"The Raggle Taggle Gypsy" (Roud1,Child200), is atraditional folk song that originated as a Scottishborder ballad, and has been popular throughout Britain, Ireland and North America. It concerns a rich lady who runs off to join thegypsies (or one gypsy). Common alternative names are "Gypsy Davy", "Gypsum Davy", "The Raggle Taggle Gypsies O", "The Gypsy Laddie(s)", "Black Jack David" (or "Davy") and "Seven Yellow Gypsies".

In thefolk tradition the song was extremely popular, spread all over the English-speaking world bybroadsheets andoral tradition.^[1]

The Raggle Taggle Gypsy

The Waterboys' recording of "The Raggle Taggle Gypsy", from the albumRoom to Roam.

---

Problems playing this file? Seemedia help.

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, namedJohnny Faa or Black Jack Davy, whereas in others there is one leader and his six brothers. In some versions the lady is identified asMargaret Kennedy, the wife of the ScottishEarl of Cassilis.

In a typical version, the lord comes home to find his lady "gone with the gypsy laddie". Sometimes this is because the gypsies have charmed her with their singing or even cast a spell over her.

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, stating, "What care I for your goose feather bed?", and the gypsy's company to her lord's wealth and comfortable life.

At the end of some versions, the husband kills the gypsies. In the local Cassilis tradition, they are hanged on theCassilis Dule Tree.

The earliest text may be "The Gypsy Loddy", published in theRoxburghe Ballads with an assigned date of 1720. The first two verses of this version are as follows:

There was seven gypsies all in a gang,
They were brisk and bonny, O;
They rode till they came to the Earl of Casstle's house,
And there they sang most sweetly, O.

The Earl of Castle's lady came down,
With the waiting-maid beside her;
As soon as her fair face they saw,
They called their grandmother over.

In the final two lines shown above,they called their grandmother over is assumed to be a corruption ofThey 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.^[2]

A more certain date than that of "The Gypsy Loddy", c.1720 of a version from 1740 inAllan Ramsay'sTea-Table Miscellany, which included the ballad as of "The GypsyJohnny Faa". Many printed versions after this appear to copy Ramsay, including nineteenth centurybroadside versions.^[3]Nick Tosches, in hisCountry: The Twisted Roots of Rock 'N' Roll, spends part of his first chapter examining the song's history. Theballad, according to Tosches, retells the story ofJohn Faa, a Scottish 17th-centuryGypsy outlaw, and Lady Jane Hamilton, wife of TheEarl of Cassilis (identified in local tradition as theJohn Kennedy 6th 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. Tosches also compares the song's narrative to the ancientGreek myth ofOrpheus andEurydice.^[4]

Differences between "The Gypsy Loddy" (c.1720) and "The Gypsy Johnny Faa" (1740) suggest that they derive from one or more earlier versions, so the song is most likely at least as old as the seventeenth century.B. H. Bronson^[5] discovered that a tune in theSkene manuscripts and dated earlier than 1600, resembles later tunes for this song and is entitled "Lady Cassiles Lilt".^[6] The inference is that a song concerning Lord and Lady Cassilis existed before the two earliest manuscripts, and was the source of both.

Robert Burns used the song in hisReliques of Robert Burns; consisting chiefly of original letters, poems, and critical observations on Scottish songs (1808). Due to theRomanichal origins of the main protagonist Davie or Johnny Faa, the ballad was translated intoAnglo-Romany in 1890 by theGypsy Lore Society.^[7][8]

Hundreds of versions of the song survived in the oral tradition well into the twentieth century and were recorded by folklorists from traditional singers.

The song was popular inEngland, where recordings were made of figures includingHarry Cox,^[9]Walter Pardon^[10] andFrank Hinchliffe^[11] singing the song in the 1960s and 70s. In 1908, the composer and song collectorPercy Grainger usedphonograph technology to record a man named Archer Lane ofWinchcombe,Gloucestershire singing a version of the song; the recording is available in two parts on theBritish Library Sound Archive website.^[12][13]

ManyIrish traditional singers have performed versions learnt in the oral tradition, includingPaddy Tunney,^[14]John Reilly^[15] andRobert Cinnamond;^[16] Paddy Tunney's recording is available on the Irish Traditional Music Archive.^[17]

Some traditional recordings were made inScotland, including by the Scottish travellerJeannie Robertson^[18] and her daughterLizzie Higgins, whose version can be heard online via theVaughan Williams Memorial Library.^[19]

The song has been recorded many times in theUnited States, mostly under the title of "Gypsy Davy" or "Black Jack Davy", by people whose ancestors brought the songs from Britain and Ireland. American performers include theAppalachian musiciansJean Ritchie,^[20]Buell Kazee,^[21]Bascom Lamar Lunsford,^[22]Dillard Chandler^[23] andTexas Gladden;^[24]James Madison Carpenter recorded a woman singing a version inBoone,North Carolina in the early 1930s, which can be heard on theVaughan Williams Memorial Library website.^[25] Many traditionalOzark singers includingAlmeda Riddle^[26] andOllie Gilbert^[27] whose recording can be heard via the Max Hunter collection.^[28]

The following four verses are the beginning of the Ritchie family version of "Gypsy Laddie", as sung byJean Ritchie:

An English lord came home one night
Inquiring for his Lady.
The servants said on every hand,
She’s gone with the Gypsy Laddie.

Go saddle up my milk white steed,
Go saddle me up my brownie,
And I will ride both night and day
Till I overtake my bonnie.

Oh, he rode East and he rode West,
And at last he found her.
She was lying on the green, green grass
And the gypsy’s arms all around her.

Oh, how can you leave your house and land?
How can you leave your money?
How can you leave your rich, young Lord
To be a gypsy’s bonnie?

At the start of the twentieth century, one version, collected and set to piano accompaniment byCecil Sharp, reached a much wider public. Under the title "The Wraggle Taggle Gypsies O!", it was published in several collections, most notably one entitledEnglish Folk Songs for Schools,^[29] leading the song to be taught to generations of English school children. It was later occasionally used by jazz musicians, for example theinstrumental "Raggle Taggle" by theTerritory band Boots and His Buddies, and the vocal recording byMaxine Sullivan.

In America, thecountry music recording industry spread versions of the song by such notable musicians asCliff Carlisle and theCarter Family, and later by therockabilly singerWarren Smith, under the title "Black Jack David". In theAmerican folk music revival,Woody Guthrie sang and copyrighted a version he called "Gypsy Davy" (which was later also sung by his sonArlo).

This sectiondoes notcite anysources. Please helpimprove this section byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved.(December 2023) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

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:

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.

TheBob Dylan song "Tin Angel" from 2012's albumTempest is derived from "The Raggle Taggle Gypsy".

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 byElizabeth 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 toThe Faber Book of Ballads the nameFaa was common among Gypsies in the 17th century.

Bella Hardy's song "Good Man's Wife" is in the voice of Lord Cassillis' wife. The theme of the song is how she fell in love with the gypsy as her marriage turned cold, and the song ends with the familiar exchange of featherbed and wealth for sleeping in a field with her love; the husband's pursuit does not occur.

• Bodleian, Harding B 11(1446), "Gypsy Laddie", W. Stephenson (Gateshead), 1821–1838; also Harding B 11(2903), "Gypsy Loddy"; Harding B 19(45), "The Dark-Eyed Gipsy O"; Harding B 25(731), "Gipsy Loddy"; Firth b.25(220), "The Gipsy Laddy"; Harding B 11(1317), "The Gipsy Laddie, O"; Firth b.26(198), Harding B 15(116b), 2806 c.14(140), "The Gipsy Laddie"; Firth b.25(56), "Gypsie Laddie"
• Murray, Mu23-y3:030, "The Gypsy Laddie", unknown, 19C
• NLScotland, L.C.Fol.178.A.2(092), "The Gipsy Laddie", unknown, c. 1875

• "The Wraggle Taggle Gipsies-O" melody and lyrics
• Origins: "The Raggle-Taggle Gypsy"Archived 3 March 2006 at theWayback Machine at TheMudcat Café
• Covers at SecondHandSongs
• Covers atWhoSampled
• Child Ballad #200 Entry at Contemplator.com
• The Gypsy Laddie / Seven Yellow Gipsies / Raggle Taggle Gipsies at mainlynorfolk.info

• 18th-century songs
• Bob Dylan songs
• Jean Ritchie songs
• Border ballads
• Child Ballads
• Northumbrian folklore
• Scottish folklore
• Romani in Scotland
• Works about Scottish Travellers

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from September 2016
• Articles with hAudio microformats
• Articles needing additional references from December 2023
• All articles needing additional references
• Webarchive template wayback links