"Sally Gardens"

No personal notes.

The links (below) for the Session, and the Cape Breton Fiddler are for the reel "Sally Gardens" - apparently no relation to the William Butler Yeats poem and song "Down by the Sally Gardens".

The Fiddler's Companion notes both the reel ("Sally Gardens [1]") and an older air ("Down By The Sally Gardens [1]"), with lyrics similar to the one we use, but which were rewritten by W.B. Yeats ("An Old Song re-Sung" and later renamed "Down by the Salley (sic) Gardens,") in 1889. Apparently the older song was "well known in South Leinster according to Darley & McCall";

Down by the sally gardens my own true love and I did meet,
She passed the sally gardens a-tripping with her snow-white feet,
She bid me take life easy, just as the leaves fall from each tree,
But I being young and foolish with my true love would not agree.

Fiddler's Companion claims that the modern tune (with Yeat's poem as lyrics) is actually the same as the ballad "The Maids Of The Mourne Shore" (see MOURNE_SHORE_[2]) - a slow air (4/4 time) in D major.

Wikipedia explains it this way;

Down By The Salley Gardens (Irish: Gort na Saileán) is a poem by William Butler Yeats published in The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems in 1889. Yeats indicated in a note that it was "an attempt to reconstruct an old song from three lines imperfectly remembered by an old peasant woman in the village of Ballisodare, Sligo, who often sings them to herself." Yeats's original title, "An Old Song Re-Sung", reflected this; it first appeared under its present title when it was reprinted in Poems in 1895. The verse was subsequently set to music by Herbert Hughes to the air The Maids of the Mourne Shore in 1909. In the 1920s composer Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979) set the text to music. There is also a vocal setting by the poet and composer Ivor Gurney, which was published in 1938.

"Salley" is an anglicisation of the Irish saileach, meaning willow, i.e., a tree of the genus Salix. Willows are known as "salleys", "sallies" or "salley trees" in parts of Ireland.[1]

The Lyrics are;

    Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
    She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.
    She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
    But I, being young and foolish, with her did not agree.

    In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
    And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.
    She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
    But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.