"Andrew Lammie", also known as Mill o' Tifty or Mill o' Tifty's Annie, is a traditional Scottish ballad, set in Aberdeenshire, and catalogued as Child ballad 233 (Roud 98). It tells the story of an ill-fated romance between Annie, the daughter of the miller at Tifty, and Andrew Lammie, the trumpeter for the lord of nearby Fyvie Castle. The romance is thwarted by Annie's ambitious family, who disapprove of the trumpeter's low rank. In most versions, the ballad ends with Annie's death at the hands of her brother.
The ballad is said to recount a historical event, with the heroine "Bonnie Annie" being buried in the churchyard at Fyvie.[1] In 1825, Peter Buchan described the song as "one of the greatest favourites of the people in Aberdeenshire that I know."[2] The "Annie" of the title is traditionally identified with Agnes Smith, who died in 1673.[3]
"Andrew Lammie" is one of a group of several traditional Scottish ballads that, in many versions, use a "single rhyme" throughout, with the second line of each verse rhyming loosely with either "Lammie" or "Annie".[4] The stress falls on the penultimate syllable of the rhyming line, resulting in a feminine rhyme that is unusual in Scottish ballads. Each stanza has four lines; the first and third lines have four beats while the second and fourth lines have three. [4] Other popular ballads sharing similar meter and rhyme schemes include Barbara Allen and The Dowie Dens of Yarrow.[5] These ballads are often sung to the same or similar melodies.[6][7]
- ^ Ford, Robert (1889). Auld Scots Ballants. A. Gardner. p. 104.
- ^ MacLean 2011, p. 89.
- ^ MacLean 2011, p. 90.
- ^ a b McCarthy 2003, p. 150.
- ^ McCarthy 2003, p. 163.
- ^ Stewart, Elizabeth (2012). Up Yon Wide and Lonely Glen: Travellers' Songs, Stories and Tunes of the Fetterangus Stewarts. University Press of Mississippi. p. 327. ISBN 978-1-4968-0183-8.
- ^ Keith, Alexander (1925). "Ballad Music of Aberdeenshire". The Scots Magazine. Vol. 3, no. 1. p. 53.