The Bonnie Black Eagle
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
"The Bonnie Black Eagle", also known as "The Black Eagle" or "The High Way to Edinburgh" is a<br> Scottish air in 4/4 time and B Minor (McGibbon) or G Minor (Manson). The parts are<br> played AB (Manson) or AABB (McGibbon).<br> The tune bears a general resemblance throughout to "Turkey in the Straw". Bayard's notes to<br> "Turkey in the Straw" state that the resemblance is strongest in the B parts of the two tunes.<br> Unlike "Turkey in the Straw" which remains in major mode throughout, both parts end on the<br> relative minor tonic.<br> As "The Black Eagle" it appears in Oswald's Collection of Curious Scots Tunes (1742), after a<br> song by Dr. James Fordyce, the tune attributed to David Rizzio (doomed Queen Mary's equally<br> doomed secretary). John Glen (Early Scottish Melodies, 1900) gives the tune as "Woman's Work<br> Will Never be Done", in an example of two different tunes with the same title, one English and<br> one Scottish, saying the Scottish one is also called "Bonny Black Eagle" or "The Black Eagle".<br> The Scottish "Woman's Work" tune appears in the Blaikie Manuscript of 1692. James Oswald printed<br> the tune again in his Caledonian Pocket Companion (1757) under the title "High Way to Edinburgh"<br> attaching a jig to a slow air.<br> The version shown here is adapted from McGibbon.<br> It was printed in Manson's Hamilton's Universal Tune Book, vol. 2 (1853),<br> McGibbon's Scots Tunes, Book III (1762) and<br> Oswald's Caledonian Pocket Companion, Book V (1760).<br> I have not found any recordings of thus tune.<br>
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