Ballads & Songs of Southern Michigan-songbook

A Collection of 200+ traditional songs & variations with commentaries including Lyrics & Sheet music

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	Happy Love 58 TWO RIGS OF RYE	163
	For a version of nine stanzas which tells the complete story see Ord, pp 31-32. He says that "this fine old country song" was obtained from "an ex-Aberdeenshire ploughman," but he gives no other informauon. A text of seven stanzas which has lines similar to the Michigan text, but in which the lover re­jects his sweetheart, who deades to follow him to "foreign climes," is in Bulletin, I, 8, with the note that "We have no data bearing on the history or distribution of this song." For a longer text, interestingly similar, see Christie, II, 224-225. The present version was sung in 1935 by Mrs. Jennie Hunter, Lowell, who learned the song from her mother, Mrs. Agnes Morrison Cheyne, when she was a small child. Mrs Hunter was born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, in 1852, of Scotch parents. Second sttmtA
	i It was between two rigs of rye Before the sun had pierced the sky I heard two lovers talking. 2 "Your father of you he takes good care; Your mother combs down your yellow hair. Your sisters says they'll ne'er do more If you marry me so slender,"
	He took his kerchief of Holland fine And wiped the tears that came trinkling down Saying, "Dry up those tears, love, for you'll be mine; I was only for to try you,"