Jolly Beggarman

The Jolly Beggarman is one of those titles that in fact covers several distinct tunes — and a very ancient narrative tradition. The Scottish ballad The Jolly Beggar (Child 279) is documented as early as 1769 in Herd's collection Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, though it is likely older still. Legend has it that the beggar in the story is none other than James V of Scotland, who was fond of disguising himself as a wanderer to move among his people, under the nickname "Gudeman of Ballengeith".

On the Irish side, Jolly Beggarman is also a well-documented alternative title for The Red-Haired Boy, an Irish hornpipe known under a dozen different names — Little Beggarman, An Giolla Ruadh, The First of May — and present in sources as early as 1903.

The melody has thus been circulating for centuries between Scotland and Ireland, sometimes as a narrative song, sometimes as a dance tune. Its lively character and its picaresque story — the crafty beggar who charms the farmer's daughter before revealing his true station — have made it a fixture of sessions and ceilidhs on both sides of the Irish Sea.