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Introduction to BONNIE ANNIE AND ANDREW LAMMIE (interview)
Previously unreleased.

Here Jeannie introduces a ballad held especially dear by Scottish singers, who kept some fifty verses of it in the living tradition. It tells a classic tale of star-crossed lovers, a story known to be true both in fact and spirit. As Jeannie notes, Annies grave can be seen to this day in Fyvie.

Alan Lomax: What about "Bonnie Annie, "Jeannie?

Jeannie Robertson: Well, I'll sing it for you, but it'll take a while!

Alan Lomax: What?

Jeannie Robertson: It's long, mind you - it'll take a while.

Alan Lomax: That's all right, there's lots of tape. Take another drink.

Jeannie Robertson: This is a high song and it's
so long!

Alan Lomax: And tell about it before you start.

Jeannie Robertson: Give a little story? What'll I say - the song I'm going to sing - ?

Alan Lomax: Just tell me. I've forgotten the story.

Jeannie Robertson: Well, this song about Tifty's Annie is over three hundred years old, because she was the miller of Fyvie's daughter. And the Laird of Fyvie was in love with her, and he wanted to marry her. But a trumpeter came to him belonging to Edinburgh - they called him Andrew Lammie. He was very, very handsome. And one day he met her in a place they called Tifty's Glen - and he met her there, and both of them fell in love with each other. So of course, she was true to the day she died, and of course, she got killed for him. She got her back broken, because she loved him too much. But he loved her also. But her people didn't want him as they wanted the Laird with his money. So they broke her back for the loving of Andrew Lammie. So one day when they got him away to Edinburgh town, they killed her. So she died for love.

Alan Lomax: Did people really do that?

Jeannie Robertson: That was quite quite true. That was a true story.

Alan Lomax: They did things like that back in those days?

Jeannie Robertson: Yes, because, I could tell ye. Jean and George and Hamish was up and saw her grave; and they had a look right around and saw what they call the Weeping Stone. It sheds water every now and again, and they call it the Weeping Stone and it is in the graveyard some place, because I've read about it - and it's over 300 years old since that happened. And her grave is buried up in the old churchyard at Fyvie. And that's what she said before she was killed - that she would be buried there.