I'll Mak' Ye Fain To Follow Me
William Stenhouse says in reference to “I’ll Mak’ Ye Fain to Follow Me”,
“Ramsay inserted a song, by an anonymous hand, to this lively old tune,
beginning ‘Adieu, for a while, my native green plains’
in the second volume of his
Tea Table Miscellany
;
but he omitted the original song, beginning ‘As late by a soldier I chanced to pass’,
now inserted in the
Museum
.
The tune appears in Oswald’s Collection, and in many others.”
Although James Johnson did include “I’ll Mak’ You Be Fain to Follow Me”
in his
The Scots Musical Museum
, Volume 3, 1790,
and he gave no credit in the index as was usual,
the song is not the original as Stenhouse states.
The song published by Johnson was by Robert Burns
and is called “As Late by a Sodger I Chanced to Pass”
to the tune “I’ll Mak’ You Fain to Follow Me”.
As late by a sodger I chanced to pass,
I heard him courtin a bonie young lass,
“My hinny, my life, my dearest”, quo he,
“I’ll mak you be fain to follow me.”
“Gin I should follow you a poor sodger lad
Ilk ane o’ my cummers wad think I was mad.
For battles I never shall lang to see,
I’ll never be fain to follow thee.”
“To follow me, I think ye may be glad,
A part o’ my supper, a part o’ my bed,
A part o’ my bed, wherever it be.
I’ll mak you be fain to follow me.
Come try my knapsack on your back,
Alang the king’s high-gate we’ll pack;
Between Saint Johnston and bony Dundee,
I’ll mak you be fain to follow me.”
The song seems a bit inconclusive and the soldier never mentions any inducement
save sharing a bit of supper, part of a bed and a heavy knapsack strapped to her back.
The young lady’s companions would, indeed, think she was mad!
There is no record of her reply, which could only have been, as in “The Laird of Cockpen”, “Na!”
From “Scotland Dances”, by Eugenia (Jeannie) Callander Sharp
(Used by permission.)