More about....The Mansfield Manuscript....
The Introductory pages cover the history of the Mansfield Manuscript, the collector-cum-writer of the material, and those who have made use of its contents. The main body of the book shows ALL of the 319 pages from the original writings, in a presentation mode that seeks to preserve the original style and layout - dubbed a FAKESIMILE. There are also detailed Notes on the songs, together with an Index charting sources of similar versions from this Scottish folk song and ballad collection that are found in seminal publications like Child, Greig-Duncan and the Scots Musical Museum.
......a 'sampler' from the Notes to The Mansfield Manuscript
Page 287 When the sheep were in the fauld & kye at hame
Printed in The Universal Songster p.141, this song is often known as Auld Robin Gray. It has been attributed to Lady Anne Lindsay of Balcarres (1750-1825, afterwards Lady Barnard) and written in 1772, according to a Reverend W. Leeves who claimed authorship of the tune.
Lady Barnards claim can be identified inasmuch as on 22.7.1823, writing from her home in Berkely Square, London, Lady Barnard tells Sir Walter Scott –
“I recall..my friend Chirsty…the old Harpsichord in the corner of the Inner room on which I used to play…..but what a Truant memory is….’is it possible’ said she, ‘have you forgot that Jeany Rutherford was at Balcarres with us at the time you wrote Auld Robin Gray’.”
Interestingly, this Mansfield version is written in an ‘alternative’ hand in the Manuscript, but that hand is not that of Anne Lindsay Barnard. The song is evidently based on ‘Auld Rob Morris’, which appears in Herd’s Ancient & Modern Scottish Songs 1769 collection, p.287. Roud 2652.
And some people say......
Professor Emerita Mary Ellen Brown - "It is lovely to see what was on the table in Kirkcudbright turned into this edition. Well done......I am impressed with the Mansfield"
Dr. Caroline Macafee, former University lecturer and compiler of Scots Dictionaries - "very interesting, and you’ll be doing a great service to scholarship by making it available."