must now brave the North Sea* wave For the Maid of Norroway! (*this is an anachronism - the North Sea is what we call it now, it was called the German Ocean back then) The king has written a broad letter And signed it wi' his own hand They've taken it tae where Sir Patrick Spens Was walking on Leith strand This royal request must be a jest, A cruel jest, I fear! That I should brave the North Sea wave At sic' a time o' year! (ch) They had not gone a league, a league, a league but barely three When dark and stormy grew the sky And raging grew the sea Laith, laith were the guid Scots lairds tae wet their cork-heeled shoon But lang ere a' the play wiz done, their hats they swam abune! (ch) Lang, lang may the ladies wait, wi' their heads held in their hands! Before they see Sir Patrick Spens cam sailing home tae land! Half owr, haf owr tae Aberdour 'tis fifty fathoms deep And there lies guid Sir Patrick Spens wi' the Scots lords at his feet... (ch and end)
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JaneR
Oct 17, 2014
Best rendition of this wonderful ballad I have heard!