Anna Gordon Recorded

Abstract William Tytler, a Scottish intellectual and Anna’s father’s friend, asked to have her ballads written down. Her nephew, Robert Eden Scott, then a lad of fourteen, helped to record the words to twenty of her ballads for Tytler. Ultimately, this manuscript ended up in Robert Jamieson’s hands (Jamieson–Brown MS). When Tytler realized that they had not included the tunes, he asked for the added musical notation. This time, they wrote down the words and music for fifteen ballads (Tytler–Brown MS). Some of the differences between these versions are noted. Tytler’s son, Alexander Fraser Tytler, inherited the manuscript of fifteen ballads when his father died, and lent it to Joseph Ritson, and then to young Walter Scott, who had been projecting a volume of border ballads. When Scott heard about Jamieson’s broader plan to collect ballads in the field, he changed his plan—which eventuated in The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. When Scott and Jamieson recognized that they each had manuscripts of Anna Brown’s ballads, Scott assured Jamieson he would not include many of them in his collection; nevertheless, he did. Anna Brown was horrified that Scott mentioned her by name in his book. “Brown Adam” and “Gay Gos Hawk” are the ballads analyzed in this chapter. Jamieson’s visit to Anna Brown and her husband at Dysart is described. The chapter ends with a brief history of ballad collections.