"The Raggle Taggle Gypsy" (Roud 1, Child 200), is a traditional folk song that originated as a Scottish border ballad, and has been popular throughout Britain, Ireland and North America. It concerns a rich lady who runs off to join the gypsies (or one gypsy). Common alternative names are "The Raggle Taggle Gypsies O", "The Gypsy Laddie(s)", "Black Jack David" (or "Davy") and "Seven Yellow Gypsies".
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Popularity
In the folk tradition the song was extremely popular, spread all over the English-speaking world by broadsheets and oral tradition. It went under a great many titles, including "Black Jack Davy", "The Gypsy Laddie", "The Draggletail Gypsies", "Seven Yellow Gypsies" and "Johnnie Faa". According to Roud and Bishop,
"Definitely in the top five Child ballads in terms of widespread popularity, and possibly second only to 'Barbara Allen', the Gypsies stealing the lady, or, to put it the other way round, the lady running off with the sexy Gypsies, has caught singers' attention all over the anglophone world for more than 200 years. For obvious reasons, the song has long been a favourite with members of the travelling community."
The song was also published in books. Robert Burns used the song in his Reliques of Robert Burns; consisting chiefly of original letters, poems, and critical observations on Scottish songs (1808). Due to the Romanichal origins of the main protagonist Davie or Johnny Faa, the ballad was translated into Anglo-Romany in 1890 by the Gypsy Lore Society.
One version, collected and set to piano accompaniment by Cecil Sharp, reached a much wider public. Under the title "The Wraggle Taggle Gypsies O!", it was published in several collections, most notably one entitled English Folk Songs for Schools, causing the song to be learned by generations of English school children.
In America, the country music recording industry spread versions of the song by such notable musicians as Cliff Carlisle and The Carter Family, and later by the rockabilly singer Warren Smith, under the title "Black Jack David". In the American folk music revival, Woody Guthrie sang and copyrighted a version he called "Gypsy Davy" (which was later also sung by his son Arlo).
The Cecil Sharp sheet music version was occasionally used by Jazz musicians, for example the instrumental "Raggle Taggle" by the Territory band Boots and His Buddies, and the vocal recording by Maxine Sullivan.
Synopsis
The core of the song's story is that a lady forsakes a life of luxury to run off with a band of gypsies. In some versions there is one individual, named, for example as Johnny Faa or Black Jack Davy. In some versions there is one leader and his six brothers. In one local tradition, the lady is identified as the wife of the Earl of Cassilis. In some versions the gypsies charm her with their singing, or even cast a spell over her. In a typical version, the lord comes home to find his lady "gone with the gypsy laddie". He saddles his fastest horse to follow her. He finds her and bids her come home, asking "Would you forsake your husband and child?" She refuses to return: in many versions preferring the cold ground ("What care I for your fine feather sheets?") and the gypsy's company to her lord's wealth and fine bed. At the end of some versions the husband kills the gypsies. In the local Cassilis tradition, they are hung from the Cassilis Dule Tree.
Origins
The earliest text may be "The Gypsy Loddy", published in the Roxburghe Ballads with an assigned date of 1720. A more certain date is 1740, the publication of Allan Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany, which included the ballad as of "The Gypsy Johnny Faa". Differences between the two texts suggest that they derive from one or more earlier versions. They were followed by several printings, often copying Ramsay. It was then printed by most of the nineteenth century broadside printers.
In "The Gypsy Loddie"
As soon as her fair face they saw
They called their grandmother over
This is assumed to be a corruption of They cast their glamour over her (i.e. they cast a spell), not vice versa. This is the motivation in many texts for the lady leaving her lord; in others she leaves of her own free will.
In some texts the lord is identifies as "Cassilis", and a local tradition identifies him as the John Kennedy 6th Earl of Cassilis. B. H. Bronson discovered that a tune in the Skene manuscripts and dated earlier than 1600, resembles later tunes for this song and is entitled "Lady Cassiles Lilt". The inference is that a song concerning Lord and Lady Cassilis existed before the two earliest manuscripts, and was the source of both.
Nick Tosches, in his Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock 'N' Roll, spends part of his first chapter examining the song's history. He compares the song's narrative to the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The ballad, according to Tosches, retells the story of John Faa, a 17th-century outlaw, described as a Scottish Gypsy, and Lady Jane Hamilton, wife of The Earl of Cassilis. Lord Cassilis led a band of men (some sources say 16, others 7, to abduct her. They were caught and hanged on the "Dool Tree" in 1643. The "Gypsies" were killed (except for one, who escaped) and Lady Jane Hamilton was imprisoned for the remainder of her life, dying in 1642.
Related songs
The song "The Whistling Gypsy" also describes a lady running off with a "gypsy rover". However, there is no melancholy, no hardship and no conflict. Her father rides after her and discovers that the "gypsy" is really a rich lord.
The song "Lizzie Lindsay" has a similar theme. Robert Burns adapted the song into "Sweet Tibby Dunbar", a shorter version of the story. There is also a children's version by Elizabeth Mitchell which has lyrical content changed to be about a young girl "charming hearts of the ladies", and sailing "across the deep blue sea, where the skies are always sunny".
Although the hero of this song is often called "Johnny Faa" or even "Davy Faa", he should not be confused with the hero/villain of "Davy Faa (Remember the Barley Straw)". [Silber and Silber misidentify all their texts] as deriving from "Child 120", which is actually "Robin Hood's Death". According to The Faber Book of Ballads the name Faa was common among Gypsies in the 17th century.
Recordings
A vast number of artists and groups have recorded the song. This selection is limited to artists and/or albums found in other Wikipedia articles: