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Highland Mary

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Source: RK Schofield's mss at VWML
Performer: Hathaway, George
Place Collected: Bledington
Date collected: Aug. 1937

The tune Highland Mary was also  noted from Longborough, Oddington, Lower Swell, Sherborne, Bampton and Ascot-under-Wychwood.  In all these places it was played for morris dancing.
Robert Burns wrote a poem, Highland Mary about a dead lover of his, setting it to an older tune, Katherine Ogie, which bears a little resemblance to the morris tune.  The present writer has attempted to trace the evolution of the tune in Folklife Traditions Journal 78, Nov.2025.

“Highland” Mary Campbell (1763-86) was one of Robert Burns’ loves, who inspired some of his poetry, particularly a song, Highland Mary. It seems they exchanged vows of marriage, upon which she returned to the West Highlands to arrange matters among her friends for her projected change of life. She returned to Greenock, “where she had scarce landed when she was seized with a malignant fever, which hurried my dear girl to the grave in a few days”.

Note by Charles Menteith